LA Times Editors Patronizes Minorities: "Do Something Else"

We read it... and then read it again... then took a walk around the block before reading it again.

Sure enough, it hits right on the WTF nerve every time.

By the title of its editorial "Can Los Angeles repair the damage done by the war on marijuana?", we expected an article about how minorities have been harmed by drug prosecutions during cannabis prohibition.

"...African Americans comprise less than 10% of the population in L.A. Yet between 2000 and 2017, blacks represented 40% of marijuana-related arrests. Latinos made up 44% of arrests. Whites made up only 16% of arrests, according to a city consultant’s analysis of Los Angeles Police Department data."

Very nice recitation of statistics you Googled this morning, LA Times Editors, but our readers will quickly drill down to the code you've embedded: "...war on marijuana" and "...use marijuana at approximately the same rates.." Yes, that word again.

The time for a major US publication to use the racist word "marijuana" interchangeably with its proper name CANNABIS, is over, LA Times. The anti-minority-by-design word marijuana has stained our laws and our public discourse for a century. There are lots of other words from those bygone days that decent people don't use any more. Add 'marijuana' to that list.

Use of that word, freighted with suspicion against minorities, is morally corrupt, LA Times Editors. The fact that minorities have suffered disproportionately is a direct result of the entire cannabis prohibition process being morally corrupt. From day 1 in 1937, through the Controlled Substances schedules where cannabis is "more dangerous" than cocaine or methamphetamine.

You know all of this. You already showed us you know how to use Google.

But the LA Times Editors were not done showing their true colors:

"Without question, Los Angeles ought to use a portion of future marijuana tax revenue to help communities that have been disproportionately targeted for marijuana enforcement. Tax money could fund drug education and treatment, legal clinics to help people expunge their marijuana conviction records, and reentry programs for individuals leaving prison." (Italics added).

To be clear, the suggestion is that populations of color can have charity, but not business training to help them enter the burgeoning cannabis industry (estimated $6Billion in California alone?) Really, LA Times?

And the dagger to the heart:

"It’s one thing to target assistance broadly to communities that have felt the impacts of unequal enforcement. It’s another thing to reward people who broke the law and got caught by giving them priority over people who did not break the law. That doesn’t seem fair. Nor does it seem like a great idea to incentivize people with convictions for selling or possessing marijuana to return to the drug trade — why not help them enter other businesses instead?" (Italics added)

So let's see - a corrupt system has unfairly targeted minorities, ruining lives and communities. Now that that system is attempting to come into the light of legalization and regulation as a multi-billion-dollar industry, those same minorities should not benefit from this opportunity either.

LA Times Grade: P for Patronizing