Rep Ilhan Omar; Cannabis criminalization disproportionately impacts communities of color.
We desperately need to decriminalize pot.
Where the war on weed still rages
In some U.S. counties, more than 40 percent of all arrests are for marijuana possession
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/04/15/where-war-weed-still-rages/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.33ecc235276c
By Christopher Ingraham
April 15
Marijuana possession led to nearly 6 percent of all arrests in the United States in 2017, FBI data shows, underscoring the level of policing dedicated to containing behavior that’s legal in 10 states and the nation’s capital.
But the figure obscures the considerable variations in enforcement practices at the state and local levels. In many areas of the country in 2016, more than 20 percent of all arrests stemmed from pot possession, according to newly released county-level arrest figures from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. The figure exceeds 40 percent in a handful of counties, topping out at nearly 55 percent in one Georgia county.
The data tracks arrests, not individuals, so there’s no mechanism for winnowing out repeat offenders. Nor does it include arrests for the sale or production of marijuana. But the numbers still illustrate how marijuana enforcement continues to make up a big part of many police agencies’ caseloads.
The findings reflect, in part, a few simple realities: The federal government incentivizes aggressive drug enforcement via funding for drug task forces and generous forfeiture rules that allow agencies to keep cash and other valuables they find in the course of a drug bust. And because marijuana is bulky and pungent relative to other drugs, it’s often easy for police to root out.
But given that recreational marijuana is legal throughout the West, and that two-thirds of the public supports legalization, critics view such aggressive enforcement tactics as wasteful, ineffective and even racially biased.
“While drug war proponents often say they’re going after kingpins, the reality is that the police nearly always goes after the lowest-hanging fruit: people who use drugs — especially marijuana, which is easy to find — or bit players in the drug trade,” said Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports marijuana legalization.......................
Link to tweet
Waleed Sonbol
? @WillySonbol
2h2 hours ago
Replying to @IlhanMN
Oh my God!! LGBTQ rights and legalizing marijuna?? What kind of sharia law is this?? Again, all joking aside, well done Rep. Omar with taking a stand that affects so many.
0 replies 2 retweets 42 likes
New conversation
travis
? @TRAV15TY_
3h3 hours ago
Replying to @IlhanMN
Could you be more awesome?
2 replies 0 retweets 43 likes
Shilo J. Lee
? @lajohnnyred
3h3 hours ago
She is awful.
= new reply since forum marked as read
