NAACP SIGNS ONTO POT LEGALIZATION MEASURE

The state NAACP is expressing "unconditional support" for the
November ballot measure to legalize marijuana, continuing proponents'
framing of it as a civil rights issue.

"We are joining a growing number of medical professionals, labor
organizations, law enforcement authorities, local municipalities, and
approximately 56 percent of the public, in saying that it is time to
decriminalize the use of marijuana," state NAACP President Alice
Huffman said in a news release Monday. "There is a strong racial
component that must be considered when we investigate how the
marijuana laws are applied to people of color."

The measure, Control and Tax Cannabis Initiative 2010, was designated
Monday as Proposition 19.

The Drug Policy Alliance will join the California State Conference of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition at a news conference Tuesday
morning in Sacramento to release a report, "Targeting Blacks for
Marijuana," based on marijuana possession arrests of African
Americans in California's 25 largest counties. The alliance says the
report shows African Americans are arrested for marijuana possession
at higher rates than whites - at double, triple or even quadruple the
rate of whites - even though the U.S. government studies consistently
find that young blacks use marijuana at lower rates than young whites.

Huffman said data from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
shows half of California's marijuana possession arrestees in 1990
were nonwhite and 28 percent were under age 20, but in 2009, 62
percent were nonwhite and 42 percent were under age 20. Marijuana
possession arrests of youth of color rose from about 3,100 in 1990 to
about 16,300 in 2008 - a surge about three times greater than that
group's population growth, she said.

"We have empirical proof that the application of the marijuana laws
has been unfairly applied to our young people of color," Huffman
said. "Justice is the quality of being just and fair, and these laws
have been neither just nor fair."

San Diego-based nonprofit Californians for Drug Free Youth hosted an
event Friday in Universal City so community leaders - including some
African Americans - could speak out against the legalization measure.

"I had a good year in 2009; I only buried six youths related to drugs
and drug overdoses," said Bishop Ron Allen, president of the
International Faith Based Coalition. "If marijuana is legalized in
the state of California, crime will increase, murder will increase.
If marijuana is legalized in my community, and is legalized in my
world, and our youth have an opportunity to be able to use, we will
see more dropouts, we will see an increase of crime, and we will see
more individuals hanging out on the corner, and I am seriously afraid
we will lose generations to come."

Former Los Angeles City Councilman and state Senator Nate Holden said
he believes legalization won't stop Mexican drug cartels with big
investments in marijuana. "They are here to stay, and they are going
to destroy our society if we let them. We are going to fight them and
we are not going to let them destroy us."