{"id":39597,"date":"2019-11-19T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/11\/19\/how-exceptions-to-legalization-keep-the-drug-war-alive\/"},"modified":"2019-11-19T12:35:58","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T20:35:58","slug":"how-exceptions-to-legalization-keep-the-drug-war-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2019\/11\/19\/how-exceptions-to-legalization-keep-the-drug-war-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"How Exceptions to Legalization Keep the Drug War Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Cannabis prohibition made life worse for people of color, who were (and still are!) far more likely than whites to be arrested and incarcerated for cannabis, despite similar rates of use.<\/p>\n

Legalization was supposed to change that,\u00a0but as the Chicago Housing Authority is the latest to demonstrate<\/a>, American society is very good at figuring out ways to ensure that legalization simply doesn\u2019t apply to people of color.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, CHA mailed warning letters to the 63,000 households either living in state-owned public housing or receiving government subsidies to live on private property. Cannabis is legal for\u00a0adults 21 and over in Illinois on Jan. 1, 2020<\/a>, but not on CHA property and not in CHA-subsidized apartments, the agency announced.<\/p>\n

\u201c[D]rug-related criminal activity,\u201d including \u201cthe use and\/or possession of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes,\u201d is an offense grave enough for the CHA to \u201cTERMINATE all assistance\u201d for the household in question, the letter read,\u00a0according to the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

This shit’s racist as hell https:\/\/t.co\/m2Dt91rraK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Abolish Prison except for Stephen Miller account (@WDavidWork) November 9, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States. According to a 2003 estimate, almost 90% of CHA residents are black. Thus, in a very large city, for a significant portion of the population most negatively impacted by cannabis prohibition, marijuana legalization remains a crime \u2014 and one with penalties worse than running a stop light or even simple assault, as it could result in innocent people losing their housing and becoming homeless.<\/p>\n

In its letter, CHA pinned responsibility for a tenant\u2019s \u201cguest\u201d or person \u201cunder [their] control,\u201d the effect of which is to create large carve-outs or \u201cexceptions\u201d for legalization that happen to apply to mostly people of color, the exact people done most wrong under prohibition.<\/p>\n

The CHA\u2019s reasoning for the draconian stance on weed is that since the CHA receives money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, it must enforce and obey federal law. If it does not, and allows residents to engage in state-legal conduct, it risks losing federal funding.<\/p>\n

This or a similar line of reasoning is the same excuse given by\u00a0schools<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0hospitals<\/a>\u00a0across the country. In one particularly egregious example, an Arizona school used a positive drug test to expel a student from school. In her case, to yank her out of class and haul her before administrators \u201clike a criminal,\u201d\u00a0as she told USA Today<\/a>. And in some jurisdictions, law-enforcement\u00a0has twisted the interpretation sufficiently<\/a>\u00a0to continue to effect arrests on campuses for state-legal cannabis.<\/p>\n

In some states, like Connecticut<\/a>, state law specifically forbids public or private universities from declining to participate in legalization. But as USA Today pointed out, a nursing student from Sacred Heart University, removed from school after a positive cannabis test despite being a legal medical-cannabis patient, those \u201cprotections\u201d are often only validated following a costly and expensive lawsuit.<\/p>\n

It is probably unfair to expect public-housing residents to have the resources to fight legalization exceptions in court. And it\u2019s also unclear if the reasoning given by housing authorities, hospitals, or schools is valid.\u00a0While it is well-known<\/a>\u00a0that many universities decline to study cannabis to not lose federal funding, there are not any known cases of an institution losing federal funding because it allowed a patient, or a resident, or anyone else to use cannabis in accordance with state law.<\/p>\n

Certain classes of worker have also had to fight in courts to \u201cenjoy\u201d the rights afforded to them under medical or recreational cannabis laws. There are numerous examples in multiple states of employees terminated or qualified job candidates rejected for positions because of legal cannabis use.\u00a0Many have had jobs restored or won settlements after filing suit<\/a>, but the fact that a business felt comfortable firing an employee for using cannabis legally, off of job hours, is further evidence that legalization often comes with an unwritten \u201cexceptions apply\u201d disclaimer.<\/p>\n

In these ways, individuals are forced to consider risking real penalties in order to pursue legal conduct. That is a chilling effect that serves to render the law moot, and one that is not felt equally throughout society. And as usual, those most likely to suffer for legal choices are the same people who suffered when it was illegal \u2014 or maybe just \u201cless\u201d illegal.<\/p>\n

TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0has your housing situation ever been compromised due to your cannabis use?<\/p>\n

The post How Exceptions to Legalization Keep the Drug War Alive<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n


\n
\nRead More: How Exceptions to Legalization Keep the Drug War Alive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cannabis prohibition made life worse for people of color, who were (and still are!) far more likely than whites to be arrested and incarcerated for cannabis, despite similar rates of use. Legalization was supposed to change that,\u00a0but as the Chicago Housing Authority is the latest to demonstrate, American society isContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,2544,12862,484,1051,90,369,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39598,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39597\/revisions\/39598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}