The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace
September 24, 2014 10:19 PM Subscribe
"On a May night in 2011, a man was murdered — shot — in a basement just outside Newark, N.J. Cash and marijuana were found at the scene...Robert Peace, a 30-year-old African-American, was a Yale University graduate and an almost straight-A student in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He also dealt marijuana." (slNPR)
NY Times: Man Down posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:21 PM on September 24, 2014 [3 favorites]
That one man can contain such contradictions makes for an astonishing, tragic story.
Contradictions? Really?
Biochemist. Weed dealer. The Times would like us to believe that the latter is a rebellious, outlaw lifestyle, showing a tin ear to movements in weed legalization in this country. If Robert Pearce were going to college in Boulder, rather than New Haven, he might occupy a legitimate rung on the weed dealing chain--or, even better, be involved in the cannabis industry as an entrepreneur, using his biochemistry knowledge to upgrade his product. In Colorado or Washington, in other words, there'd be no contradiction at all--just a seamless continuity between his college major, lab experience, and weed cultivating skills.
In Ivy League colleges, weed-dealing is a niche business that attracts intelligent, self-motivated students. Unfortunately, the law doesn't see it this way. Hence the tragic end to this story.
posted by Gordion Knott at 1:26 AM on September 25, 2014 [38 favorites]
Contradictions? Really?
Biochemist. Weed dealer. The Times would like us to believe that the latter is a rebellious, outlaw lifestyle, showing a tin ear to movements in weed legalization in this country. If Robert Pearce were going to college in Boulder, rather than New Haven, he might occupy a legitimate rung on the weed dealing chain--or, even better, be involved in the cannabis industry as an entrepreneur, using his biochemistry knowledge to upgrade his product. In Colorado or Washington, in other words, there'd be no contradiction at all--just a seamless continuity between his college major, lab experience, and weed cultivating skills.
In Ivy League colleges, weed-dealing is a niche business that attracts intelligent, self-motivated students. Unfortunately, the law doesn't see it this way. Hence the tragic end to this story.
posted by Gordion Knott at 1:26 AM on September 25, 2014 [38 favorites]
I met this guy in a bar once who told me that George W. Bush sold him a bag of weed when they were students at Yale.
"That doesn't seem plausible," I said, "Wasn't his father the President?
"He charged extra for that."
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:43 AM on September 25, 2014 [13 favorites]
"That doesn't seem plausible," I said, "Wasn't his father the President?
"He charged extra for that."
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:43 AM on September 25, 2014 [13 favorites]
Given that Bush attended Yale twenty years before his father was president, I'm confident that that guy was lying.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:08 AM on September 25, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:08 AM on September 25, 2014 [9 favorites]
I'm confident that that guy was lying.
Yeah.... That's George W.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:11 AM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Yeah.... That's George W.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:11 AM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
I don't really get the New York Times piece. We're supposed to think that there's a lesson here for liberals and conservatives both, and as a liberal I want to learn my lesson. But "talented youth loses father to mass incarceration, joins black market to make ends meet" doesn't strike me as a news flash, despite how heartbreaking the story is. So what am I missing?
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:47 AM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:47 AM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
At first I thought that "slNPR" was something like siRNA and thought that the story was about to take a weirdly fascinating biological turn.
posted by clawsoon at 4:56 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by clawsoon at 4:56 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
We're supposed to think that there's a lesson here for liberals and conservatives both, and as a liberal I want to learn my lesson...So what am I missing?
Liberals often think: give poor people money and admit them into the upper echelons of society, and problems will be solved. Yet this guy got external money (a businessman paid all his college expenses) and prestigious entree into society (Yale) and it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
He did not need to turn to drug dealing to make ends meet. He had plenty of other options, but he chose to do so anyway.
posted by shivohum at 6:23 AM on September 25, 2014
Liberals often think: give poor people money and admit them into the upper echelons of society, and problems will be solved. Yet this guy got external money (a businessman paid all his college expenses) and prestigious entree into society (Yale) and it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
He did not need to turn to drug dealing to make ends meet. He had plenty of other options, but he chose to do so anyway.
