My latest post is up at the Huffington Post.
A clip:
While marijuana use is evenly split across races, enforcement is heavily skewed along racial lines in Illinois, according to the state-sponsored Illinois Disproportionate Justice Impact Study. AnotherChicago Reader article affirmed those findings in Chicago:
The ratio of black to white arrests for marijuana possession in Chicago is 15 to 1, according to a Readeranalysis of police and court data. And by the time the cases make their way through the court system, the gap widens even further: the ratio among those who plead or are found guilty is 40 to 1.
These arrests and guilty pleas devastate defendants’ future job prospects and arguably increase the likelihood that they will engage in criminal activities to support themselves.
Advocates of the marijuana ordinance recognize this disparity and urge policies guided by evidence rather than discretion. They also argue that marijuana users are not a major threat to our communities and decriminalization does not encourage use. In short, marijuana possession does not warrant our current costly enforcement strategies and severe penalties.
