Cannabis and Racism
How Cannabis is Used in Systemic Discrimination
John Ehrlichman, one of Nixon’s co-conspirators in Watergate, opened up in 1994 about cannabis and racism in the US. He talked about Nixon’s plan to stay in power soon after he was first elected in 1968.
“You want to know what this was really all about?” Ehrlichman asked journalist Dan Baum. “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… but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
That statement alone doesn’t give the whole history of cannabis and racism in the US. But it is representative of it. For decades, cannabis was used to criminalize people who wouldn’t be criminalized otherwise. And those people in the US were the marginalized people: blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans.
Long History of Cannabis and Racism
This history can be traced back at least to the turn of the 20th century. When Mexican immigrants flooded the states after its revolution in 1910, they brought cannabis with them. US authorities seized on this, changing its name from cannabis to marijuana to associate it more closely to Hispanics, and demonized the drug to demonize the people. By the 1930s, the US government continued that association – again, to criminalize those who were not criminals. A similar thing happened in Canada in the early 20th century with opium.
Even when cannabis is decriminalized at a practical level, the systemic racism showed through. Oakland, California decided to make cannabis enforcement its lowest priority in 2004 – even lower than jaywalking. Even so, 77 per cent of cannabis arrests in 2015 involved blacks while just four per cent involved whites. Oakland’s population includes roughly 30 per cent blacks and 30 per cent whites.
Is Cannabis and Racism Changing in America?
Last May, before the George Floyd marches began to protest his death at the hands of police, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden outlined his “Plan for Black America”. In it, Biden proposes the decriminalization of cannabis. He even suggests expunging records for past use, which would be a huge step towards disentangling cannabis and racism.
“Today, too many people are incarcerated in the United States—and too many of them are African American,” the plan states. “To build safe and healthy communities, we need to rethink who we’re sending to prison, how we treat those in prison, and how we help them get the health care, education, jobs, and housing they need to successfully rejoin society after they serve their time. As President, Biden will strengthen America’s commitment to justice and reform our criminal justice system.”
However, the plan stops short of legalizing cannabis in the US, critics note. That’s what would really change things. As the Oakland experience showed, decriminalizing cannabis on the street level does not eliminate cannabis and racism if laws are still on the books. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), there were over eight million arrests for cannabis in the US between 2001 and 2010 – one arrest every 37 seconds. Yet blacks are arrested almost four times more. In case you’re wondering if this has anything to do with usage, it doesn’t. Cannabis use is roughly equal between blacks and whites in the US, the ACLU said.
The War on Drugs is a War on Race
What all this amounts to is this: the “war on drugs” is nothing more than a war on blacks and other marginalized people in our society. What makes cannabis and racism systemic though is the stigma. After more than a century of demonizing cannabis and associating it with marginalized populations, it’s ingrained in us. We all have our biases. That includes the police deciding on whether or not to make a cannabis arrest. (Stats show that the bias tends towards marginalized populations.) That includes the courts who convict those charged with cannabis offences. (Stats show that the bias tends towards marginalized populations – including the poor who cannot afford top lawyers.) That includes whether or not every one of us feels selective enforcement of cannabis laws is just.
Legalizing cannabis is a good first step. But what about those other laws? Like jaywalking, mentioned in the Oakland example? It would be interesting to know if there are the same racist discrepancies in convictions there as there are with cannabis and racism.
Canada’s Cannabis and Racism Problem
Canada is not exempt from the cannabis and racism problem. Stats are not as easily found as they are in the US. (Though at least one report found that Indigenous and black populations were over-represented in cannabis arrests.) But there are some telling signs that marginalized populations.
In particular, several First Nations believe they were left out of the equation in the Cannabis Act. This also led to confusion. From the start, the federal government left it to the provinces to oversee cannabis retail licences. However, many First Nations in Nova Scotia did not believe they needed provincial oversight. The same was true in Ontario.
Black Canadians are also still impacted by over-policing, lack of fair access to amnesty, and even lack of a voice in the cannabis conversation, according to another report.
Even when it comes to pardons, cannabis and racism seem to go hand in hand. Initially, it was up to individuals to apply for cannabis pardons. That costs at least $631, putting it out of reach of many. The application cost was waived last year. Still, stats show that only 118 cannabis pardons granted in Canada out of an estimated 10,000 who qualify. Additional costs and administrative burdens were suspected as issues.
Ownership is another area where cannabis and racism co-exist. In 2018, only three per cent of management in the top cannabis companies in Canada were non-white – and the vast majority of those were men.
Legalization a Step, Not an Answer to Cannabis and Racism
Legalization clearly isn’t the only answer to the cannabis and racism question. But it is a huge step. Anytime you remove a legal power to detain, arrest, and convict a person, the less likely that person will be detained, arrested, or convicted. However, the roots of racism go far deeper. It takes a culture of understanding to reverse the connection between cannabis and racism.
The Powers That Be know this already, which is why they connected cannabis and racism a century ago. Now it’s up to us to identify our own biases and stigmas, and look at those people more susceptible to marginalization and racism in new ways.
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