National
Report: Racial Disparities in Arrests Persist with Legal Pot

In this March 6, 2014 file photo, an instructor for a Drug Recognition Expert class, sits near a completed roadside Drug Influence Evaluation sheet on a clipboard, at the Colorado State Patrol Training Academy, in Golden, Colo. Legalizing marijuana reduces drug arrests but doesn’t solve one of the central goals of drug-policy reformers, ending racial disparities in marijuana enforcement. That’s according to a new review of Colorado’s criminal justice system before and after pot was made legal. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file)
KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press
DENVER (AP) — Not surprisingly, the legalization of marijuana in Colorado has reduced pot arrests, but a newly released study says it doesn’t solve one of the central goals of drug-policy reformers: ending racial disparities in enforcement.
A report from the pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance released Wednesday showed that marijuana arrests in Colorado all but stopped after voters made the drug legal in small amounts for adults over 21. The report examined drug-related arrests in all 64 Colorado counties for two years before and two years after legalization in 2012.
The total number of charges for pot possession, distribution and cultivation fell almost 95 percent, from about 39,000 in 2010 to just over 2,000 last year.
But the report noted continuing racial inequalities.
Even after legalization, black people were more than twice as likely as white people to be charged with public consumption of marijuana, which remains a crime. Blacks were also much more likely to be charged with illegal cultivation of pot or possession in excess of the state limit, which is an ounce.
“I don’t think young black or brown people are more likely to flout marijuana law than white people,” said Art Way, Colorado director for the Drug Policy Alliance. “Legalization is no panacea for the longtime issues that law enforcement had with the black and brown community.”
The analysis did not break out arrest data for Colorado’s largest ethnic minority, Latinos. That’s because data comes from National Incident-Based Reporting System, which does not tally numbers for Latinos.
The arrest figures speak to broader racial disparities and do not indicate that police officers are targeting people of color for remaining marijuana crimes, said Tom Gorman of the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.
“Racial disparities exist in other laws. What does that mean, that homicide law, rape laws, weapon laws are racist? There are other factors going on here that we need to address,” Gorman said.
The news wasn’t all bad.
After legalization, racial disparities did ease somewhat for marijuana distribution charges. Black people accounted for about 22 percent of Colorado distribution arrests in 2010 and about 18 percent of such arrests in 2014.
The arrest data got a mixed response from the regional head of the NAACP.
“The overall decrease in arrests, charges and cases is enormously beneficial to communities of color who bore the brunt of marijuana prohibition prior to (legalization),” Rosemary Harris Lytle said in a statement.
“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.”
In 2014, the year Colorado’s recreational marijuana stores opened, black people accounted for 3.9 percent of the population, but they made up 9.2 percent of marijuana possession arrests.
For illegal marijuana cultivation, the disparities didn’t just persist. They got much worse.
In 2010, whites in Colorado were slightly more likely than blacks to be arrested for marijuana cultivation. After legalization, the arrest rate for whites dropped dramatically but ticked up for blacks. In 2014, the arrest rate for blacks was roughly 2.5 times higher.
The Drug Policy Alliance did not conduct a similar arrest analysis in Washington state, which also legalized pot in 2012. But racial disparities appear to have persisted in that state, too.
Last September, Seattle’s elected prosecutor dropped all tickets issued for the public use of marijuana through the first seven months of 2014 because most of them were issued by a single police officer who disagreed with the legal pot law.
About one-third of those tickets were issued to blacks, who make up about 8 percent of Seattle’s population.
Drug-policy activists noted that despite persistent racial disparities, the remaining pot crimes are generally less severe. They described the overall drop in pot crimes as a positive development.
“What is often overlooked concerning marijuana legalization is that it is first and foremost a criminal justice reform,” Denise Maes, Public Policy Director for the ACLU of Colorado, said in a statement.
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Associated Press writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.
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Kristen Wyatt can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/APkristenwyatt.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of April 23 – 29, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 23 – 29, 2025

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#NNPA BlackPress
Chavis and Bryant Lead Charge as Target Boycott Grows
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Surrounded by civil rights leaders, economists, educators, and activists, Bryant declared the Black community’s power to hold corporations accountable for broken promises.

