Racial Disparities and Cannabis Legalization in American Policing
June 15, 202073 Million Americans Likely to Purchase CBD Before Year’s End
June 18, 2020
- In 2018, more than 660,000 U.S. arrests were made for cannabis-related charges, averaging once per 48 seconds.
- Since California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis in 1996, nearly 17,000,000 people have been arrested on cannabis charges.
- According to the ACLU, blacks in America are nearly 4x likelier than whites to be arrested for cannabis offenses, despite similar rates of use.
- Among states reflecting the most racial disparities (e.g., Kentucky and Montana), blacks were nearly 10x times likelier to be arrested.
- While legalization has fundamentally reduced overall U.S. drug arrests, it has not mitigated racial disparities in policing, as minorities continue to bear the brunt of cannabis-related policing.
