"Criminalizing drug use simply has not worked as a matter of practice," stated the HRW-ACLU report. "Criminalizing drug possession has caused dramatic and unnecessary harms"both for individuals and for communities." The report noted that police generally make more arrests for marijuana possession yearly than arrests for the violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery and assault combined.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Five states and DC have legalized adult use of marijuana.
In the early 1970s the White House commissioned a study of marijuana that recommended decriminalization. However, then President Richard Nixon indignantly rejected that recommendation of his commission chaired by a former federal prosecutor who had served as a Republican governor of Pennsylvania. Nixon is the president who launched the War on Weed that has consumed nearly $20-billion in federal funds alone since the early 1970s.
Neither marijuana nor its users constitute "a danger" to public safety, declared the 1972 Shaffer Commission Report rejected by Nixon and Congress. "The Commission recommends"[the] possession of marijuana for personal use no longer be an offense""
In Philadelphia, while lower arrests and cost savings are a bright spot for decriminalization a dark side remains -- marijuana possession rates still displayed marked racial disparities, the same disparities that prompted approval of decriminalization in Philadelphia.
Of the 8,580 possession arrests in 2012-2013, 7,077 involved African-Americans. Police arrest data for 2015-2016 continue the racial disparity with African-Americans accounting for 1,200 of the 1,500 arrests. Many observers trace the race disparities in arrest rates to Philadelphia police targeting African-American communities for enhanced enforcement.
That HRW-ACLU report criticized America's history of "racially discriminatory" drug enforcement.
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