Study reveals racial disparity in marijuana arrests

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a new report arguing that African-Americans are arrested much more frequently than other races for marijuana-related crimes.

“The War on Marijuana in Black and White” was 185 pages long and states that black Americans are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, according to MSNBC. However, white and black people consume marijuana at about the same rate.

The study further noted that the racial gap in arrests actually increased between 2001 and 2010 due to racial profiling and other discriminatory law enforcement practices, the researchers determined.

The ACLU makes an argument to stop arresting people for mere possession of the drug, demonstrating the amount of money it costs to enforce anti-marijuana laws.

The report states that over the next six years, according to the Huffington Post, states will spend $20 billion to enforce marijuana laws.

“State and local governments have aggressively enforced marijuana laws selectively against black people and communities, needlessly ensnaring hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system at tremendous human and financial cost,” stated Ezekiel Edwards, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project director, in a statement released with the report.

A state-level New York affiliate of the ACLU found in 2012 that New York police stopped and frisked 168,126 young male African-Americans between the ages of 14 and 24. Only 158,406 young black males in this age range lived in New York City at the time.

The NYPD in only one year stopped and frisked 106% of the black male population between ages 14 and 24, which means that a large amount of people were stopped multiple times, implying a significant amount of racial profiling.

Image: ACLU of Illinois Twitter

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