"White Men Get Rich from Legal Pot, Black Men Stay in Prison"

Thousands of young men are growing up in prison due to drug related offenses. Now that Marijuana is legal in several states, will those kids continue to spend their lives in prison? While black men sit in prisons for possession of marijuana, white men walk free, making money by selling the exact same drug that incarcerated black men. Where is the logic behind keeping a man incarcerated for possession of a drug that is no longer illegal? The so-called "War on Drugs" is in reality a war on people of color. It is a war that has lasted longer than the war in Iraq, and it is a war that exists in our own neighborhoods and schools. 

Michelle Alexander, an associate professor of law at Ohio State University recently discussed this topic. “We arrest these kids at young ages, saddle them with criminal records, throw them in cages, and then release them into a parallel social universe in which the very civil and human rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights movement no longer apply to them for the rest of their lives . . . They can be discriminated against [when it comes to] employment, housing, access to education, public benefits. They're locked into a permanent second-class status for life. And we’ve done this in precisely the communities that were most in need of our support,” she said.  

What are your views on the legalization of Marijuana? Do you believe that white men are the ones benefiting from its legalization? 

You can read the full article at http://www.alternet.org/drugs/michelle-alexander-white-men-get-rich-legal-pot-black-men-stay-prison