Two brutal realities about the drug war long have been recognized by many.
One is that the drug war is a war on mostly poor, inner city blacks. They are the ones most often arrested, fined and jailed for long stretches. The other: Billions spent by state and federal law enforcement to wage the war should be spent on programs that repair and build these same targeted inner city communities and provide hope and opportunity.
The drive to legalize marijuana is a huge first effort. The same gaping racial disparities are evident in the arrests, fines and imprisonment for marijuana possession and use.
It must be about more than just legalization.
It must also be about redirecting the massive resources squandered on enforcement into initiatives that stress massive investment in black and brown communities.
Put bluntly, it is not enough to legalize marijuana without a commitment to totally redirect the money spent on enforcement into investment to repair the decades of damage done by the war on drugs.
The Institute of the Black World has taken the point on this issue with its Drug Policy Reform Initiative. Its “The Adult Use of Marijuana Act” outlines a broad series of initiatives and proposals to “invest and repair” in communities of color torn asunder by the drug war. It backs completely the legalization effort precisely because it’s a matter first and foremost of racial and social and economic fairness and justice and it’s a weapon to put a dent in the mass incarceration of poor Blacks and Browns victimized by the drug war.
But the Institute has gone much further. It lobbies state and local governments to plough the multi-billions spent annually on drug enforcement back into community reinvestment.
This means new state and federal initiatives, programs and a major ramp-up in funding for job, skills training, counseling, and job creation programs, health care and family support services, affordable and accessible housing, expanded child care facilities, and minority business support and development.
A Reasonable Take
The Institute recognizes that some blacks are deeply concerned about what they perceive as the harmful effects of drugs and are hesitant about legalization. This is understandable.
However, the undeniable fact is that the drug war has not only been vicious and unrelenting in its targeting almost exclusively of blacks and browns.
Marijuana enforcement in California is a near textbook example. Blacks are 12 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana in the state than whites. This wildly discriminatory enforcement has torn apart families and heightened unemployment by criminalizing tens of thousands of young blacks.
It has decimated education opportunities for drug offenders during and after their release from incarceration, and has resulted in the voter disenfranchisement of thousands of drug offenders.
The greatest fallout from the nation’s failed drug war is that it has further embedded the widespread notion that the drug problem is exclusively a black problem. This makes it easy for on-the-make politicians to grab votes, garner press attention, and balloon state prison budgets to jail more black offenders, while continuing to feed the illusion that the nation is winning the drug war.
The problem with this, of course, that it has created a wall of resistance among far too many policy makers and some segments of the public to re-shift the billions spent on drug enforcement into new and greater investment initiatives in poor and underserved communities of color.
Washington and Colorado have now legalized marijuana use. Voters in California will decide on legalization in November. The Institute fully supports the legalization initiative in California, but it will push even harder for the vast sums spent on enforcement here and in other states to be invested in rebuilding communities of color, and that entails the participation by stakeholders in those communities in spotlighting and monitoring programs where and how the funds should be spent.
The Institute’s message at the heart of its Drug Policy Reform Initiative is clear. Legalization and regulation without investment to repair the damage of the war on drugs in communities of color is not enough. The Institute will battle hard to turn that message into firm policy change on the drug war.
Dr. Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a consultant with the Institute of the Black World and an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio-one. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK-Pacifica Radio.
