National Black Police Assn. supports California's marijuana legalization initiative

[sabrina 1]

National Black Police Assn. supports California's marijuana legalization initiative

August 19, 2010 | 2:09 pm
Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative, picked up the support Thursday of a national organization that represents African American police officers, as the campaign for legalization continues to try to build support in the black community and among law enforcement officials.

The National Black Police Assn., which has about 15,000 members, is the second African American organization to back the measure. The California NAACP has also endorsed it, citing the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of African Americans caught with marijuana.

Ron Hampton, the police association’s executive director, said he decided the group should get behind the measure because it would eliminate laws that have a negative impact on the black community.

“It means that we will be locking up less African American men and women and children who are using drugs,” said Hampton, a retired Washington, D.C., police officer with 25 years experience. “We’ve got more people in prison. We’ve got more young people in prison. Blacks go to jail more than whites for doing the same thing.”

Hampton says the money for the 'War on Drugs' would be better spent on education and creating jobs, housing for example.

Another retired police officer said he as seen with his own eyes the devastation these 'misguided marijuana laws' have had on communities.

The NAACP has also come out in support of Prop 19 after seeing the statistics which showed that African Americans represent 22% of marijuana arrests but are less than 7% of the population.

Finally it's beginning to look like little by little the abhorrent and failed War on Drugs may be in the beginning stages of coming to an end.

[Supply Side Jesus]

1. Here here...

I completely agree...

[tourivers83]

2. This is win win.

So do I. Civilian swat teams could quit killing family pets, we could save money on prisons, the taxation of it could be used to support schools. And we could quit making criminals out of honest people as well as taking a lot of money and violence out of the drug business. :smoke:

[Gravel Democrat]

3. Surely they mean well but they need to read the proposition more carefully

or something

“It means that we will be locking up less African American men and women and children who are using drugs,” said Hampton, a retired Washington, D.C., police officer with 25 years experience...”

"...Contrary to popular assumption, the drug war in California will not end, nor will it be impacted much by the initiative. This is because the initiative doesn’t call for full legalization; it proposes to legalize possession of only up to one ounce. And in California, there is no “drug war” being fought against possession of up to one ounce, because marijuana is already decriminalized.

...Statistically, the demographic that accounts for nearly one-quarter of total arrests for marijuana possession in California happens to be those in the 18-20 age group. But because the initiative explicitly makes it illegal for even adults age 18-20 to possess marijuana, these arrests will not decrease, and the drug war against young adults will rage on.


...As an example of how highly misunderstood this initiative and its potential impact on the drug war is, the California NAACP recently pledged their support for the initiative based on the belief that it will put an end to the disproportionately high number of African-American youth going to jail “over a joint.” <7> But in reality, the initiative will have no impact on this phenomenon whatsoever. As it is now, the State of California does not jail people for having a joint; it is not an arrestable offense. And, as mentioned above, possession of up to one ounce is on its way to being reclassified from a misdemeanor to an infraction—which carries no criminal-record stigma. The state does, however, incarcerate people for selling small amounts of marijuana. And since this initiative keeps private marijuana sales illegal, no matter the quantity, there will be no decrease in the number of African Americans—or anyone else—arrested for selling a joint.

...Contrary to the belief that it will keep people out of jail for marijuana, this initiative actually creates new demographics of people to incarcerate. (See Fact #2 and Fact #3) It is difficult to see how the government would save on court and imprisonment costs if the initiative merely shifts arrests from one demographic to another.

...Myth #2: The initiative will keep young adults out of jail for using marijuana.
Fact: This initiative would put more young people in jail for pot. If it becomes law, any adult 21 or over who passes a joint to another adult aged 18-20 would face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. <8> (NORML's Web site reports that the current penalty for a gift of marijuana of 1 oz. or less is a $100 fine.<9>)
**********excerpt******

above from http://votetaxcannabis2010.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-pro-pot-activists-oppose-2010-tax.html

written by:dragonfly

i am a long-time pro-marijuana activist and professional stoner. i travel the world, find the best ganja, smoke it, and write about it for pot magazines (cannabis culture magazine, west coast cannabis, and skunk). i am the global ganja correspondent for "cannabis planet," a tv news show focused on cannabis news around the world. follow my column, "getting high with dragonfly," in which every month i evaluate a different strain.

To sum up the worst of 19:

makes all private sales illegal
"legalizes" only one ounce
allows a 5x5 square foot plot PER PARCEL of land



http://stop19.com/ten-reasons-to-vote-no/

[druidity33]

7. huh...

I guess i can roughly equate it to the PO vs. Single Payer argument... but, who needs more than an ounce at a time? A 5x5 judiciously planted would have excellent yields (especially in CA)... though in co-housing and roommate situations, that would suck. Thought provoking link.


There is this article, which seems less well thought out, but refutes some of the points in your link:

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/147891?page=entire

I'm not sure how i would vote if i were living in CA. FDL has started the Just Say Now campaign... maybe we can get another state to take up the CCHHI ballot wording. (fingers crossed, Massachusetts)


:shrug:

[Turborama]

4. K&R Thanks for the update, Sabrina. Seems like common sense to anyone who has common sense.

Great pic, too!

:hi:

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, sabrina.

[Fly by night]

6. Thanks, Sabrina, for this OP (and for the beautiful picture of the Goddess)

K&R for science, common sense and compassion ...

... and for fewer brothers and sisters in the system.

[sabrina 1]

8. I was thinking about you when I saw it, Fly by Night

I was going to include a link to your latest OP, but didn't want to do so without asking you ...

But it was an absolutely beautifully written account of the crime committed by the government and I agree with all those who urged you to compile your diaries into a book.

And then I would love to see it turned into a documentary ~

[Fly by night]

9. Being the professional leftist/media whore that I am, I'd be tickled if you posted a link.

The response to that thread was most heartening. I hope it gets circulated as a reminder of just how far we still have to go to replace senseless social control with science, compassion and common sense.

[sabrina 1]

10. Lol, okay, next time I post something on this subject

I will include a link to your work.

What do you think of Gravel Democrat's post above (#3)? S/he seems to think that Prop 19 is not good at all?

I do agree with you however, that we have a long, long way to go before we return to some kind of sane system. All the money involved in the Law Enforcement/Prison business will be hard for them to give up not to mention how the government has used drug money in their secret wars etc.

But even these small changes are a beginning.

[sabrina 1]

11. Oh yes, I meant to say that the response to that thread

was very encouraging, but don't dismiss the fact that a lot of that, as many of the commenters said, was due to your very gifted writing skills.

Have you ever thought of running for office and making that your main issue? With all the harm the laws themselves have done?

I just read somewhere recently that we now have 1 in 100 Americans incarcerated at any given time. I don't know how accurate that is, but there was a time when most people would never know someone who had spent time in jail, now everyone knows someone. And we still dare to call this a free country.