De-prioritizing Drug Offenses Will Save Lives
Black people and people of color are disproportionally targeted in drug searches all throughout the United States. The government, both state and federal, has implemented programs that essentially legally racially profile these groups, leading to a higher arrest rate among these communities. Through legalization and decriminalization of adult-use marijuana, law enforcement officers should direct their resources away from petty drug use and redirect them to crimes that actually require their attention, such as murders, assaults, robberies, and fraud/embezzling money. The Minority Cannabis Business Association (“MCBA”) proposes that drug offenses be de-prioritized, which would likely reduce the number of stops under Operation Pipeline and Stop & Frisk programs throughout the country. Additionally, the MCBA proposes expunging criminal records for drug offenses, which would facilitate re-assimilation into society with reduced prejudice for those charged with these petty crimes.
In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes about such government-sponsored programs. Operation Pipeline, implemented during the Reagan administration, seeks to train state and local enforcement officers to turn regular traffic stops into drug searches. The program teaches officers how to drag out traffic stops in order to turn them into drug searches, how to bring drug-sniffing dogs onto the scene and use them to “obtain probable cause”, and how to get consent from a driver who might have nothing to hide, but might be nervous about police presence nonetheless. Studies have shown that 99% of these stops do not result in the police issuing tickets or arresting drivers, and that 98% of the searches have no legal basis; only the consent of the driver. Oftentimes the officers do not have probable cause to search, but they likely intimidate and threaten the drivers into giving them consent to search their vehicles anyway.
Alexander quotes legal scholar David Cole, who says that the Operation Pipeline teaches a “hodgepodge of traits and characteristics so expansive that it potentially justifies stopping … everybody.” However, not everybody is stopped. These characteristics are purposefully broad so that officers are legally allowed to discriminate based on essentially anything, including: acting too calm OR too nervous, driving a nice car OR a run-down car, driving too fast OR too slowly, carrying luggage OR not carrying luggage, and even having a “diverse” group of people in the car. Although white people certainly fall within all of these categories, it is black people and POC who are disproportionally stopped, interrogated, and harassed on the off chance an officer will find drugs in their vehicle.
Operation Pipeline is not the only program the government enacted that targets minorities. In the 1990’s, then-mayor Michael Bloomberg enacted Stop & Frisk, in which NYPD officers would temporarily stop, detain, question, and search people on the street simply on the basis of looking suspicious. This practice unsurprisingly targeted minorities over white people. Studies concluded that in 2002, out of almost 100,000 stops, only 18% resulted in a fine or conviction. Six years later, there were 500,000 stops but only 12% resulted in fines or convictions, and in 2011, the percentage remained the same while the stops increased to almost 700,000. The vast majority of the victims of these stops were minorities; the MCBA’s Model Municipal Social Equity Ordinances states that people of color are almost 4 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than their white counterparts. By de-prioritizing petty drug offenses and expunging records, black people and people of color would escape prison time and be able to participate in society like their white, drug-using counterparts.
In Ordinance №9 of its Model Municipal Social Equity Ordinances, the MCBA proposes “Making Cannabis Offenses the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority.” If all jurisdictions enact this Ordinance, then law enforcement agencies would begin to redirect their efforts towards crimes that really matter, rather than targeting minorities who use marijuana at the same rate that white people do, but who generally evade any convictions or consequences. Though Operation Pipeline and Stop & Frisk are related to questioning and searching, the MCBA wants to decrease the number of convictions that black and POC receive related to drug use. Ordinance №9 states that black men receive drug sentences that are 13.1% longer than the sentences that white men receive, while Latinos are 6.5 times more likely to receive convictions that result in a federal sentence. Additionally, cannabis use is cited as the most common cause of deportation for drug law violations, while generally, white people are rarely punished for similar rates of use. The Model Ordinances also propose expunging records (№8), which would help those convicted to reassimilate back into society with clean records from drug use and prevent any such deportations.
The government has perpetuated racist practices that target minorities for the same offenses that white people commit. In order to begin making amends with these groups, the government should adopt the ordinances that the MCBA proposed; notably №8: “Resentencing and Record Expungement for Cannabis Offenses” and №9: “Making Cannabis Offenses the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority.” By reducing the unnecessary (and racist) policing of minorities, law enforcement agencies will be able to stop wasting their resources on the same crimes for which they rarely prosecute white people.
