It’s clear that cannabis consumers are targeted in Pennsylvania for arrest and the striking racial disparities to enforcement are getting worse.
Author: Chris Goldstein, Regional NORML Organizer
“I feel exasperated that lawmakers have failed to enact this common sense policy reform,” said Delaware NORML’s Executive Director Laura Sharer. “While we the people are committed to ending prohibition in Delaware, it’s clear that our process and some of our lawmakers aren’t up to the task.”
It took a decade of legislative politics and nearly three million voters changing the New Jersey state constitution to end cannabis prohibition in the Garden State.
“Every single day that Harrisburg delays there are Pennsylvanians charged with marijuana possession and paraphernalia offenses.”
Black people make up 12 percent of the population but 32 percent of marijuana arrests.
This is likely a result of a 2014 ordinance decriminalizing possession along with new procedures adopted by District Attorney Larry Krasner, a civil rights attorney elected in 2017.
In 2018 there were nearly 24,000 adults arrested for less than 30 grams of cannabis. The new data shows 19,990 adults arrested for the same offense in 2019.