The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

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“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 47 of 55
trust working-class people in turn would know what would work best for them. At the very least, local control gives progressives a fighting chance to influence where the funds go at a local level, a battleground more conducive to grassroots mobilization than the state capital of Annapolis. In this way, our demand for local control for the Black community had opened up space for working class white communities to exercise a degree of local control for themselves, not to mention predominantly Latino communities likely to be significant beneficiaries of funds designed to disproportionately support areas where the majority of cannabis related arrests occurred. Critiques of technocracy and defenses of local control come from many different ideological and political positions. What a Pan African radical means when they present a critique of technocracy might be different from what a white Republican means, so rather than the knee-jerk response of seeing folks who make this criticism as “conservative,” perhaps it’s time to hear what they have to say. You don’t have to always agree, but, regardless of the race and political affiliation of the person providing the criticism, genuinely listening may be a good place to start. None of this is to say that this will be easy, but a robust conversation on these dynamics can create the space for drug policy and drug decriminalization to evolve. The frame of “evidence based” policy, public health language, and the “standard narrative” of drug decriminalization is a protective cocoon that is incubating drug policy and protecting it from opposition. It is increasingly, however, also becoming a source of constriction, preventing the issue from spreading its proverbial wings and engaging with community’s desire for self-governance and a redistribution of power and resources. For drug decriminalization to fly among the masses, it will have to enter a more vulnerable butterfly state, able to ride the winds of change stirred by the people. Like the proverbial butterfly off the coast of Africa flapping its wings eventually causing a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, it is only in this more chaotic state where the beating wings of change in drug decriminalization and harm reduction kick up can begin to intersect with and magnify other social justice struggles, creating storms of resistance that can coalesces into forces strong enough to fundamentally disrupt the sea of white supremacy and anti-Blackness we are all still swimming in. 48 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 and 40: “It’s the values that people ha
Page 41 and 42: A local pastor family interviewed r
Page 43 and 44: Policymakers and researchers intere
Page 45 and 46: advocates trust the experience of o
Page 47: powerful independent Black institut
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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