posted by shivohum at 6:23 AM on September 25, 2014
Liberals often think: give poor people money and admit them into the upper echelons of society, and problems will be solved. Yet this guy got external money (a businessman paid all his college expenses) and prestigious entree into society (Yale) and it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
News to me! That sounds more like a pretty clear example of libertarian "meritocracy."
posted by oinopaponton at 6:26 AM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
News to me! That sounds more like a pretty clear example of libertarian "meritocracy."
posted by oinopaponton at 6:26 AM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
He did not need to turn to drug dealing to make ends meet. He had plenty of other options, but he chose to do so anyway.
I know someone who did a lot of weed, went to a prestigious school for undergrad, is now getting a post-graduate degree. His family has enough money to have been able to buy him a place for him to live in the city where he's getting that degree.
And he *still* briefly sold pot while in undergrad. He didn't really need the money; when he told me about it, he just said "Everyone who smokes a lot does it eventually".
As others have already pointed out, if he had gotten caught or shot, the narrative would have been *much* different.
posted by damayanti at 6:32 AM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
I know someone who did a lot of weed, went to a prestigious school for undergrad, is now getting a post-graduate degree. His family has enough money to have been able to buy him a place for him to live in the city where he's getting that degree.
And he *still* briefly sold pot while in undergrad. He didn't really need the money; when he told me about it, he just said "Everyone who smokes a lot does it eventually".
As others have already pointed out, if he had gotten caught or shot, the narrative would have been *much* different.
posted by damayanti at 6:32 AM on September 25, 2014 [3 favorites]
it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
It doesn't look like a family dysfunction narrative to me. Peace sold pot because he couldn't find a good job with his Yale degree: he was working on the tarmac at Newark Airport, which is just a crazy waste of his talent and education, and he decided to put that talent to use.
It's certainly a youth unemployment story, and a racist employment discrimination story. (Black youth unemployment is double white youth unemployment.) But again, these aren't lessons for liberals: the fact that a college degree (even from an Ivy league school) is worth a lot more to a white person than a Black person is no surprise to anyone who's looked at the statistics. (1510 SAT? Biochem major? White guy with that background would be working as a quant for some hedge fund in Connecticut.)
It's also, of course, a reminder that the drug war's body count doesn't just come from racist cops shooting minority men. That's a lesson worth remembering: the drug war's violence is mostly the product of forcing minority drug dealers into a black market without any legal way to enforce contracts and agreements, so instead violence and honor culture predominates. Meanwhile legalization efforts move marijuana out of the black market and leave the minority entrepreneurs behind.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:43 AM on September 25, 2014 [16 favorites]
It doesn't look like a family dysfunction narrative to me. Peace sold pot because he couldn't find a good job with his Yale degree: he was working on the tarmac at Newark Airport, which is just a crazy waste of his talent and education, and he decided to put that talent to use.
It's certainly a youth unemployment story, and a racist employment discrimination story. (Black youth unemployment is double white youth unemployment.) But again, these aren't lessons for liberals: the fact that a college degree (even from an Ivy league school) is worth a lot more to a white person than a Black person is no surprise to anyone who's looked at the statistics. (1510 SAT? Biochem major? White guy with that background would be working as a quant for some hedge fund in Connecticut.)
It's also, of course, a reminder that the drug war's body count doesn't just come from racist cops shooting minority men. That's a lesson worth remembering: the drug war's violence is mostly the product of forcing minority drug dealers into a black market without any legal way to enforce contracts and agreements, so instead violence and honor culture predominates. Meanwhile legalization efforts move marijuana out of the black market and leave the minority entrepreneurs behind.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:43 AM on September 25, 2014 [16 favorites]
There's a lot of social capital to be gained from being the pot dealer to America's future elites. It's ambitious and enterprising behavior (and above all else, in those social contexts, boring and routine behavior) that I guarantee you was encouraged by his ivy-league peers, whose own behaviors for some reason we don't feel the need to explain by invoking "problems rooted in family dysfunction."
posted by saulgoodman at 7:04 AM on September 25, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 7:04 AM on September 25, 2014 [9 favorites]
Liberals often think: give poor people money and admit them into the upper echelons of society, and problems will be solved.
