At a press event announcing new congressional legislation calling on the federal government to provide reparations to the descendants of enslaved American families, lawmakers and advocates emphasized the country’s long history of structural discrimination against Black people—including through the ongoing criminal war on drugs.
Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) and other lawmakers and reform advocates spoke on Thursday in support of the newly reintroduced measure, which according to a release from Lee’s office “seeks to advance federal reparations, support existing reparatory justice efforts…and provide further momentum to reparations efforts at the state and local levels.”
“As a descendant of my enslaved ancestors, I am deeply humbled to reintroduce the Reparations Now Resolution,” Lee said in a statement. “Black folks are owed more than thoughts and prayers—we are owed restitution and justice to repair the government-sanctioned harm that has plagued our communities for generations.”
The resolution itself states that “Black people are still presumed dangerous and therefore are systematically targeted and criminalized under our legal system, including through the war on drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing laws, the prosecution of children as adults, and the disproportionate targeting, stopping, and arresting of Black people by law enforcement.”
At the event, former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO)—who filed an earlier version of the resolution in 2023—pointed to America’s history of drug criminalization as one of the many causes underlying the racial wealth gap today, which she said continues to hold back Black Americans and their families.
“The wealth gap today…it didn’t fall from the sky,” Bush said. “It is a direct result of chattel slavery, of Jim Crow, of redlining, of the war on drugs, of mass incarceration.”
The system, she added, is “designed meticulously, designed violently, to hold, to keep, to ensure that Black people would be poor and stay poor and be powerless and oppressed.”
“And every day that we fail to repair the harm, we compound it,” Bush said.
In her 2023 resolution, Bush similarly invoked the U.S.’s “moral and legal obligation to provide reparations for the enslavement of Africans and its lasting harm.”
In 2021, Bush also co-sponsored the first-ever congressional bill to decriminalize all drugs at the federal level, saying at the time that it was part of the effort “to end the war on our people.”
Two years later, she and Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) refiled the proposal, dubbed the Drug Policy Reform Act.
“Today we say what too many are too afraid to say: Reparations Now,” Bush said in a statement about the new resolution. “Until there is repair, there will be no justice, and where there is no justice, we will continue to fight.”
Among others who spoke at Thursday’s event were Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) along with representatives of a variety of advocacy organizations.
“The impact of slavery and generations of racist policies didn’t end with the Civil Rights Movement. We still see the consequences today in wealth inequality, in access to healthcare and education, and in the criminal justice system. That’s why I support the Reparations Now Resolution,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said in a press release. “This bill is about acknowledging the truth of this country’s history and taking meaningful steps to repair the harm. This is one of many ways that we can create real change in the lives of Black families today and for generations to come.”
One of the groups appearing Thursday in support of the new resolution was Marijuana Justice, led by co-founder and executive director Chelsea Higgs Wise, who in support of reparations detailed a litany of governmental abuses against Black communities over the country’s history.
As for prohibition, the Virginia-based advocate said that the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) “has allowed Virginia to arrest over 20,000 people a year, up until 2020, feeding this monster of mass incarceration—mostly Black people, filling the court dockets, four times the rate as white folks.”
In comments to Marijuana Moment afterward, Higgs Wise further called the country’s war on drugs “a vestige of American slavery.”
“The outlawing of cannabis and other drugs have not only impacted Black people’s loss of economic opportunities but also opened the door for mass criminalization and incarceration,” she said. “Since prohibition’s inception, it’s been used as a tool to continue the harms attached to this country’s founding.”
Another piece of legislation lawmakers and advocates drew attention to at Thursday’s press event was HB 40, which would create a federal commission to study and make recommendations on reparations for Black Americans.
At the state level, meanwhile, some jurisdictions have considered reparations of their own.
In California, for example, a task force in 2023 officially recommended the legislature pass reparations legislation to compensate about two million Black Americans with a total of nearly $228 billion for racially disproportionate harms that resulted from the war on drugs.
In Washington, D.C., meanwhile, a 2023 proposal in the D.C. City Council would have paid cash restitution to “residents who were arrested, convicted, or incarcerated for a cannabis-related offense in the District prior to March 27, 2015,” or their spouses or children.
Last year, rapper Killer Mike suggested on a talk show appearance that Black people could be given control over America’s marijuana industry as a way to redress racial harm.
As for drug reform at the federal level, President Trump’s new pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) declined to commit this week to rescheduling marijuana or say how he’d approach federal enforcement in states that have legalized cannabis.
Asked by Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Alex Padilla (D-CA) about his position on that proposal, the nominee for DEA administrator, Terrance Cole—who has previously voiced concerns about the dangers of marijuana and linked its use to higher suicide risk among youth—simply said that, if confirmed, he will “give the matter careful consideration after consulting with appropriate personnel within the Drug Enforcement Administration, familiarizing myself with the current status of the regulatory process, and reviewing all relevant information.”
Cole said during an in-person hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that examining the rescheduling proposal will be “one of my first priorities” if he’s confirmed for the role, saying it’s “time to move forward” on the stalled process—but again without clarifying what end result he would like to see.
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The post Congressional Resolution On Reparations For Black Americans Points To War On Drugs As A Key Cause Of Ongoing Disparities appeared first on Marijuana Moment.
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