It’s MLK Day once again.
I’ve been writing an MLK Day post on this blog for eight consecutive years. The theme of my posts is that cannabis is a civil rights issue, and that Dr. King would have advocated for ending prohibition based on that fact.
Each year, I have demonstrated with facts (upon facts upon facts) that the War on Drugs continues in insidious ways. In, 2023, which is the most recent year that FBI data is available, law enforcement officials made over 200,000 arrests for marijuana-related convictions. Those 200,000 arrests constitute roughly 25% of all drug-related arrests.
Sadly, arrests of black people constituted 29% of all drug arrests in 2023, although only 13.6% of Americans are black.
Heading into MLK Day weekend, President Biden announced that he is commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses. The focus was predominantly on individuals “who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine…”, as opposed to cannabis-related crimes. According to the Last Prisoner Project, “the total number of those incarcerated for cannabis who received commutations is not knows, but nine LPP constituents will be free.”
For all that Biden promised as to
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