Law & Politics

Racism Persists Even With Changing Attitudes About Cannabis, Source: http://img.bulawayo24.com/articles/black-man-handcuffs.jpgDespite a culture of changing attitudes about cannabis, and legalization in many states, racism continues to fuel drug arrests.

A shocking example of this comes in the form of the arrest and subsequent abuse of business woman Kam Brock — a black woman who was pulled over while driving her BMW through Harlem. Police accused her of being high on cannabis and subsequently impounded her vehicle. No cannabis was found in her car. Unfortunately the story only gets worse from there.

The next day when Brock went to pick up her vehicle she confronted the police about her mistreatment — as anyone unfairly profiled and targeted would. However, what happened next reads like a telling of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, in the worst way possible. Brock was sedated by force, handcuffed and shipped off to Harlem Hospital, where she was admitted to the psychiatric ward under the label of “emotionally disturbed.”

A quote from Brock lends testimony to how traumatic, disturbing and abusive the incident was, “Next thing you know, the police held onto me, the doctor stuck me with a needle and I was knocked out,” Brock recalls. “I woke up to them taking off my underwear and then went out again. I woke up the next day in a hospital robe.”

Racism Persists Even With Changing Attitudes About Cannabis Kam Brock, Source: http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/westerncourier.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/7/93/7934646a-d4be-11e4-ab39-933364783e58/5515bb4cb7b89.image.jpg?resize=300%2C347

Kam Brock

She spent the next eight days drugged and locked in the hospital. She was forcibly injected with heavy sedatives and forced to consume lithium and lorazepam and attend group therapy.

She attempted repeatedly to verify her credibility by explaining she was a high profile business woman who worked for Citibank, and that Barack Obama’s twitter account follows her own. These statements are true, and could have easily been verified by staff through a simple Google search and/or phone call — but no efforts were made.

Instead, Brock was labeled as delusional and bipolar and held hostage in the psychiatric ward, where they attempted to force her to deny her own life story by “admitting” to be unemployed and detached from reality.

Why? Because apparently it was too unbelievable that a black woman could be a successful business woman who owns a BMW. The final offense against Brock was the 13K medical bill she was handed when finally released.

In this instance, cannabis was used as an excuse for the initial profiling and mistreatment of a woman in a state which has not yet legalized. However, even in states where legalization has taken effect, racism still colors drug arrests.

A recent report by the Drug Policy Alliance detailed the discrepancy in drug arrests in Colorado between black and white Americans post-legalization. Though drug arrests in general have fallen by nearly 95 percent since legalization, the arrests that do remain for things such as public consumption and possession over one-ounce show a marked disparity.

The report details that in 2014, the same year that Colorado’s recreational cannabis stores opened, black people accounted for 9.2% of cannabis related arrests, despite only making up 3.9% of the population. Likewise, when it comes to illegal cultivation in Colorado, in 2014 the arrest rate for black people was 2.5 times higher than in previous years.

Art Way, Colorado director for the DPA stated in response to the study, “Legalization is no panacea for the longtime issues that law enforcement had with the black and brown community.”

However, this is not to say that legalization has not had some positive affect against these racial disparities. Rosemary Harris Lytle, the regional head of the NAACP, responded to the study by saying, “The overall decrease in arrests, charges and cases is enormously beneficial to communities of color who bore the brunt of marijuana prohibition … However, we are concerned with the rise in disparity for the charge of public consumption and challenge law enforcement to ensure this reality is not discriminatory in any manner.”

It is no surprise that the racism which haunted drug policy prior to legalization and changing attitudes about cannabis has persisted even with a cultural shift and sensible drug laws. Though legalization may help, it will take a lot more than better laws to put an end to the racist attitudes and climate which plague our law enforcement agencies and create these unfair discrepancies in arrests.