No, this is the libertarian stereotype of how liberals think.
Yet this guy got external money (a businessman paid all his college expenses)
Seems less like encroaching SOCIALISMS and more like a failure of private enterprise to me.
and prestigious entree into society (Yale)
Or perhaps Yale is more of a social marker for those who already have prestige, and the whole "entree into society" thing is more myth than reality.
and it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
I think the family dysfunction comes from a social dysfunction. There have been plenty of people who came from similar family dysfunction that ended up in the same place, and there have been plenty that did come from the same place that ended up in a different place.
He did not need to turn to drug dealing to make ends meet. He had plenty of other options, but he chose to do so anyway.
A lot of us probably know a ton of white people that dealt in early adulthood, who didn't do it to make ends meet, who had plenty of other options. I'm willing to bet that even the ones that got caught didn't end up the way Pearce did. Some of them have gone very far in life.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:04 AM on September 25, 2014 [13 favorites]
No, this is the libertarian stereotype of how liberals think.
Yet this guy got external money (a businessman paid all his college expenses)
Seems less like encroaching SOCIALISMS and more like a failure of private enterprise to me.
and prestigious entree into society (Yale)
Or perhaps Yale is more of a social marker for those who already have prestige, and the whole "entree into society" thing is more myth than reality.
and it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
I think the family dysfunction comes from a social dysfunction. There have been plenty of people who came from similar family dysfunction that ended up in the same place, and there have been plenty that did come from the same place that ended up in a different place.
He did not need to turn to drug dealing to make ends meet. He had plenty of other options, but he chose to do so anyway.
A lot of us probably know a ton of white people that dealt in early adulthood, who didn't do it to make ends meet, who had plenty of other options. I'm willing to bet that even the ones that got caught didn't end up the way Pearce did. Some of them have gone very far in life.
posted by zombieflanders at 7:04 AM on September 25, 2014 [13 favorites]
shivohum: Liberals often think: give poor people money and admit them into the upper echelons of society, and problems will be solved. Yet this guy got external money (a businessman paid all his college expenses) and prestigious entree into society (Yale) and it could not overcome problems rooted in family dysfunction.
He couldn't overcome the problems rooted in a black market created by the Drug War. His problem was that his product was illegal for no reason. This doesn't counter any liberal idea of equality and access, it actually strengthens them.
This wasn't the tragic result of his inner demons. Why are we looking for the flaws in the murder victim?
posted by spaltavian at 7:08 AM on September 25, 2014 [7 favorites]
He couldn't overcome the problems rooted in a black market created by the Drug War. His problem was that his product was illegal for no reason. This doesn't counter any liberal idea of equality and access, it actually strengthens them.
This wasn't the tragic result of his inner demons. Why are we looking for the flaws in the murder victim?
posted by spaltavian at 7:08 AM on September 25, 2014 [7 favorites]
News to me! That sounds more like a pretty clear example of libertarian "meritocracy."
What do you think affirmative action and the massive focus on scholarships for poor kids are all about?
--
It doesn't look like a family dysfunction narrative to me. Peace sold pot because he couldn't find a good job with his Yale degree: he was working on the tarmac at Newark Airport, which is just a crazy waste of his talent and education, and he decided to put that talent to use.
Just not true. A Yale grad easily has other options. Example: he could have walked into a paralegal job. At big firms that can end up being a LOT of money.
--
Ivy-league peers, whose own behaviors for some reason we don't feel the need to explain by invoking "problems rooted in family dysfunction."
Actually, people do that all the time, and they should.
--
He couldn't overcome the problems rooted in a black market created by the Drug War.
Someone with a Yale degree doesn't have to sell a product he knew was illegal and dangerous to sell. He had options. He was plenty smart. He chose not to choose wisely, probably because of psychological difficulties rooted in family life.
posted by shivohum at 7:34 AM on September 25, 2014
What do you think affirmative action and the massive focus on scholarships for poor kids are all about?
