From criminalized to capitalized: An examination of cannabis in light of 4/20
From criminalized to capitalized: An examination of cannabis in light of 4/20
Ramona Tellez / Contributor / The USD Vista
Weed, kush, pot, marijuana — regardless of the title, it is likely students have some familiarity with cannabis. According to a study by Narconon International, over 50% of adults in the U.S. have smoked it in their life, and this number is likely to increase as legalization continues. Where this herb is permitted recreationally, shops can be found that resemble candy stores. Various strains of the drug — with names such as Birthday Cake or Bubbha Kush — are sold by the gram, ounce, or in any number of edible concoctions. And understandably, a lucrative market has grown from this product; legalized weed is estimated to be a $50 billion industry by the Drug Policy Alliance. Yet, this mindset surrounding cannabis has not always been the case. For decades, the selling of marijuana took place in dark alleyways and street corners. Growing, distribution, and possession of this drug were highly criminalized, with specific communities disproportionately targeted. While many celebrated April 20th as the unofficial ‘weed holiday,’ many also grieved; for family members remaining in prison for marijuana possession, for inner-city neighborhoods rapidly gentrified, and for the marginalized peoples who have suffered from the exploitation of cannabis.
Cannabis was first introduced to the U.S. in 1910 through an influx of refugees during the Mexican Revolution. While essentially banned by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, cannabis continued to gain popularity and by the 1960s was a prominent aspect of American culture. However, the 1970s proved a drastic change. Early into this decade, President Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs, greatly intensifying criminalization under his leadership that fed into the Reagan administration. In the words of Nixon, illicit drugs were “public enemy number one.” In some cities, marijuana incarceration jumped as much as 882%, as reported by the Drug Policy Alliance. Federal drug control forces increased in size and no-knock warrants were promoted. Today, it was found by the Prison Policy Initiative that over 450,000 people remain incarcerated for non-violent drug charges.
The War on Drugs was made out to be a racially unbiased crackdown, with the high incarceration of Black people an unfortunate byproduct of higher drug use in the Black community. However, it has been exposed in recent years that marijuana usage among racial demographics was proportional, but criminalization was deliberately not. John Ehrlichman, who served as Nixon’s Domestic Policy Chief, released the following statement in 1994:
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate [hippies and Blacks] with marijuana … and then criminalizing it heavily, we could disrupt those communities … Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
While these politicians presented an apparent view of neutrality, this insight exposes the truth: the War on Drugs was a manifestation of racist ideology.
Ironically, this period of intense criminalization was followed by a push for drug reform and the eventual legalization of cannabis. Regardless of the War on Drugs, many Americans still used marijuana both medically and recreationally. Often, this was done by white people who were less likely to be targets of arrests. As a result of continued practice and increased research by pharmaceutical industries, the state of California passed Proposition 215 and became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. Since this historic date, 35 other states, Washington D.C., and the U.S. territories have enacted similar laws or propositions. This opened a door for a social movement that called for the legalization of recreational marijuana. Protestors took to the streets, calling out the racial bias of drug arrests and advocating for a reallocation of police funding away from marijuana crackdowns and into community programs. In response, Washington and Colorado became the first two states to legalize the use of recreational marijuana among adults in Nov. 2012. As of today, 14 additional states have legalized recreational use, including California.
While a win for the Black community in terms of criminalization, there were unforeseen consequences to this legalization as well, one of which is gentrification. In some neighborhoods, the presence of high-end pot shops drastically changed socioeconomic demographics. Rent prices shot up, and displacement of families and individuals was common. Additionally, this demographic was denied the opportunity to profit off legalized marijuana. Though Black people have long practiced cultivation of the crop, a survey by Marijuana Business Daily found that 81% of cannabis executives are white while only 4% are Black. While many systematic factors play into this statistic, a large contributor is the fact that those with drug-related offenses are not permitted to be employed at dispensaries.
Regardless of one’s personal attitude towards the drug, it must be recognized that cannabis is present in our society. Therefore, in order to promote a culture of justice, equitable cannabis practices must also be promoted; reparations must be made to targeted communities through the support of minority-owned dispensaries, and those in prison for non-violent drug offenses must be released with their crimes expunged. America is a nation riddled with inequalities — the criminalization and capitalization of cannabis does not have to be one of them.