African Americans and the Marijuana Legalization Paradox: Do Race-Specific Murder Victimization Rates and Race-Specific Drug Arrest Rates Explain It?

Abstract

Why is support for marijuana legalization among African Americans notably modest given that such a policy would drastically reduce the number of African Americans arrested annually for nonviolent drug offenses? In this article I assess whether the urban frustration argument is an adequate explanation for Blacks’ generally low levels of support for marijuana legalization. I analyzed merged Supplemental Homicide Report and Drug Arrest data and General Social Survey data to determine the extent to which race-specific murder victimization rates and race-specific drug arrest rates in U.S. cities are predictive of support for marijuana legalization among Blacks and Whites between 1990 and 2000. Findings indicate that Blacks’ level of support for marijuana legalization is greatest in those cities with the highest Black drug arrest rates. Consequently, these findings provide no support for the urban frustration argument.

KEYTERMS:

• Marijuana legalization
• African Americans
• urban frustration argument
• drug arrests

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Roland Chilton, Wenona Rymond-Richmond, and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. I would also like to thank the editor and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. An earlier version of this article was presented at the March 2010 Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

Notes

1. Arditti and McClintock, 2001; Banks, 1997; Duster, 1997; Mauer, 2006; Mauer and King, 2007; Nunn, 2002; Resignato, 2000; Tonry, 1994, 1995.

2. See for example, Bobo and Thompson, 2006; Calhoun, Parker, and Weaver, 1995; Lambert et al., 2006; Meares, 1997; Nunn, 2002; Timberlake, Lock, and Rasinski, 2003; Trevino and Richard, 2002.

3. Blumstein, 1995; Duster, 1997; Goode, 2002; Mauer, 2006; Meares, 1997, 1998; Nunn, 2002; Saxe et al., 2001; Tonry, 1995; Walker, Spohn, and DeLone, 2007.

4. See for example, Anderson, 1990, 1999; Bourgois, 2003; Patillo, 2005; Patillo-McCoy, 1999; Venkatesh, 2006; Venkatesh and Murphy, 2006 Wacquant, 2008.