Drug laws meant to target Black people
If you’re reading this, you may be a white American who, like me, has many times broken the law to enjoy marijuana. That privilege was given to us by an American legal system stacked in our favor.
Where marijuana is illegal, cops use it as a pretext to stop and harass Black people. Or kill them. Meanwhile, white consumers often get a free pass. Nationwide, Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for cannabis than white people—even though usage rates are roughly equal.
That wasn’t an unintended consequence. It was the very purpose of our national and state drug laws. The war on drugs has always been a war on people, specifically Black people.