House Committee Votes to Block D.C. Council's Efforts to Decriminalize Marijuana

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 25, 2014

CONTACT: Seema Sadanandan, Program Director, 202-601-4278, [email protected]; Monica Hopkins-Maxwell,
Executive Director, 202-457-0800, [email protected]

WASHINGTON – The House Appropriations Committee today approved an
amendment that blocks implementation of D.C.'s marijuana decriminalization law.
The District of Columbia Appropriations bill includes a provision prohibiting
the D.C. government from spending federal funds or even locally raised funds to
carry out any law, rule, or regulation to reduce criminal penalties for
marijuana. The amendment was introduced by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.).

“By any measure, the war on drugs, particularly on marijuana, has
been a failure and severely impacted Black communities and communities of
color,” said Monica Hopkins-Maxwell, Executive Director at the ACLU of the
Nation’s Capital. “Today’s rider passage is a detrimental blow in the D.C.
Council’s attempt to enact smarter, fairer laws that address racial disparities
and the mass incarceration of communities of color.”

A 2013 ACLU-NCA study found that a Black person is eight times as
likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as a white person in D.C.
despite similar rates of use. In 2010 alone, law enforcement in the District
made 5,393 arrests for marijuana offenses, of which 91 percent were of Black
people. The D.C. Council passed the decriminalization bill to address that
extreme disparity and reduce racial profiling. The bill would have prohibited
police from using the smell of marijuana as a pretext for stopping and
searching individuals.

“The District's marijuana laws have been selectively enforced on
Black people and wasted tremendous resources while failing to make our
community any safer for far too long,” said Seema Sadanandan, Program Director
at the ACLU of the Nation's Capital. “This type of racially disparate
application of laws has no place in our nation's capital. This amendment is a
step backwards for racial justice, drug policy, and fiscal responsibility for
the District"

The District spent more per capita on marijuana enforcement than
any of the 50 states in 2010. Despite being a top priority, the aggressive
enforcement of marijuana laws has failed to eradicate or even diminish the use
of marijuana.

###

Information about marijuana arrests in Washington, DC, The War on
Marijuana in Black and White: http://aclu-nca.org/billions-of-dollars-wasted-on-racially-biased-arrests-behind-dc-numbers

The ACLU of the Nation’s Capital: http://aclu-nca.org/

The ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project: https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform