Marijuana

In 2022, Can We Stop Arresting Folks For Weed?

Instead of weed, they should have been moving something that’s not a threat. Like high-powered assault rifles.

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marijuana-gb13a405a0_1920A recent traffic stop in Leeds, Alabama, resulted in a seizure of about 953 pounds of marijuana. Referring to the haul, Police Chief Paul Irwin said that “[m]aking a large drug seizure makes a difference in the community and our entire country.” I don’t know the politically correct way to say this so please, forgive my colloquialism. That’s cap. The men were from California and said that they intended to drive to North Carolina, Florida, and/or Georgia. But even if they had plans to get it booming in Birmingham so a bunch of soccer moms can bump this before their anti-CRT meetings, so what? Can we legalize weed federally already?! Even if Alabama just decides to legalize it at the state level, the money they’d make through taxing it would be more legitimate than bankrolling police with crappy traffic stops.

Just making weed legal in all states won’t be the end all fix all, but it’s a start. Racial discrepancies in who gets arrested for buying weed and who gets lauded for selling it are tragicomic, with Blacks and Latinos being put behind bars disproportionately and Whites owning 80%-90% of the industry in 2019. This trend continued, because of course, The Other America is still a poignant work. Like how today, fewer than 2% of cannabis company entrepreneurs or CEOs are Black. Like when New Jersey rolled out licenses to open marijuana dispensaries and most “minority” license winners were given to white women despite them not, you know, being main targets of the “War on Drugs.” Given that this is the norm, it is refreshing to see content like Gary Chambers’s advertisement for his U.S. Senate run where he sparks up for justice.

But hey, until we commit to equity and racial justice vis-à-vis federal weed legalization, I guess we’ll just have to deal with whatever cringe-ass photo ops drug busts like this will lead to.

Nearly 1,000 Pounds Of Weed Worth $3 Million Seized In Alabama Traffic Stop [Al.com]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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