This week, the ACLU released a new update to a 2013 report on the cost of cannabis enforcement across the United States, both in terms of costs and the impact on individual lives. Unsurprisingly, the report shows that the war on cannabis rages on: nationally, law enforcement made more than 6.1 million cannabis-related arrests from 2010 to 2018 - more arrests than for all violent crimes combined. These arrests eat up an enormous amount of resources from law enforcement and the criminal legal system and fall most heavily on people of color.  

While extreme racial disparities persist in cannabis arrests all across the country, Illinois’ record is particularly poor. While people of different races use and sell drugs at similar rates, people of color are much more likely than whites to be arrested, convicted, incarcerated, and harshly sentenced for drug offenses. Black residents of Illinois were seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for cannabis possession before the State regulated purchase and possession. Illinois had the third highest rate of bias in cannabis arrests in the United States, surpassed only by Montana and Kentucky. 

It is no longer debatable that the War on Drugs has been a dismal failure, ravaging communities of color and diverting resources from public health, including substance abuse treatment.  Illinois took a big step forward last year with its new law legalizing cannabis for adult use - but it was only one step. A person can still be arrested, fined, or lose their housing, job or vehicle for a cannabis violation. This new report makes clear that we must continue to monitor data to ensure that residual cannabis enforcement is not conducted in a discriminatory fashion.  
 
It is time to take the next step. Harsh laws about the possession of other drugs has the same disproportionate impact on minority communities and entangles hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal legal system every year at a tremendous cost. Black communities continue to bear the overwhelming brunt of enforcement of Illinois’ antiquated drug laws, and are hardest-hit by overdose fatalities. 

Despite decades of responding to drug use with increasingly harsh punishments, Illinois is still experiencing unprecedented numbers of fatal overdoses and a growing need for access to addiction treatment. It is clear that felony convictions don’t stop people from using or selling drugs, they only limit people’s opportunities for employment and education.

Illinois’ current level of incarceration is unsustainable, especially in the time of a massive public health crisis. This is why we must continue working to reduce criminal penalties for drug offenses. By reclassifying small-scale drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor, we can free up resources currently wasted on imprisonment to help people access health services in the communities where they live.

Illinois jails are dangerous and overcrowded, a reality clearer now that we are facing the COVID-19 pandemic. These facilities are no place to send people who need treatment for health needs. It is time for Illinois to start treating addiction as a critical public health issue and stop incarcerating people for drug possession.

Our client Souleymane Dembele has been released from ICE custody just days after the filing of a lawsuit on his behalf. Souleymane, husband to a lawful resident and father to three U.S. citizen children, suffers from pre-existing medical conditions. He was held by ICE at the McHenry County Jail, where conditions put him at risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19.
 
Last Friday, the ACLU of Illinois, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath LLP filed a lawsuit in a federal district court in Chicago on behalf of Mr. Dembele and another vulnerable immigrant. The lawsuit seeks to enforce these individuals’ due process rights and argues for their immediate release because crowded and unsanitary conditions in the McHenry County Jail place them at significant risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19. Mr. Dembele suffers from medical conditions that are recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to place people at high risk of COVID-19 complications.
 
After the lawsuit was filed, the ACLU was notified by the government that Mr. Dembele would be released. The second man who sued is still detained.
 
“This is a truly great day for Mr. Dembele, his wife and his children – who lived each day in fear that his life was at risk in the McHenry County Jail,” said Nusrat Jahan Choudhury, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois. “On the day we filed this suit for Mr. Dembele, a senior ICE official told members of Congress the agency did not plan to release any more immigrants. ICE clearly is not doing enough to ensure that immigration detention does not amount to a death sentence for vulnerable people. Immigration detention continues to unnecessarily put immigrants, facility staff, and the surrounding community at risk.”
 
Mr. Dembele is under a doctor’s care for hypertension and pre-diabetes.

Black residents of Illinois were seven times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession in Illinois before the State regulated purchase and possession at the beginning of this year. In fact, Illinois had the third highest rate of bias in cannabis arrests in the United States, surpassed only by Montana and Kentucky. The ACLU of Illinois noted these figures today in calling for continued vigilance to assure that remaining enforcement of cannabis in Illinois not carry on this legacy of discrimination. 

The data about Illinois’ enforcement is contained in a new national report on cannabis issued by the American Civil Liberties Union. The report, A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform details cannabis possession arrests from 2010 to 2018 and updates our unprecedented national report published in 2013, The War on Marijuana in Black and White.  

“The legacy of rank bias in how we enforced cannabis laws in Illinois is clear,” said Ben Ruddell, Criminal Justice Policy Director, ACLU of Illinois. “We should redouble our efforts to ensure that this sort of racially disproportionate policing does not continue under the new State law, especially in those parts of the state where the track record is so abysmal.” 

Racial disparities in a number of Illinois counties were even more jarring. Black people were 43 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession in Tazwell County; it was 24 times more likely in Peoria County and nearly 20 times more likely in Whiteside County.  

Across the U.S., law enforcement made more than 6.1 million cannabis-related arrests from 2010 to 2018, and nationally in 2018, law enforcement made more cannabis arrests than for all violent crimes combined. Despite legalization in a number of states, it is not clear that cannabis arrests are trending downward nationally. National arrest rates have actually risen in the past few years, with almost 100,000 more arrests in 2018 than 2015.

“A big reason for our legislation was to address racial disparities in the way cannabis laws were enforced,” said State Representative Kelly Cassidy, lead sponsor of the cannabis legalization law in Illinois. “This data shows how badly we needed to take that step. But our work is not done. We need to ensure that laws around cannabis or other drugs are not enforced with this same sort of bias.”  

For the full report, click here.