It’s Time to Re-legalize Cannabis
It’s time to stop the war on drugs. It’s time to stop the war on people of color. It’s time to re-legalize cannabis. Yes, prior to 1937, physicians prescribed medications containing cannabis. Cough syrups with cannabis could be purchased across the counter at the local drugstore. Putting cannabis in the same category as heroin, LSD and cocaine, is unacceptable. Schedule I means the drug has no medicinal benefit and is at high risk for abuse. Cannabis is not a gateway drug. It’s an exit drug. States with legalized medical cannabis have seen a 25% drop in opioid deaths. The 1970 Controlled Substances Act is but another one of our government’s attempts at controlling people of color. The United States is only 5% of the global population but it incarcerates 25%, more than any country in the world. America has a long history of racist drug laws, from the opium laws in 1875 created to control Chinese men to the Marijuana Tax created in 1937 to control Latinos and African-Americans. It’s time to re-legalize cannabis because the war on drugs has not worked, it disenfranchises people of color, it feeds the prison industrial complex, it militarizes the police and prevents access to affordable, effective medicine.
The war on drugs has not worked. People still use cannabis just like they continued to use alcohol when it was prohibited in 1920. It’s human nature to want to feel good, to feel better. Some choose caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, shopping, gambling, sex, etc. How about we stop trying to tell grown folks what to do with their bodies? No one‘s ever died from cannabis but hundreds of thousands die from tobacco and alcohol every year. By the way, the two greatest spikes in violence in American history were during the prohibition of alcohol and the renewed war on drugs in 1970. The war on drugs increases violence because it drives this activity underground where it flourishes in gangs and cartels. Criminals have to become more vicious just to maintain market share. A significant number of immigrants south of our border are trying to escape this violence that we started by exporting our war on drugs to the rest of the world a hundred years ago.
The prohibition of cannabis disenfranchises people of color. Although they use cannabis at the same rate as whites, they are racially profiled and incarcerated at four times the rate of whites. In the book, “Chasing the Scream“, police officers admitted that they target neighborhoods of color more because they are “low hanging fruit”. These are cops who do not consider themselves to be racist.They state that in neighborhoods of color and the poor, they are unlikely to have lawyers and judges in their family. If they were to patrol and arrest whites like they do people of color, there would be immediate outrage. An arrest for cannabis possession results in losing the right to vote, apply for student aid, use public housing and ironically, to apply for that dispensary license in states where cannabis is now legal.
The prison industrial complex feeds off of cannabis prohibition. More and more prisons for profit are being built. Multinational corporations are using prison labor for pennies. Unlike, federally run prisons, privately run ones have one goal: to make a profit. There is not the same level of transparency, therefore, they can skimp on food, healthcare and supervision to improve their bottom line. We, taxpayers, are funding these prisons.
Police departments are becoming militarized by cashing in on cannabis prohibition. It helps them to purchase their weapons of war and pay overtime for underpaid cops. Police departments are allowed to keep a percentage of the cash and property seized in drug busts even before the individual has been found guilty or innocent. This is more incentive to go after “low hanging fruit”.
Last and most importantly, cannabis prohibition keeps a plant historically used as medicine for 10,000 years, out of the reach of the people. By keeping cannabis illegal on the federal level, people are not able to grow their own to treat everything from opioid addiction, pain, autoimmune disease, seizures, Alzheimer’s to cancer. It keeps the black market going which has no safety standards or testing.
Re-legalizing cannabis would remove another reason for racial profiling. We could work on beginning to heal the relationship between people of color and the police. We can stop this attack on families and improve their socioeconomic status by allowing them access to education versus paying for their incarceration. Legalizing cannabis would create jobs, help build infrastructure, improve our schools and pay our teachers a living wage. We can turn around the opioid crisis and save billions in Medicaid and Medicare costs. I challenge you to vote for candidates that support the re-legalization of cannabis. Voting for a cannabis friendly candidate will have a positive wide ranging effect on civil rights, our criminal justice system, jobs, infrastructure, schools and our very health.
