Dispensaries, Discrepancies, and Discrimination

  

Marijuana is making its rounds around the web. And it seems like there is more and more movement to try and make it legal and stop the harassment of police at dispensaries.

Here are a few articles worth noting:

SF Weekly's Blog posted "Cops Claim Pot Clubs are Crime Magnets, Won't Provide Evidence To Back It Up" today (Wednesday, May 12, 2010).

The gist of the article is in the headlines. SFPD claims that the medical marijuana dispensaries on Ocean Avenue bring crime to the neighborhood. As someone deeply familiar with Ocean Avenue and the OMI, really?

My dear friend is a community organizer of the OMI. She sits on the Ocean Avenue Revitalization Collaborative, and she is actively involved in creating the OMI's cultural legacy. She has been doing this work since she was born, and she was born in the OMI over 50 years ago. I've worked with her for years, many of which have been supporting her work in the OMI. Never have I heard this issue mentioned. And trust me, I hear ALL the gossip of Ocean Avenue. Currently, the most pressing issue is whether or not Ocean Avenue wants to become a Community Benefit District.

What concerns me about this article is the start of an unsubstantiated assault on medical marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco by SFPD, specifically by Police Chief Gascon. I have lived in San Francisco for over 12 years doing community work all of those years. One thing I have learned in that time is San Francisco is overwhelmingly pro-marijuana.

This assault on legal establishments makes me cringe. It seems only a short step until more local laws are infringed upon.

Need a reminder? San Francisco is, on paper, a Sanctuary City. However, defining what made San Francisco a Sanctuary City, it used to mean city agencies not cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is changing. The new ICE Secure Communities initiative is a prime example. Secure Communities mandates that any time someone is booked by local or state law enforcement their fingerprints be compared to biometrics in the US Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Securities databases. It ties the hands of San Francisco to enforce its own Sanctuary City Policy. (Want more information? Click here and here.)

Then, I came across "Why Ending Marijuana Prohibition Is a Racial Justice Issue" an article in Race in America, a part of Change.org. 

Here are a couple of key quotes:

Of the 1.8 million drug arrests made last year, 750,000 were for nothing more than possession of a small amount of marijuana. That represents more than 40% of all drug arrests. The best available national evidence indicates that roughly the same proportion of blacks and whites use marijuana — but that black people are roughly three times more likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana. [...]

What's difficult to understand is how and why the number of people arrested annually for marijuana possession has roughly doubled during the past 20 years — even as support for ending marijuana prohibition has also doubled during the same period of time. [...]

In California, 61,400 people were arrested for marijuana possession in 2008, a 300% increase since 1990. In California, black people made up less than 7% of the state population but 22% of people arrested for all marijuana offenses and 33% of all marijuana felony arrests in 2008. More black people are arrested in California for marijuana felonies than whites, although there are six times more whites in the state population — and huge numbers of white people involved in growing and selling marijuana.

This is alarming and makes even a stronger case for why SFPD and Police Chief Gascon should stop assaulting legal establishments, especially establishments in historically black and brown neighborhoods. Ocean View was one of the few places after World War II where black/African American families could afford to purchase a home. During the 1960s, more black/African American families moved to the neighborhood. There is cultural and historical significance to Ocean View. Picking on the dispensaries on Ocean Avenue is an assault on black and brown people.

We do need to solve the problems of crime and violence. Discriminating against people of color and legal dispensaries doesn't do this. Instead, it reinforces the tension between SFPD and communities of color, and it continues the cycle of distrust.

Maybe, instead, we could learn something from the dispensaries. I know I have never seen a more diverse group of people communing between four walls. Never. It is amazing to behold. They may be more of the solution than the problem than we even know.

Here's to hoping and toking.

Justice Rarely Found

   
We went to see a show at one of the venues on Market Street on evening. We exited somewhat disappointed by enjoying the evening none the less when we saw a white yuppie-ish woman pushing a black homeless woman over. The cops descended on the conflict like pigeons to breadcrumbs. They immediately went after the black woman.

I looked at my friend debating what to do with only hunched eyebrows and slightly squinted eyes. Her return gaze said "Keep to yourself". The brief look was all I needed to enter the middle of the conflict. When she said no, I always said go.

"Excuse me, but I am a witness. I saw what happened," I interjected to the police. An officer, not the one cuffing the homeless woman, approached with an air of annoyance and the body language of "Back the fuck off." I persisted.

"The white woman," and here the supposed "victim" started shifting on her feet, eyes darting between me and the woman she pushes, "started it all."

"Excuse me sir, but we don't need any help right now."

I was befuddled. My only interactions with police until that point was casual. I was in my early twenties, and I tended to only see the side of the police meant for white folks: "law enforcer", "hero", "authority". I hadn't yet witnessed the "selective enforcer", "racist", or "authoritarian". That was the land of literature, movies, news articles, and research papers.

"But she," and I pointed to the white woman, "started it. She pushed the other woman."

"If you don't back up right now, you too will be arrested." His voice deepened and grew gruff and blunt with no hint of truth-seeking.

"But she started it. What don't you understand about that?"

The white blond woman started crying. My friend pulled my arm begging me to leave; she had seen this side of the police before and knew it was time to go. The officer started to grab my other arm. I pulled away thanks to my defiance towards authority entering dangerous territory. I was about to ask for a badge number and the station he worked out of when my friend hailed a taxi and demanded to leave.

As I entered the cab, I noticed the homeless woman with her face on the ground crying, an officer's knee in her back. The white woman was telling another police officer she'd like to press harassment charges. I felt helpless, distance growing between me and the incident.

I wanted justice terribly. I wanted to lend a voice where I could. But I realized that justice, especially institutional justice, is rarely given or found. Rather, we find justice in those small moments of voice even when they aren't heard. And institutional justice? It resides only in the lands of Batman and fiction.

The Damned Unite

Our favorite late night activity occurred on our balcony. We lived on Geary between Larkin and Hyde before the police cleaned it up. (I don't think they were too successful.) Our street was the battleground between the trans* prostitutes of Post Street and the bio-girl hookers of O'Farrell Street. There were lots of fights and yelling.

The activity was simple. We sat on our balcony and when the police came around yelled, "5-0!" They'd duck behind cars, hop in to the only open convenience store (it was only open from 11pm to 5am), try to pull down their non-existent skirts, start walking faster. We did it every weekend.

I miss those nights. It connected me to parts of life other condemn. I am comfortable there for I, too, have been condemned. And the damned must unite.