Below is a letter that I sent to the Roanoke Times and the Washington Post newspapers yesterday.
Dear Editor:
The article on Virginia marijuana arrests by Tom Jackman of the Washington Post that appeared in the Roanoke Times a few days ago is misleading. Referencing a report by the Drug Policy Alliance, the article duly noted that marijuana arrests are rising sharply in Virginia, while several states are moving toward the decriminalization of marijuana. Jackman goes on to report that blacks were 82 percent of the increase, at 47 percent of the arrests between 2003 and 2013, although blacks are only 20 percent of the population. However, the article neglected to point out that these arrest rates are much higher for blacks than their proportion of the offenses warranted.
The report by the Drug Policy Alliance also indicated that in Virginia marijuana use by blacks is only 24 percent greater than whites, yet black Virginians are arrested at a rate 233 percent greater than that of whites. By omitting this key fact, the article in your paper suggests that blacks in Virginia commit marijuana offenses at rates commensurate with these disparate arrest rates. They do not, and if black marijuana offenders in Virginia had been arrested in 2013 at the same rate as white offenders over 7,000 blacks would not have been arrested and would not have these offenses on their records. While I do not argue that any offenders not be charged, I am arguing that black offenders should not be charged at such disproportionately higher rates—and that this point should be noted in such an article.