Full Description
America's drug laws have always exerted an unequal and unfair toll on Blacks and Latinos, who are arrested more often than Whites for the possession of illegal drugs and given harsher sentences. In this volume, contributors ask how would marijuana legalization affect communities of color? Is legalization of marijuana necessary to safeguard minority families from a lifetime of hardship and inequality? Who in minority communities favors legalization and why, and do these minority opinions differ from the opinions held by White Americans? This volume also includes analyses of the policy debate by a range of scholars addressing economic, health, and empowerment issues. Comparative lessons from other countries are also analyzed.
Contents
Introduction: Ending a War or Just California Dreamin'?; Katherine Tate, James Lance Taylor, and Mark Q. Sawyer 1. Criminal Justice Costs of Prohibiting Marijuana in California; Jonathan P. Caulkins and Beau Kilmer 2. Public Health Considerations in the Legalization Debate; Chyvette T. Williams and Thomas Lyons 3. The Paths Not (Yet) Taken: Lower Risk Alternatives to Full Market Legalization of Cannabis; Robert J. MacCoun 4. Why Did Proposition 19 Fail?; J. Andrew Sinclair, Jaclyn R. Kimble and R. Michael Alvarez 5. Winds of Change: Black Opinion on Legalizing Marijuana; Katherine Tate 6. The Highs and Lows of Support for Marijuana Legalization among White Americans; Paul Musgrave and Clyde Wilcox 7. Building Minority Community Power through Legalization; James Lance Taylor 8. The Latino Politics of Proposition 19: Criminal Justice and Immigration; Melissa R. Michelson and Joe Tafoya 9. No Half-Measures: Mexico's Quixotic Policy on California's Proposition 19; Nathan Jones 10. The "Chronic" and Coercion: Exploring how Legalizing Marijuana Might Get the U.S. Government off the Backs and Throats of Americans (or, not); Christian Davenport
