Items tagged with racism

Item title Description
UK drug laws used as tool of systemic racism, says ex-No 10 adviser [29.09.2021] Britain’s drug laws are racist and cause “high levels of mental health harm” among black people, a former No 10 race adviser has said. Simon Woolley ...
Met may change stop and search tactics on cannabis possession [18.03.2021] The Metropolitan police could change how it deals with cannabis possession amid concerns stop and search powers damage community relations, and yield ...
Police routinely use drug powers to 'bully people', says former Chief Inspector [04.09.2020] A former chief inspector has said he believes that over a third of drug stop-and-searches by UK police are used “as an excuse to harass people”, afte ...
Campaigners demand reform as official figures show one in five found guilty of cannabis possession is black [03.08.2020] One in five of those found guilty of cannabis possession in England and Wales last year was black, official figures show, prompting accusations of ra ...
Library of Congress highlights racist news coverage used to justify criminalizing marijuana a century ago [16.06.2020] The Library of Congress (LOC) is documenting racist depictions of marijuana in early 20th century news coverage that helped to drive the criminalizat ...
Criminalization that never should have been: Cannabis [12.06.2020] As the House debates ways to reform policing in the United States, it’s critical that we not only analyze the structures under which law enforcement ...
NSW police pursue 80% of Indigenous people caught with cannabis through courts [10.06.2020] Police in New South Wales pursue more than 80% of Indigenous people found with small amounts of cannabis through the courts while letting others off ...
Illinois announces $31 million In marijuana revenue-funded grants to repair drug war’s harms [19.05.2020] Illinois is putting its marijuana money where its mouth is, announcing that $31.5 million in restorative justice grants are now available thanks to t ...
'Instead of doctors, they send police to kill us': locked-down Rio faces deadly raids [18.05.2020] Police operations and body bags are nothing new to Rio, where state police killed a record 1,810 people last year, nearly five a day. But with the ci ...
‘License to Kill’: Inside Rio’s record year of police killings [18.05.2020] Officially, the police in Brazil are allowed to use lethal force only to confront an imminent threat. But an analysis of four dozen police killings i ...
Local governments are trying to make the cannabis industry less racist [17.10.2019] Local governments looking to legalize marijuana across the nation are starting to think about racial equity—at a time when a multi-billion dollar can ...
Congressional committee discusses how to legalize cannabis [10.07.2019] In a first-of-its-kind hearing, a key congressional committee met to discuss how to finally put an end to federal cannabis prohibition. Titled Mariju ...
Final push to legalize pot fails in New York [19.06.2019] New York’s plan to legalize marijuana this year collapsed, dashing hopes for a potential billion-dollar industry that supporters said would create jo ...
Cannabis legalization must include cannabis equity [14.05.2019] Canada’s federal government is currently working to pass a bill that would provide pardons for people convicted of minor cannabis possession. With a ...
Racial bias in police stop and search getting worse, report reveals [13.10.2018] Black Britons are increasingly likely to be stopped and searched by police compared with white people, according to shocking new figures that challen ...
South African court frees cannabis from colonial and apartheid past [23.09.2018] A ruling by the South African Constitutional Court opens the way for decriminalising private use of cannabis, locally known as “dagga”. It marks a de ...
High hopes: Who will benefit from NZ's legal cannabis industry? [05.07.2018] In New Zealand, it’s Māori communities who have been hit by racial bias in drug policing. Even when accounting for rates of use, at every stage of th ...
Oregon bill decriminalizes possession of heroin, cocaine and other drugs [11.07.2017] The Oregon legislature passed a bill that reclassifies possession of several drugs from a felony to a misdemeanor, reducing the punishments and expan ...
Toronto marijuana arrests reveal ‘startling’ racial divide [06.07.2017] Black people with no history of criminal convictions have been three times more likely to be arrested by Toronto police for possession of small amoun ...
Dagga Judgment: There are less drastic ways to deal with its harmful effects [04.05.2017] Until 1921 dagga was sold openly by mine storekeepers in the towns and grew wild in much of South Africa. It was banned partly because it was feared ...
Stop and search still targets black people, police watchdog says [20.09.2016] Police stops of black people are still at an “eye-watering” level compared with white people, the official police watchdog said and promised a fresh ...
Was Nixon's war on drugs a racially motivated crusade? [28.03.2016] Last week, the internet exploded with a fairly shocking allegation: President Richard Nixon began America's war on drugs to criminalize black people ...
The United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs in 2016 [16.02.2015] In April 2016, representatives of the world’s nations will gather to evaluate drug policy in a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGAS ...
The United States rethinks draconian drug sentencing policies [27.01.2015] Across the Americas, an unprecedented debate on drug policy reform is underway. While a regional consensus on what form those reforms should take rem ...
The federal marijuana ban is rooted in myth and xenophobia [28.07.2014] The federal law that makes possession of marijuana a crime has its origins in legislation that was passed in an atmosphere of hysteria during the 193 ...
The Rise and Decline of Cannabis Prohibition [10.03.2014] The cannabis plant has been used for spiritual, medicinal and recreational purposes since the early days of civilization. In this report the Transnat ...
Racism's hidden history in the war on drugs [02.01.2013] The first anti-drug law in the US was a local law in San Francisco passed in 1875, outlawing the smoking of opium and directed at the Chinese. Mariju ...
75 years of racial control: happy birthday marijuana prohibition [27.09.2012] As we approach the 75th anniversary of marijuana prohibition in the United States on October 1, it is important to remember why marijuana was deemed ...
Beneath the underdog [01.07.2011] The United States has exported a counter-productive and destructive model to Latin America through the drug war. This is made clear in Systems Overlo ...
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