--
It doesn't look like a family dysfunction narrative to me. Peace sold pot because he couldn't find a good job with his Yale degree: he was working on the tarmac at Newark Airport, which is just a crazy waste of his talent and education, and he decided to put that talent to use.
Just not true. A Yale grad easily has other options. Example: he could have walked into a paralegal job. At big firms that can end up being a LOT of money.
--
Ivy-league peers, whose own behaviors for some reason we don't feel the need to explain by invoking "problems rooted in family dysfunction."
Actually, people do that all the time, and they should.
--
He couldn't overcome the problems rooted in a black market created by the Drug War.
Someone with a Yale degree doesn't have to sell a product he knew was illegal and dangerous to sell. He had options. He was plenty smart. He chose not to choose wisely, probably because of psychological difficulties rooted in family life.
posted by shivohum at 7:34 AM on September 25, 2014
His product was illegal, but it's not entirely clear -- in fact, we can't ever really say with confidence -- whether if it was legal, he'd have been therefore legitimate, or if he was attracted to the black market specifically because of the high "risk premium" and profit margin associated with it, as a result of it being illegal.
The end state of legalization would, and will, make cannabis just another commodity, like tobacco. There's profit in selling cigarettes, but not on an individual level. Not unless you're smuggling them, anyway, which is just the black market again.
There are small entrepreneurs getting rich in cannabis in states that have just legalized, because of the regulatory uncertainty keeping the big players out, and general first-mover / land rush advantage. That's not the long-term steady state, though.
Some people who "deal" weed do it because they like to use it, and their friends like to use it, and so it's a convenient role to fill, buying in bulk and selling in small quantities and making some amount of profit along the way via the quantity discount. It's not especially entrepreneurial, really any more than buying beer at Costco and parceling it out to your friends might be. Other people deal because it's a reasonably lucrative occupation (or at least it can appear to be reasonably lucrative) with a low barrier to entry. It's not clear whether Peace was in the first or second category, and I think it matters less in the particular case than in the general one.
Legalization is going to take care of the first group of people. Someone who buys quarter-pounds and sells grams to their friends won't be looking at a 10+ year stretch in prison if they get busted, which is certainly a Good Thing. But there's not going to be a risk premium anymore. The fact that you're willing to flirt with a decade in prison means you can demand a reasonable profit margin; when the risk goes away, so does the profit -- reasonably enough.
It is an open question, once the dust settles, what the people currently involved in the black market for financial reasons end up doing with their time. While the answer doesn't and shouldn't affect the overall argument for legalization (it should be legal because there's no good reason for it not to be; fiat justitia ruat caelum, motherfuckers) communities and cities where a large number of people are in the drug trade, and where the drug trade is in large part cannabis, are about to find out what it was like to be a cowboy when the frontier closed.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:53 AM on September 25, 2014
The end state of legalization would, and will, make cannabis just another commodity, like tobacco. There's profit in selling cigarettes, but not on an individual level. Not unless you're smuggling them, anyway, which is just the black market again.
There are small entrepreneurs getting rich in cannabis in states that have just legalized, because of the regulatory uncertainty keeping the big players out, and general first-mover / land rush advantage. That's not the long-term steady state, though.
Some people who "deal" weed do it because they like to use it, and their friends like to use it, and so it's a convenient role to fill, buying in bulk and selling in small quantities and making some amount of profit along the way via the quantity discount. It's not especially entrepreneurial, really any more than buying beer at Costco and parceling it out to your friends might be. Other people deal because it's a reasonably lucrative occupation (or at least it can appear to be reasonably lucrative) with a low barrier to entry. It's not clear whether Peace was in the first or second category, and I think it matters less in the particular case than in the general one.
Legalization is going to take care of the first group of people. Someone who buys quarter-pounds and sells grams to their friends won't be looking at a 10+ year stretch in prison if they get busted, which is certainly a Good Thing. But there's not going to be a risk premium anymore. The fact that you're willing to flirt with a decade in prison means you can demand a reasonable profit margin; when the risk goes away, so does the profit -- reasonably enough.