By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent
Calling for continued economic action and community solidarity, Dr. Jamal H. Bryant launched the second phase of the national boycott against retail giant Target this week at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta. Surrounded by civil rights leaders, economists, educators, and activists, Bryant declared the Black community’s power to hold corporations accountable for broken promises. “They said they were going to invest in Black communities. They said it — not us,” Bryant told the packed sanctuary. “Now they want to break those promises quietly. That ends tonight.” The town hall marked the conclusion of Bryant’s 40-day “Target fast,” initiated on March 3 after Target pulled back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) commitments. Among those was a public pledge to spend $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025—a pledge Bryant said was made voluntarily in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.“No company would dare do to the Jewish or Asian communities what they’ve done to us,” Bryant said. “They think they can get away with it. But not this time.”
The evening featured voices from national movements, including civil rights icon and National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President & CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., who reinforced the need for sustained consciousness and collective media engagement. The NNPA is the trade association of the 250 African American newspapers and media companies known as The Black Press of America. “On the front page of all of our papers this week will be the announcement that the boycott continues all over the United States,” said Chavis. “I would hope that everyone would subscribe to a Black newspaper, a Black-owned newspaper, subscribe to an economic development program — because the consciousness that we need has to be constantly fed.” Chavis warned against the bombardment of negativity and urged the community to stay engaged beyond single events. “You can come to an event and get that consciousness and then lose it tomorrow,” he said. “We’re bombarded with all of the disgust and hopelessness. But I believe that starting tonight, going forward, we should be more conscious about how we help one another.”
He added, “We can attain and gain a lot more ground even during this period if we turn to each other rather than turning on each other.” Other speakers included Tamika Mallory, Dr. David Johns, Dr. Rashad Richey, educator Dr. Karri Bryant, and U.S. Black Chambers President Ron Busby. Each speaker echoed Bryant’s demand that economic protests be paired with reinvestment in Black businesses and communities. “We are the moral consciousness of this country,” Bryant said. “When we move, the whole nation moves.” Sixteen-year-old William Moore Jr., the youngest attendee, captured the crowd with a challenge to reach younger generations through social media and direct engagement. “If we want to grow this movement, we have to push this narrative in a way that connects,” he said.
Dr. Johns stressed reclaiming cultural identity and resisting systems designed to keep communities uninformed and divided. “We don’t need validation from corporations. We need to teach our children who they are and support each other with love,” he said. Busby directed attendees to platforms like ByBlack.us, a digital directory of over 150,000 Black-owned businesses, encouraging them to shift their dollars from corporations like Target to Black enterprises. Bryant closed by urging the audience to register at targetfast.org, which will soon be renamed to reflect the expanding boycott movement. “They played on our sympathies in 2020. But now we know better,” Bryant said. “And now, we move.”
#NNPA BlackPress
The Department of Education is Collecting Delinquent Student Loan Debt
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — the Department of Education will withhold money from tax refunds and Social Security benefits, garnish federal employee wages, and withhold federal pensions from people who have defaulted on their student loan debt.

By April Ryan
Trump Targets Wages for Forgiven Student Debt
The Department of Education, which the Trump administration is working to abolish, will now serve as the collection agency for delinquent student loan debt for 5.3 million people who the administration says are delinquent and owe at least a year’s worth of student loan payments. “It is a liability to taxpayers,” says White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at Tuesday’s White House Press briefing. She also emphasized the student loan federal government portfolio is “worth nearly $1.6 trillion.” The Trump administration says borrowers must repay their loans, and those in “default will face involuntary collections.” Next month, the Department of Education will withhold money from tax refunds and Social Security benefits, garnish federal employee wages, and withhold federal pensions from people who have defaulted on their student loan debt. Leavitt says “we can not “kick the can down the road” any longer.”
Much of this delinquent debt is said to have resulted from the grace period the Biden administration gave for student loan repayment. The grace period initially was set for 12 months but extended into three years, ending September 30, 2024. The Trump administration will begin collecting the delinquent payments starting May 5. Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Talladega College, told Black Press USA, “We can have that conversation about people paying their loans as long as we talk about the broader income inequality. Put everything on the table, put it on the table, and we can have a conversation.” Kimbrough asserts, “The big picture is that Black people have a fraction of wealth of white so you’re… already starting with a gap and then when you look at higher education, for example, no one talks about Black G.I.’s that didn’t get the G.I. Bill. A lot of people go to school and build wealth for their family…Black people have a fraction of wealth, so you already start with a wide gap.”
According to the Education Data Initiative, https://educationdata.org/average-time-to-repay-student-loans It takes the average borrower 20 years to pay their student loan debt. It also highlights how some professional graduates take over 45 years to repay student loans. A high-profile example of the timeline of student loan repayment is the former president and former First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, who paid off their student loans by 2005 while in their 40s. On a related note, then-president Joe Biden spent much time haggling with progressives and Democratic leaders like Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer on Capitol Hill about whether and how student loan forgiveness would even happen.
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