The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

“White Supremacy Culture” as hindrances to social justice work (93). A full analysis of how drug
decriminalization should be reformed through the lens of a critique of White supremacy culture and a fullscale
analysis of what an African-Centered addition prevention and treatment system would look like was
beyond the scope of this report, but this report shows there are also fundamentally cultural differences
between how communities engage with questions of progress and evaluate the world that are potential
points of tension on drug policy. Difference around conceptions of time (linear vs cyclical), relations to
spirituality (secular scientism vs African centered notions of embodied spirituality), and cultural
conceptions of progress (individual and technological vs communal and social) are all potential sticking
points around potential future collaboration between public health/drug policy advocates and the Black
community around constructing mutually agreeable drug policy.
Another tenant of White Supremacy culture, Okun, outlines the desire for control, which can perhaps help
explain the anxiety or relative silence in the drug policy community around the need for community
control. An analysis of Google Scholar articles shows there are roughly 4% of articles discussing harm
reduction even mention “community control,” with roughly half of the articles mentioning community
control focused on international harm reduction work. In a world where “penal populism” has been
derided as the cause of the incarceration boom, with prosecutors and politicians attempting to cover their
tail after any overdose or murder by engaging in performative “tough on crime”/“tough on addict” policy,
the solution offered by some has been to turn deeper into deferring to experts and technocracy being the
mechanism of insulating criminal justice and drug policy from backlash.
This, however, can and has been used against those seeking to redistribute power and resources to the
communities directly impacted by drug criminalization.
Alternatively, embracing community control is corrective to this approach, and looking to the Black
radical tradition can be a tool to see how a deeper analysis of the history and culture of African people can
help provide a blueprint for more emancipatory drug policy. As seen with the civil rights movement
setting the stage for women’s rights, the American Indian Movement, and queer liberation struggles, I
believe that engaging with the Black radical tradition can hold the seeds for the drug policy community to
more comprehensively address concerns around community control and technocracy for a variety of
communities. While associated with Jesse Jackson in the 1980s, the original “Rainbow Coalition” was
formed by the Chicago Black Panther under the leadership of Fred Hampton, with him brokering strategic
alliances with the Puerto Rican Young Lords and the poor working organizing group the Young Patriots
Party (94). They adopted the slogan:
“Unity in the Community! Black Power to Black People! White Power to White People! Brown
Power to Brown People! Yellow Power to Yellow People! Red Power to Red People.”
While many today would balk at this language, this call for multi-ethnic pluralism sets the stage for a
recognition of mutual self-interest that can unite the Black and Latino communities most impacted by
drug criminalization with the lowering class of white communities which have often been the most
vehement opposition to redistributive policy.
In Maryland, this approach has already yielded concrete benefits on the drug policy front. When we
presented our policy proposal for reparations for the War on Drugs, which our calls to redistribute tax
revenue from cannabis legalization to localities to repair the harms of drug criminalization met with
concerns from progressives that the “Bad, Trump Supporters” in Western Maryland and the Eastern shore
would do bad things with the money if we gave them local control. This raises the concerning prospect
that local control to the communities most impacted by the War on Drugs could be denied because of
fears of what racists would do with similar local control, an example of how paternalistic attempts to
“protect” communities can boomerang and deny them the very control the advocates seeks to safeguard.
We responded by putting basic guide rails to prevent abuse (they can’t be used to fund police and can’t be
used to replace already allocated funds to prevent backdoor defund of other programs) and basic
reporting requirements on these funds to ensure transparency, but not capitulating to calls these funds be
distributed centrally by a racial equity “czar” appointed by the governor.
We also made it clear that, even if we don’t always agree with how working-class white people define how
they want to address addiction, as I don’t have the authority to assert a solution on their behalf, and I
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