Lanee Higgins, the president of the Black Student Union of Hood College, believes the bill will decrease a racially-biased system of law enforcement in Maryland.

“I think with the decriminalization of marijuana, you won’t see as many police cars riding through neighborhoods looking to frisk people, just to arrest them, just to get the numbers up, just to discriminate against them,” she said.

Many civil rights organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union indicate that the “War on Drugs” and particularly the illegality of marijuana possession, has had a negative effect on the black community.

According to a report by the ACLU, a Black person was about 4 times more likely than a White person to be arrested for marijuana in Maryland despite marijuana use by Blacks and Whites being almost equal. In 2010, Maryland had the seventh highest amount of arrests for marijuana possession and the fourth highest arrest rate marijuana possession in the country.

“The prohibition of marijuana has led to both racial disparities in arrests and a misuse of police resources,” Neill Franklin,  a former Maryland State Police Officer and the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) said. “As a result, organized crime has grown wealthy, our communities have grown poor, and we have little to show for it other than the detritus of people’s lives derailed because of drug convictions.”

The decriminalization law allows marijuana possession to be treated as a civil offense rather than a criminal one, resulting in a fine instead of jail time. 

The penalty for possessing less than 10 grams of marijuana would result in a fine not exceeding $100 for the first offense. Second and third offenses carry fines not exceeding $250 or $500 respectively. Third-time offenders and offenders under 21 are required to be evaluated for substance abuse problems and attend drug education classes.

The approval of the decriminalization bill makes Maryland the 17th state to have passed laws on marijuana decriminalization.
Even though efforts to pass decriminalization in Maryland have been spearheaded by civil rights advocates including the ACLU and Black Caucus, some feel decriminalization is not enough to end discrimination. The fact that there are still penalties for possession under decriminalization means that police can continue to unfairly punish those in the black community.

Another report by the ACLU cited that members of the New York Police Department have largely ignored the states decriminalization laws since they were implemented and racial bias in arrests in the state have continued. According to the report, in 2010 blacks were 4.5 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana-related crime in New York.

The report also cited the effects of decriminalization in Massachusetts. Total marijuana arrests in the state decreased by 85 percent, but racial disparities continued. Blacks were still almost 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana-related crime than whites.

Many states decriminalization laws also heavily penalized those unable to make fine payments on time. It’s not clear whether Maryland would carry similar penalties, but some states threaten arrest if fines are not paid in a timely manner.

Higgins said her own experience dealing with law enforcement, like many members of the black community, has  given her distrust of the police in general. She added that the disproportionate marijuana-related arrest rate of blacks reflects the greater problem of racial discrimination by law enforcement.

“The police officers abuse their authority,” she said. “Because of that, I don’t feel protected by the police. I feel suspicious of them.”

Higgins said she thinks that there is a negative perception of the black community that ultimately contributes to racial discrimination by law enforcement, and in general.

“Most of the time when you talk about black men, the light is very negative,” Higgins said. Stereotypes of black men as “pimps” or “drug pushers”, she said, contribute to the idea that they are “bad people who need to be locked up.”
Higgins said that the public needs to educate themselves in order to fully understand the issue of racial discrimination and take action.

“It takes talking to someone, having a teacher, or wanting to educate yourself,” she said. “If we just live our lives and we don’t think about anyone else than we never get out of our comfort zones and we never explore these issues because we’re only thinking about us.”