The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland
Introduction
As a new wave of drug policy reform in the U.S. reconsiders criminal legal approaches, we must examine
these policies in the context of racialized structural oppression to address and repair the societal harms
experienced disproportionately by African-American communities. To understand the harms of drug
criminalization in this context, a partnership was forged with the support of the Open Society
Foundations between a Baltimore-based, community-based scholar and a team of university-based
researchers in the fields of social work, criminology, and public health. The research team was asked to
research the harms of drug criminalization to make a case for decriminalizing the personal use of drugs.
Through consultation with the community-based scholars, the team agreed to go beyond an analysis of
the harms of criminalization that focuses on individual instances of arrests and incarceration and "waste"
of financial resources.
A research process was created to reframe the harms of criminalization around the community impacts of
racialized hyper-incarceration targeted at specific communities, with a focus on reframing
decriminalization as a mechanism to restore the civil communal fabric impacted by the War on Drugs.
The community-based scholar used African-Centered research paradigms, inclusive of various research
methodologies guided by the culture and experiences of people of African descent. African-Centered
research paradigms challenge us to account for the community-wide implications of drug criminalization
and towards reparations when thinking about decriminalization strategies. To shift power to communities
seeking self-determination and liberation from the structural oppression of drug criminalization, the
research team applied a participatory action research (also known as PAR) approach. PAR merges social
change activities with knowledge inquiry guided by those most impacted by the research. Shifting
intellectual guidance away from academic institutions that conventionally hold power over solutions, the
community-based scholar drove the research framework that informed the objectives, structure,
methodologies, and content of the report.
The first objective of this report was to conduct a precise analysis of community disruption via the
systems of drug criminalization to inform the second objective of highlighting drug policy focus areas for
solutions and repair of the community harms. The team first conducted a scoping review of academic
literature in the U.S. to critically assess the role of drug criminalization on the social conditions of
communities most often targeted by drug prohibition efforts. We found that existing academic literature
frames the harms of drug criminalization on disrupting social capital of the communal institution of
families. It also emphasized the need to strengthen access to existing external systems of support, like
drug treatment and job placements spatially and culturally outside of communities. There is little research
on how criminalization impacts individuals' ability to access or engage indigenous community
institutions. The paucity of research sheds light on the need to center knowledge production on collective
harms of drug criminalization. Research informing drug policy is missing critical perspectives and rarely
includes perspectives from impacted communities, leading us to conduct qualitative interviews with
community leaders in Baltimore.
The research team interviewed 12 Baltimore region-based key experts who identified as community
organizers, youth mentors, grassroots or academic educators, mental health and social work
professionals, harm reduction organizers, and holistic addiction providers. All interviewees provided firsthand
knowledge and experiences of structural and historical realities of drug use, criminalization, and the
drug treatment infrastructure in Baltimore. They also offered visions of a world without drug
criminalization and recommendations for state and local policies. Findings demonstrate the importance
of collective well-being in addressing substance use disorders (SUDs) and undergird the case for
reparations that allow communities most impacted by the War on Drugs to rebuild, heal, and thrive while
having local control over alternatives to criminalization.
This report outlines community harm rooted in the racialized structural violence of drug criminalization
in Maryland with a focus on Baltimore City to provide advocates with tools to inform their efforts in
advancing policy change in the state. It is our hope that this analysis will prompt policy advocates in and
out of Maryland to question and challenge assumptions regarding drug policy solutions. Understanding
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