Drug Decriminalization in Maryland Through an African Centered Research Paradigm- Analysis and Recommendations

much more, and subject them to discrimination and stigma. The cost to them and to their
families and communities, as well as to the taxpayer, is devastating. Those impacted are
disproportionately communities of color and the poor.” (Human Rights Watch, 2016).
Here we can use the findings of our theoretical research to understand the logic behind why the
writers of this report believe this framing would be persuasive to its audience. First, they claim
that our enforcement system is excessive, with an extreme focus on arrest and conviction (every
25 seconds). This appeals to the reader's sense of rationality and logic: even if drugs were a
problem, isn’t the idea of someone being arrested every 25 seconds too much? There is a definite
appeal to the reader's sense of being able to evaluate risks rationally and judge the dangers of drug
use are outweighed by the dangers of hyper-incarceration. It appeals to a reader who might view
quantification as a critical part of the persuasive argument and dedicates substantial space to
providing the reader with the statistics on incarceration. Similarly, why hyper incarceration is seen
as wrong is framed through the lens of individual liberty. While harms to the community are
mentioned, the primary focus is on the harm to the individual, including debt and denial of critical
resources. This can be read as attempting to establish empathy with the reader, asking them to
imagine being cut off from all these essential services and subjecting them to discrimination and
stigma. Finally, the reader is told this hyper-incarceration does not work and is even causing harm
to the reader by not deterring drug sales and wasting valuable tax money. The reader is thus tacitly
posited as a taxpayer who wonders why their resources are spent on a policy that clearly does not
work and causes so much harm.
Now that we have analyzed some of the underlying assumptions behind the “standard
model” of interpreting the harm of the War On Drugs, we can begin to apply a critical lens to this
argument. First, we can question the focus on the individual. As previously expressed in the
discussion of the distinction between the individual rational “cogito” subject versus the collective
“ubuntu” subject of African centered thought, focusing on the personal impacts of the War On
Drugs risks obscuring its collective implications. Consequently, a larger, historical understanding
of the War On Drugs stems from a desire to control specific racialized populations. Todd Clear in
book Imprisoning Community denotes how targeted hyper-incarceration, primarily driven by the
War on Drugs, has undermined the capacity of communities to develop civil society institutions
that could create meaningful alternatives to the street economy. This creates conditions for more
crime, thus more policing, further undermining community civil society institutions. Hyperincarceration
doesn't just hurt people; it locks entire communities into cycles of violence which
secure in perpetual violence, a perspective which risks being obscured with a focus on individual
liberty. Moreover, the specific form of liberty used in the standard narrative reflects a “negative”
view of freedom. Negative freedom, freedom from government constraint of individual behavior,
is often contrasted with a “positive” view of liberty, as in establishing an affirmative right for
individuals and communities to have the resources they need to flourish and the autonomy to
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