The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

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“The African-Centered approach would not only focus on the significance of externalized oppression, what happens outside of us (housing, discrimination, hyper incarceration) but also how people internalize oppression (shame, stigma). If there was no material [external] oppression, there would be no internal. If oppressed groups start to internalize the vilification and the shame, then people cannot realize their vast potential, but turn on other African- Americans and cannot work together.” (Jay) Interviewees also consistently uplifted the need to reinvest into communities to restore the person affirming work of spiritual development: “Decriminalization would be easier, if we had more voices of folks that had some critical consciousness experience where they had the ability to see themselves in their own life, see it, alongside what's happening politically, and then begin to advocate and be supported by community, so that they could be in the face of, and be supported collectively, and transforming everything that we think about when we think about why people use drugs. They use drugs because they are trying to connect to spirit or are in deep, deep, pain and trying to numb that pain. How can we create a space where everyone feels like they don’t have to escape through a substance to heal their pain? The programs of the future in my mind hopefully will be funded better, but also will take that funding and begin to see the importance of an integral healing where we touch on all the available areas of a person's development, which is inside us, as individuals, our psychospiritual selves, inside of us as groups, this is our culture, the outside of us as individuals, which is our bodies, and the outside of all of us, which is our society and our social systems.” (Calvin) And they continued by providing an understanding of how to do this, which consistently pointed out a vision of African-Centered reparations from other interviewees: “Build Black institutions that Black people have control over, resources that are in control by Black people in their own communities. We need a comprehensive approach that really takes into account the whole person that is also affirming of the self.” (Rashard) Interviewee highlighted the importance of political awareness within the practice of healing: “When we're working from an African-Centered and liberatory perspective, it means helping folks to have the eyes to see and then have a therapist to help them work through it. When we qualify mental health practitioners that work with folks struggling with addiction, it shouldn't just be so that if they're in a methadone program, they can get methadone and then discharged. Discharge isn't just when they've been clean for however long the discharge is, when they also have the eyes to think about how society should, change how to do things from a political awareness.” (Donna) Another example of reinvesting into Black civil society institutions that nurture spiritual care and cultural affirmation are Black churches in Baltimore: “Another indigenous way, and we need to use more of this, a major institution in the Black community, is the Black church. We need to use more churches as sites for intervention and assistance. Conceptualize spirituality as the vehicle through which Black transformation has occurred. It was through spirituality that Black people were able to help ourselves historically; to fight against racial oppression and discrimination through the advancement of protest. This was also known as race work. Race work was imbued by spirituality. I would strongly encourage any treatment model that's going to consistently help African-Americans to rely on the church base. Positive transformation in the Black community has been through the church, so you’re not using everything in your arsenal if you’re not using the church. Churches across the nation have mental health and substance use services. These services integrate Eurocentric and African-Centered flavor, around spirituality and collective responsibility. A component of the treatment model is demonstrating how the individual African-American particular life can be used, not to just advance oneself, but to help to advance the broader collective African- American community-to advance the race.” (Jay) 39 of 55
A local pastor family interviewed recalled service in the church, providing care for those struggling with addictions: “My husband started the chapter for NA to come into the church. We partnered with various drug treatment services and a veteran's organization. We had a bus where we would pick people up. We had a staff of about 20-35 people and some of them were delivered from drugs, lived through it, and came up to help. I had a lot of help–young people and mothers cooking. There was a lot of support in that. Most of our finances were through donations.” (Agnes) Restoration of community in the wake of policy reform must be considerate of the flow of funding streams. In the development of drug policies, such as decrim, there will be several streams of revenue generation to advocate for. Traditionally, funding from policy is sanctioned into pre-existing public health infrastructure. Policy development must explicitly ensure funds go directly to support impacted communities. New and major sources of funding are becoming available through cannabis regulatory state taxes and the opioid settlement funds. If drug policy efforts are serious about repairing the harm from the War on Drugs, earmarking all revenue sources for community reparations is essential. 2. Ensure decrim reforms are community-led Interviewees laid out mechanisms for restoring community. One, center Black civil society support systems into policy development and ownership over community responses to harm reduction and addiction care. One interviewee explicitly advised to: “… write out or exclude large White institutions. Oftentimes police are gridlocked into working with state institutions to enact or inform things, we need to figure out a work around in order to ensure that it can actually be led by the grassroots and Black folks.” (Donna) Drug policy is missing organic expertise around the prevention of addiction. Community leaders, such as youth mentors and pastors have grassroots experience working to heal community harms brought on by generations of addiction and criminalization. Although there are dedicated voices in the conversation in the community, they are left out of drug policy development circles. One interviewee in harm reduction dreamed of a Maryland where community was at the core of harm reduction services, stating: “I would love for the participants to own them and run them, but I feel like that's never going to happen. White people from Johns Hopkins are going to own and run them. But my hope is that we will start mentoring people within the community to take over the executive director positions and community organizing positions. There is a separation between us and the people most affected.” (Monica) Not only did we hear this from the interviewees, but also the scoping review of the academic literature bore witness to this. When examining the literature on communal harms of drug criminalization, there were no research papers on the dynamics of drug criminalization and Black civil society. Not to mention, only three articles were informed by people impacted by drug criminalization. “There should be criteria for developing work groups or people who sit in decision making spaces for decrim stuff, would bring in that perspective of where people who are most impacted are coming from.” (Milton) The story of Alicia Keys coming and making a big fanfare about there being investment in community and then after she left, the community conditions staying the same, speaks to the urgency for community control. When the dominant system is based upon views of the Black community as essentially deficient and void of indigenous responses, all investment is considered inherently good because it assumes it is better than nothing. We heard arguments about how political organizations and nonprofit networks become empowered to act and speak on behalf of Black civil society. Designated with legitimacy to address key issues, “established anchor” institutions have the political, economic, and built infrastructure to suck up resources. One quote that stood out about drug courts demonstrates the danger of building political infrastructure that is not owned and controlled by community: “I've seen it first-hand how things like drug court programs, whose job it is to provide an alternative form of punishment, rehabilitation to clients, but whose money is driven by grants. Their incentive again is money, which means they need a constant influx of people coming into 40 of 55
Page 1 and 2: THE COMMUNAL IMPACTS OF DRUG CRIMIN
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgements We would like to t
Page 5 and 6: “groupthink”. Also, I realize t
Page 7 and 8: Decriminalize Blackness First “It
Page 9 and 10: Indeed, this quote comes from a for
Page 11 and 12: criminal elements involved in the i
Page 13 and 14: Reparations Means Community Repair,
Page 15 and 16: The Communal Impacts of Drug Crimin
Page 17 and 18: The community-based scholar is info
Page 19 and 20: Definitions Black Civil Society Thi
Page 21 and 22: works. Specifically, we looked at h
Page 23 and 24: working with other Black Power orga
Page 25 and 26: Pseudonym Occupation/Community Role
Page 27 and 28: limiting a pipeline. There’s not
Page 29 and 30: “Black and brown people are being
Page 31 and 32: health and for community education?
Page 33 and 34: friendship community, 'cause heroin
Page 35 and 36: “And then actually right out of F
Page 37 and 38: 3. Decriminalization does not recog
Page 39: “It’s the values that people ha
Page 43 and 44: Policymakers and researchers intere
Page 45 and 46: advocates trust the experience of o
Page 47 and 48: powerful independent Black institut
Page 49 and 50: trust working-class people in turn
Page 51 and 52: systemic corruption and incompetenc
Page 53 and 54: & The Baltimore “Black Hole” [I
Page 55 and 56: Dan Baum investigates whether gun-c
Page 57: © 2023

The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

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