Marijuana legalization must bring justice, too
Plan to reinvest in vulnerable communities needed
One of the central tenets of 21stcentury criminal justice is that the war on drugs was a failure, and that it needed to end. And end it we did, starting with the repeal of the Rockefeller era drug laws in 2004, followed by further ameliorations of drug policy in the succeeding decade.
But, as with any war, the end of the drug war presented opportunities — to treat the addicted, to rebuild our communities, and to restore confidence in our system of justice. In this, we have been only partly successful.
True, treatment has replaced prison as the paradigm in the battle against drug abuse, and that is commendable. But with such commendations must be the acknowledgement that we have failed our most vulnerable communities: our inner city neighborhoods ravaged by decades of blight and economic despair. To them, we ended the war, but sidestepped the rubble.
We are not the first to fail. Ours is a history of winning the war, but losing the peace.
Starting with post-civil War Reconstruction, we have consistently failed to fulfill our promises to our most troubled populations, leaving them to fend for themselves in circumstances not of their making, and then blaming them for failing to rise above. For example, our failure to embrace Reconstruction as a post-war remedy at the end of the Civil War prevented our nation from fulfilling its promise of “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.” The vestiges of our current inequity can be traced to that missed opportunity. Today, we rightly deride this period of post-civil War “reconstruction” for what it was: a perpetuation of oppression under the guise of opportunity. Changing the name did not change the condition.
We are now thinking about ending another war — this time, the War on Pot. In this, we are not unique. Several states, as well as Canada, have legalized marijuana. But don’t credit our leaders for taking this stand. It takes little courage to join the chorus. Real courage comes in addressing the aftermath, in reconstructing our most vulnerable communities. And political courage will be the precious commodity necessary in the deliberations over taxation, appropriation and allocation. That’s where the real challenge lies.
How do we do this? History, again, offers some clues. In contrast to postcivil War Reconstruction, after World War II our leaders rebuilt devastated nations, including those of our enemies. The post-war Marshall Plan was a radical approach, but it ensured peace and prosperity for well over a half a century. The war also helped usher in the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, albeit at a pace that, at times, was disgracefully slow.
Something just as radical as the Marshall Plan is needed now. Let’s call it a “Marijuana Marshall Plan.” New York must end its War on Pot, but we can’t stop there. Our leaders must develop a comprehensive plan of urban reconstruction. The first part of the plan is easiest but most needed: to redress the stigma of criminal convictions among our black and Latino populations, who have borne the brunt of the War on Pot — in fact, of the 22,000 people arrested for marijuana across New York at the end of 2016, 80 percent were black or Latino — we must work to seal, expunge and reclassify convictions. In doing so, we can move from stigma to opportunity. Second, we must replace the illicit economies founded on the drug trade with jobs for our urban communities.
There is a cost to all this. But market regulation of legalized marijuana offers a ready solution. Illicit marijuana sales in New York are estimated at $3 billion. Studies show that sales tax from a regulated market in New York City alone could generate more than $400 million in annual revenue. Additionally, market regulation and decriminalization would significantly contribute funding for the redirection of law enforcement resources to roadway safety in the form of road patrols, drug recognition experts, as well as forensic personnel. Additionally, we can invest greater resources to the fight against the opioid epidemic and enhance access to and availability of services all along the continuum of care for those addicted.
The time for doing so is now. As Abraham Lincoln once observed,
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” He was right. Criminal justice reform measures, such as Rockefeller Drug Law reform and Raise the Age, are always welcome. And ending the War on Pot will be another step in the right direction. But without a corresponding commitment to invest in people and communities, legalization will end up being a hollow gesture. We must do more. Ending the War on Pot will generate new resources, financial and otherwise. We have a moral obligation to reinvest those resources into the communities that were most devastated by the war on drugs. We owe it to these communities. Otherwise, all of our efforts, noble as they may be, will amount to nothing. Because if history teaches us anything, it is that declaring victory, without more, does not end the war, and does even less to win the peace.
New York must end its War on Pot, but we can’t stop there. Our leaders must develop a comprehensive plan of urban reconstruction.