racial disparities in drug arrests
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Black People Are Still Being Disproportionately Arrested for Marijuana Possession: Report
April 20 (4/20) is widely recognized as the smoker’s holiday. It’s a day when marijuana partakers everywhere celebrate the festivities by…well…doing the thing most of them do regularly anyway, except on this day, they’re doing it for the culture. The American Civil Liberties Union, on the other hand, is using the day to draw attention…
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46 of 47 Arrested in Low-Level Marijuana Stings Were Black, So Minneapolis Police Put an End to the Operations
Minneapolis police will no longer conduct sting operations targeting small-scale marijuana sellers after a gaping racial disparity was uncovered in the practice. Basically, they realized that everyone being arrested was black—as in, literally, 46 out of the 47 people arrested this year in these stings have been black—and they actually decided to do something about…
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Seattle Vacates Hundreds of Marijuana Charges Going Back 30 Years
On Friday the city of Seattle filed a motion asking the Seattle Municipal Court to vacate hundreds of marijuana-possession convictions going back three decades and adversely impacting people of color. City Attorney Pete Holmes acknowledged the racial disparity in marijuana convictions, citing an ACLU report showing that African Americans are more than three times more…