New ACLU Report Features Original Data Analysis on Marijuana Arrest Rates by Race and Details High Costs of Enforcement
June 4, 2013. Charleston, SC. According to a new report by the ACLU, Blacks in South Carolina were arrested for marijuana possession at 2.8 times the rate of whites in 2010, despite comparable marijuana usage rates. The report,Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests, released today, is the first ever to examine state and county marijuana arrest rates nationally by race. The findings show that while there were pronounced racial disparities in marijuana arrests 10 years ago, they have grown significantly worse.
“The War on Marijuana has disproportionately been a war on people of color,” says Ezekiel Edwards, Director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU and one of the primary authors of the report. “State and local governments have aggressively enforced marijuana laws selectively against Black people and communities, needlessly ensnaring hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system at tremendous human and financial cost.”
In South Carolina, the counties with the largest racial disparity in marijuana possession arrests were Spartanburg, Anderson, Oconee, Newberry and Richland. Racial disparities were also prominent in Charleston and Horry counties. Statewide, marijuana possession rates accounted for 53.6% percent of all drug arrests in 2010. In the past 10 years, marijuana possession arrest rates have risen 29% and the racial disparities among such arrests have increased 57.4%.
Despite the fact that a majority of Americans now support marijuana legalization, South Carolina spent $49,540,640 enforcing marijuana laws in 2010. Nationally, states spent an estimated $3.61 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws in 2010 alone. New York and California combined spent over $1 billion.
“The aggressive policing of marijuana is time-consuming, costly, racially biased, and doesn’t work,” says Ezekiel Edwards, Director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU and one of the primary authors of the report. “These arrests have a significant detrimental impact on people’s lives, as well as on the communities in which they live. When people are arrested for possessing even tiny amounts of marijuana, they can be disqualified from public housing and student financial aid, lose or find it more difficult to obtain employment, lose custody of their child, and be deported. In addition, the targeted enforcement of marijuana possession laws against people of color creates a community of mistrust and reduced cooperation with the police, which damages public safety. Furthermore, despite being a priority for many police departments across the states for the past decade, the aggressive enforcement of marijuana laws has not even accomplished one of law enforcement’s purported goals: to eradicate or even diminish the use of marijuana.”
The ACLU calls for states to legalize marijuana by licensing and regulating marijuana production, distribution, and possession for persons 21 or older, taxing marijuana sales, and removing state law criminal and civil penalties for such activities, which it says would eliminate the unfair racially- and community-targeted enforcement of marijuana laws. In addition, at a time when states are facing budget shortfalls, taxing and regulating would allow them to save millions of dollars currently spent on enforcement while raising millions more in revenue, money that can be invested in public schools and community and public health programs, including drug treatment.
If legalization is not feasible, the ACLU recommends de-penalizing marijuana possession by removing all civil and criminal penalties for use and possession for persons 21 or older; or, if de-penalization is not possible, decriminalizinglow-level marijuana possession by replacing all criminal penalties for use and possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults and youth with a civil penalty of a small fine. Finally, if decriminalization is not attainable, the ACLU suggests police and prosecutors make enforcement of marijuana possession laws a low priority.
In the report, the organization also urges lawmakers and law enforcement to reform policing practices, including ending racial profiling as well as unconstitutional stops, frisks, and searches, and also to reform state and federal funding streams that reward officers who to make low-level drug arrests.
The complete report can be found at: http://www.aclu.org/billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-arrests
