Will Drug Legalization Leave Black People Behind?

From the Pacific Northwest to the Deep South, drug legalization won big nationwide on Election Day. Under the first state law of its kind, people in Oregon soon won’t be arrested for possessing small amounts of drugs including heroin, meth and cocaine. In New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota and Montana, voters joined 11 other states and the District of Columbia in legalizing recreational marijuana. Washington D.C. passed an initiative to make mushrooms and other natural psychedelics the lowest possible enforcement priority. Even Mississippi legalized medical marijuana.

After months of global protests over racism in policing, advocates behind many of these campaigns focused their messaging on racial disparities in drug-law enforcement. In New Jersey, a explaining how a marijuana arrest could ruin someone’s life centered images of young Black men and women. Activists in Oregon pointed that found drug convictions for Black and Native people would drop by nearly 95 percent under the state’s decriminalization law.