ACLU calls for communities to legalize or decriminalize marijuana to eliminate racial bias in marijuana arrests.
Somehow, marijuana has ended up being a primary focus of law enforcement’s “war on drugs.” Roughly once every half a second, someone is arrested for a marijuana-related offense in America, a reality that the ACLU says is “needlessly ensnaring hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system at tremendous human and financial cost.”
Over half of all drug-related arrests in 2010 were for marijuana, and 88 percent of marijuana arrests from 2001 to 2010 were for simple possession. Despite marijuana possession being a relatively minor and nonviolent crime, individuals convicted on such drug charges still face significant legal penalties and civil repercussions that could affect the rest of their lives. For example, they might be kicked out of public housing, lose their student financial aid, or even lose custody of their child. They could also face difficulties getting hired in the future with a drug conviction on their record.
To make matters worse, marijuana arrests show disturbing racial bias. According to the ACLU, marijuana arrests are 3.7 times more likely to involve a black suspect as a white suspect despite the fact that both races have similar usage statistics. In some counties, blacks were up to 30 times as likely to get arrested. These disparities were found to exist in every region of the country, regardless of a given community’s size, racial makeup, or economic status.
The ACLU supports the legalization of marijuana as one means of eliminating this racial bias and the problems it causes in communities. However, failing that, they consider the next best thing to be a policy similar to what we already have in California, namely the decriminalization of low-level marijuana possession. In California, individuals found with less than 1 ounce of marijuana are charged with an infraction and have to pay a fine but do not get any black marks on their criminal record.
If you have been arrested for any sort of marijuana crime, even an infraction, you need to get help from an experienced drug defense attorney. Your attorney has many tactics at his disposal that can be used to secure a more favorable outcome than you would receive if you just pled guilty or used the public defender. In many cases, an attorney can get you into one of California’s drug diversion programs which may allow your nonviolent marijuana offense to be wiped from your permanent record upon completion of a substance abuse program.