It is an open question, once the dust settles, what the people currently involved in the black market for financial reasons end up doing with their time. While the answer doesn't and shouldn't affect the overall argument for legalization (it should be legal because there's no good reason for it not to be; fiat justitia ruat caelum, motherfuckers) communities and cities where a large number of people are in the drug trade, and where the drug trade is in large part cannabis, are about to find out what it was like to be a cowboy when the frontier closed.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:53 AM on September 25, 2014
Someone with a Yale degree doesn't have to sell a product he knew was illegal and dangerous to sell. He had options. He was plenty smart. He chose not to choose wisely, probably because of psychological difficulties rooted in family life.
And so whatever happened to him is justified? Making any mistake--even ones that are made routinely--justifies being killed? He didn't have to die alone over choices all his peers encouraged and facilitated, made in a social context in which most people don't view those particular choices as all that unusual, did he?
posted by saulgoodman at 7:57 AM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
And so whatever happened to him is justified? Making any mistake--even ones that are made routinely--justifies being killed? He didn't have to die alone over choices all his peers encouraged and facilitated, made in a social context in which most people don't view those particular choices as all that unusual, did he?
posted by saulgoodman at 7:57 AM on September 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
What do you think affirmative action and the massive focus on scholarships for poor kids are all about?
Relative political palatability based on the American myth of the bootstrapping individual? Without broad social programs like welfare, social security, Medicaid, decent public schools, those programs are a drop in the bucket.
posted by oinopaponton at 8:00 AM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
Relative political palatability based on the American myth of the bootstrapping individual? Without broad social programs like welfare, social security, Medicaid, decent public schools, those programs are a drop in the bucket.
posted by oinopaponton at 8:00 AM on September 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
This article claims he was pulling in $1000 a day. Whether or not that figure is actually true, I don't think it's necessarily accurate to make this a story about Robert Peace not having other options. It seems likely that growing and dealing was extremely lucrative and something he was interested in and drawn to. He was obviously intelligent and must have weighed the risks involved. It seems possible that he was where he wanted to be.
Of course it's a sad story, he sounds like a great guy and obviously left a hole in his community. I think there are definitely good conversations to have about the war on drugs and laws about drugs and how they perpetuate drug violence. But the tone being struck by some of these comments is a little weird to me.
posted by geegollygosh at 8:17 AM on September 25, 2014
Of course it's a sad story, he sounds like a great guy and obviously left a hole in his community. I think there are definitely good conversations to have about the war on drugs and laws about drugs and how they perpetuate drug violence. But the tone being struck by some of these comments is a little weird to me.
posted by geegollygosh at 8:17 AM on September 25, 2014
Someone with a Yale degree doesn't have to sell a product he knew was illegal and dangerous to sell. He had options. He was plenty smart.
He was working at an airport slinging luggage, despite the fact that he was smart. His teaching gig fell through, and he couldn't make it in real estate. That suggests he *didn't* have options, which is striking, because most smart Yale grads do.
Maybe it was psychological difficulties, sure. But from the book, it sounds like it was economic difficulties, specifically the economic difficulty that comes from being an extremely talented black man in a white supremacist country.
Like I said: if he was white, he'd have had his pick of jobs. Where was the Wall Street hookup? (We all know there are no drugs in finance, right?)
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:40 AM on September 25, 2014 [7 favorites]
He was working at an airport slinging luggage, despite the fact that he was smart. His teaching gig fell through, and he couldn't make it in real estate. That suggests he *didn't* have options, which is striking, because most smart Yale grads do.
Maybe it was psychological difficulties, sure. But from the book, it sounds like it was economic difficulties, specifically the economic difficulty that comes from being an extremely talented black man in a white supremacist country.
Like I said: if he was white, he'd have had his pick of jobs. Where was the Wall Street hookup? (We all know there are no drugs in finance, right?)
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:40 AM on September 25, 2014 [7 favorites]
$1000 a day is really not that big a deal, if you assume they are referring to revenue. Actual profit is another matter.
