AlterNet: Medical Marijuana Apartheid: Different Rules Apply for Rich and Poor Pot Smokers

[marmar]

Medical Marijuana Apartheid: Different Rules Apply for Rich and Poor Pot Smokers

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 6, 2009.

A California hipster can hit the vaporizer without fear of harassment, but a lower-class person smoking a blunt may not be so lucky.




About 80 percent of Americans approve of medical marijuana laws, but some conservatives are incensed that state legislatures keep passing them. In a recent column, George F. Will, the Washington Post's bow-tied curmudgeon, decried the reefer madness he sees taking over California, sweeping across Colorado and perhaps even coming to a normal state near you.

The pundit seemed especially incensed that states like Colorado and California had effectively legalized the drug through a "back-door" process, writing that medical dispensaries "serve the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine." He lamented that "fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization," and concluded: "They essentially have this."

But Will is only half right. Pot in California is only legal for those of a certain class, or those who live in certain areas. It is effectively illegal in most communities of color. It's not legal for pot smokers in many conservative counties and municipalities. And it's effectively out of reach for California's poor.

It's not hard to imagine George F. Will overlooking the poor and disenfranchised from his lofty perch at the Washington Post, but they're right there, basking in the California sunshine. And every day they get busted for marijuana, and every day they enter the criminal justice system as a result. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/144530/medical_marijuana_apartheid%3A_different_rules_apply_for_rich_and_poor_pot_smokers

[Bluenorthwest]

1. A few nits to pick with a really good article

The largest being the notion that this double standard was created by Medical Marijuana laws, which is just delusional, as there has always been a huge double standard about marijuana because law enforcement agencies practice a double standard.
New York State has no medical marijuana laws of any kind, and yet, here are the stats on arrests, 1997-2008: Black people at 26% of the NYC population were victims of 56% of the arrests, 230,000 people arrested. Latinos, 27% of pop, 33% of arrests, 141,000 arrests. White people: 35% of the population, 12% of pot arrests, 50,500 arrests. NYC arrests many for smoking in public view, and they often claim whites do less of this, but that is not true according to the actual smokers, whites are more likely to smoke in public by a huge margin.
It is possible in NYC to look at stats for 'stop and frisk' which will show about the same, well actually worse, evidence of selective enforcement.
So to claim this disparity was 'created' by medical marijuana laws is absurd. It just is. Far worse arrest disparities exist in States with no medical marijuana laws. And those disparities have existed long before any medical laws were even considered. One could say that marijuana laws were created to oppress minorities, as the roots of prohibition are replete with stories of Mexicans and black people using the evil weed and becoming uncontrollable. The first anti marijuana laws were virtual anti Mexican laws in fact. So gee. Generations of racist legal policy gets a pass, while activists taking great risk opening clinics to serve patients get the blame.
I agree with most of what he says, but his conclusions and his context are lacking greatly.

[BakedAtAMileHigh]

2. drug laws have always been about race and class

The very first drug "czar", Harry Anslinger, blamed marijuana for making white women want to sleep with Mexicans and Black jazz musicians; Nixon thought the marijuana legalization movement was a Jewish conspiracy; even now liars from the DEA claim the medical marijuana movement is in bed with Mexican Drug gangs although they are able to produce absolutely zero evidence and all the dispensaries grow their own medicine. It's lies, all lies, and it always has been.