The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

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From the Bottom Up. A New Approach to Researching Drug Criminalization This project also set out to set a new framework for research methodologies around drug policy. A standard participatory action research (PAR) model leaves the researchers to design much of the core theory, metric, and concepts guiding the research, leading community partners to do much of the leg work, e.g., doing interviews and collecting data that serves in the model the researcher largely formed. This can be criticized by some, including me, as too often replicating the hierarchies PAR often claims to be studying, with community partner’s input largely relegated to data collection, not the design of research methodology and interpretation of that data (2). Our process flipped this dynamic, with the community researchers choosing to center the analysis on how drug criminalization impacts social capital and community capacity to build selfgoverned institutions, with the goal of creating recommendations for how drug policy can repair this harm by investing in communities most impacted by drug criminalization to exercise self-determination. The traditional researchers then filled in much leg work, engaging in an extensive literature review process to see what traditional academics had to say on this issue (synopsis: not much) then engaging in qualitative research with a representative cross-section of community experts. Finally, expertise was defined beyond personal experience or academic/professional expertise alone, but specifically with folks who have demonstrated a track record of not only working on addiction, but also working on the issue in a way that reflects the culture of the impacted communities and their work. Specifically, having an analysis of the collective impact of criminalization on hurting community institutions’ capacity to practice self-determination (though collective disinvestment from community organizations and through the nonprofit industrial complex) has impacted their work. This work was framed through the lens of engagement between community scholars guiding the process through the use of African-Centered Research paradigm and traditional academics incorporating elements of these approaches into their work (3). By presenting the voices of community experts traditionally marginalized in drug policy spaces, our research offers an opportunity to start the process of bringing tools of analysis from the black radical tradition into drug decriminalization/harm reduction work. 5 of 55
Decriminalize Blackness First “It’s tough for me because I live in a community, and I have a child and I don’t think that everyone should just be out here selling drugs. I’ve seen first-hand people killing each other over drugs and that has to stop as well. I’m not anti-(de)criminalization of substances, but we can't (de)criminalize and not improve the conditions that facilitate the criminality at the same time. It places the blame on people, usually people of color, people who are poor, people who have less education. It doesn’t fall on the powers that be and the people with money.” The quote above encapsulates a common sentiment among interviewees. Interviewees overwhelmingly saw overdose, addiction, and criminalization as an expression of a system of oppression, and expressed concerns the decrim didn’t speak explicitly to this system of oppression. Without a clear theory of redistribution of investment tied to decrim, the policy, while receiving support, was also seen as not giving the infrastructure for individuals to fight these systems. Interviewees talked about policing being a system of anti-black violence stemming from slave patrols, even mentioning well-known instances in Baltimore's recent history where the police themselves were implicated in selling the very drugs progressive advocates seek to decriminalize (4). If policing is seen as not driven by bad policy, but as an extension of a larger societal thrust of anti-blackness, then the benefit of eliminating possession offenses would seem to be minimal, a finding receiving academic support from analyses observed that after the decriminalization of cannabis, some Maryland police departments compensated for lower cannabis arrests for increased arrests for other offenses (5). Advocates discussed police brutality and fights for police accountability. Drug decriminalization advocates, while speaking on the subject occasionally, were not seen as trusted allies in the long fight to deconstruct the system of racist social control, examples of anti-Black violence beyond policing, schooling, child welfare systems, gentrification, and the non-profit industrial complex. Our interviews made it clear, it is not that they were against the decriminalization of drugs, but that until decrim advocates expressed a larger commitment to helping their fight against the criminalization of being Black in America, decriminalization of drugs would not be their top concern. 6 of 55
Page 1 and 2: THE COMMUNAL IMPACTS OF DRUG CRIMIN
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgements We would like to t
Page 5: “groupthink”. Also, I realize t
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 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:
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The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

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