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:36 AM on September 25, 2014
posted by allkindsoftime at 10:36 AM on September 25, 2014
The lesson I took was that he'd be alive if it was legalized and safe to acquire.
posted by Renoroc at 12:03 PM on September 25, 2014
posted by Renoroc at 12:03 PM on September 25, 2014
The lesson I took was that he'd be alive if it was legalized and safe to acquire.
Why? Are you assuming that he had some mystical connection to cannabis? That he was feeling it because it was holy marijuana, and not just highly profitable?
If it wasn't illegal, there wouldn't have been enough demand for him to make a profit- he'd have to sell something else illegal.
posted by happyroach at 12:29 PM on September 25, 2014
Why? Are you assuming that he had some mystical connection to cannabis? That he was feeling it because it was holy marijuana, and not just highly profitable?
If it wasn't illegal, there wouldn't have been enough demand for him to make a profit- he'd have to sell something else illegal.
posted by happyroach at 12:29 PM on September 25, 2014
spaltavian: He couldn't overcome the problems rooted in a black market created by the Drug War. His problem was that his product was illegal for no reason. This doesn't counter any liberal idea of equality and access, it actually strengthens them.
I think it's fairly safe to say he was selling because his product was illegal, not despite it. If pot was legal (even somewhat regulated, like cigarettes or alcohol), selling it would generally a pretty low-income, low-prestige job. It might be unusually good for a while after legalization as things adjust, but in the long term, it would degrade. At best, you'd be on the same general terms as a bartender; more likely, you'd be something like a liquor store clerk. It would have probably been a worse job than his position at the airport.
You might argue that as a biochemist, he'd have been working on trying to improve pot or manage disease or something, but if it was legal those jobs would have been open to all biochemists and as competitive as any. If he couldn't get a biochem job elsewhere, he probably wouldn't have been able to get one of those.
Biology, biochem, and molecular biology are actually kind of packed right now - jobs are hard to find and wages kind of suck, particularly below the Ph.D. level. Ask me how I know! (Biologist w/ a Master's degree and a specialization in genetics and evolutionary biology). In particular, god help you if you have only a Bachelor's. Field overloading has pushed people into taking jobs meant for those of lower educational levels.
posted by Mitrovarr at 2:08 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think it's fairly safe to say he was selling because his product was illegal, not despite it. If pot was legal (even somewhat regulated, like cigarettes or alcohol), selling it would generally a pretty low-income, low-prestige job. It might be unusually good for a while after legalization as things adjust, but in the long term, it would degrade. At best, you'd be on the same general terms as a bartender; more likely, you'd be something like a liquor store clerk. It would have probably been a worse job than his position at the airport.
You might argue that as a biochemist, he'd have been working on trying to improve pot or manage disease or something, but if it was legal those jobs would have been open to all biochemists and as competitive as any. If he couldn't get a biochem job elsewhere, he probably wouldn't have been able to get one of those.
Biology, biochem, and molecular biology are actually kind of packed right now - jobs are hard to find and wages kind of suck, particularly below the Ph.D. level. Ask me how I know! (Biologist w/ a Master's degree and a specialization in genetics and evolutionary biology). In particular, god help you if you have only a Bachelor's. Field overloading has pushed people into taking jobs meant for those of lower educational levels.
posted by Mitrovarr at 2:08 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
The lesson I took was that he'd be alive if it was legalized and safe to acquire.
German Lopez: Marijuana legalization doesn't solve racial disparities in the criminal justice system
German Lopez: Marijuana legalization doesn't solve racial disparities in the criminal justice system
The legalization and decriminalization of marijuana cuts down on pot-related arrests, but neither policy solves the massive racial disparities within those arrests, according to a new report from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice.posted by zombieflanders at 7:11 AM on September 26, 2014
CJCJ looked at five states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Washington — that have relaxed their marijuana laws in the past five years. Two of those states (Colorado and Washington) completely legalized possession of small amount of marijuana for adults 21 and older, while the rest loosened or repealed criminal penalties for small amounts across all ages.
Marijuana-related arrest rates for all races dropped by roughly two-thirds in four of the five states (Washington didn't have available data). But black people were still nearly five times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than other races, even though black and white Americans use drugs and sell them at similar rates.
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