This started a while ago as a orange post. I am a bit surprised to learn that there are many people who think that there is no one in jail for pot. There is almost no one who is white who is in jail for pot. And if they are in jail they are poor.
The war on drugs is one part race war and one part criminlization of poverty. Let us remove criminal snactions for pot – regulate it like alcohol.
The war on drugs has been the basis for destruction of civil liberties before the (equally endless) war on terror. Police get to keep assets. The milary is used against civilians. Police units are equiped as SWAT teams and raid homes.
The war on drugs is, by the numbers, a race war. The war on drugs destroys black families. Some background follows.
Black people go to prison for possession. Black parents go to prison for possession and lose their children.
The War on Drugs has many casualties.
Beaten by the System and Down for the Count: U.S. Drug Sentencing Policy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=917410
This is about black women going to prison for minor drug offenses and losing their children.
Racial, Ethnic and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the US Federal Courts
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=259138
“although black-white disparities occur across offenses, the largest differences are for drug trafficking.”
And From NORML:
“Marijuana possession arrests have increased dramatically over the past decade and now cost taxpayers an estimated $4 billion annually, according to a study published in the February issue of the Harm Reduction Journal. ….Researchers at the Sentencing Project in Washington, DC ….
Among those annually arrested on marijuana charges, only one in 18 receive a felony conviction”
1 in 18 got a felony charge for pot. Guess what color those people are?