Business
Study Reveals California Law Enforcement More Likely To Arrest Black Teens
A new report examines the racial disparities that exist among California law enforcement agencies.
An annual report published on Jan. 1 by the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (RIPA) made many observations about California’s law enforcement officers. This is the sixth report since RIPA was formed in 2016, which collects data about general policing and ways to eliminate unlawful practices.
“Over the past four years, the data collected under the Racial and Identity Profiling Act has provided empirical evidence showing disparities in policing throughout California,” the report states. “This year’s data demonstrates the same trends in disparities for all aspects of law enforcement stops, from the reason for stop to actions taken during stop to results of stop.”
The report spans stop data that occurred between January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021, and analyzes information from 58 law enforcement agencies and the negative impacts of citizen interactions with police, with a focus on youth.
In the 2021 timeframe, more than 3.1 million stops were reported. In terms of “perceived” race or ethnicity, police agencies states that 42.2% were Hispanic/Latine(x), 30% white, 15% Black, 5.3% Asian, 4.8% Middle Eastern/South Asian, 1% multiracial, 0.5% Pacific Islander, and 0.3% Native American. Additionally, 72.1% were cisgendered male and 27.5% cisgendered female, making up 99.7% of all stops.
Reasons for a law enforcement “stop” include either a traffic violation (86.6%), or a reasonable suspicion of being engaged in criminal activity (10.5%). Black individuals had the highest percentage of stops in regard to “reasonable suspicion” at 16.2%, but also the lowest proportion of stops for traffic violations (80.5%).
The RIPA Board found that Black and Hispanic/Latine(x) individuals were more likely to have force used against them compared to White individuals. Black teens between the ages of 10-14 and 15-17 experienced the highest rate of being searched by police (20.1%), detained (17.9%), and handcuffed (15.4%), and “removed from a vehicle by order” (7.6%).
Black adolescents were detained curbside or in a patrol car 36.2%-44.5% of the time, searched 39.9%-42.4% of the time, handcuffed 33.5-36.5% of the time. Ultimately, this data shows that teens who are perceived to be Black were searched six times the rate of White adolescents, and those perceived to be Hispanic/Latine(x) were searched four times more.
The interactions that teens have with law enforcement, including repeat interactions, impact those individuals’ mental health. “Research shows that the types of contact and frequency of involuntary contacts with law enforcement may have a harmful impact on the individual stopped, triggering stress responses, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and other related negative mental health impacts,” the report states. “This research suggests that racial and identity profiling goes beyond the criminal legal system and policing; it is also a critical public health issue.”
“Based on the research, the Board believes that public health officials and policymakers should treat racial and identity profiling and adverse policing as significant public health issues. It is imperative to recognize that police interactions can negatively affect the mental and physical health of individuals who are Black, Hispanic/Latine(x), Indigenous, and people of color. Doing so could help significantly reduce the high stress, community fragmentation, and poor health outcomes among community members who experience targeting of their neighborhoods and aggressive policing practices. Given this, adequate resources should be invested to understand and address the health implications of racial and identity profiling.”
This report covers a variety of information relative to the discussion of how law enforcement abuses the system through pretextual stops or searches, an act where an officer stops an individual for a minor violation in order to closer “investigate a hunch regarding a different crime that by itself would not amount to reasonable suspicion or probable cause.”
While the report does not specifically delve into details in regards to cannabis, The Washington Post published a story in October 2022 about the racial disparities in law enforcement in Virginia. Although the state legalized adult-use cannabis in July 2021, the article put a spotlight on how Virginia police are still more likely to arrest Black people more than White people for cannabis-related offenses.
An analysis of cannabis arrests by the New York Police Department (NYPD) in 2020 showed that 94% of all cannabis-related arrests impacted people of color. Overall, cannabis arrests by the NYPD in 2022 have been reduced, but arrests were still higher for those perceived as Black or Hispanic.
In April 2020, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published an extensive report showing the disparity of arrests for Black individuals, showing that arrests are still widespread and racial disparities are still common throughout the country, both in states with legal or decriminalized cannabis.
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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