Blacks Far More Likely than Whites to be Arrested for Marijuana in Cecil County

The arrest rate for marijuana possession in 2010 in Maryland was 2.9 times greater than the national rate, and black people in Cecil County were 3.9 times more likely to be arrested for possession than whites, according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union.

The disparity was the second-largest gap in Maryland behind Baltimore City, where blacks are 5.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, according to the study.

The ACLU report is the first to examine marijuana possession arrest rates by race for all 50 states and DC. It looked at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program and the U.S. Census data between 2001 and 2010.

Baltimore was mentioned several times in the study, including for its 1,136 marijuana possession arrests per 100,000 residents.

Between 2001 and 2010, there were more than 8 million pot arrests in the United States, more than half of all drug arrests. The ACLU also found that though blacks and whites tend to use marijuana at similar rates, in 2010 a black person was 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person.

"The War on Marijuana, like the larger War on Drugs of which it is a part, is a failure. It has needlessly ensnared hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system, had a staggeringly disproportionate impact on African- Americans, and comes at a tremendous human and financial cost," the ACLU report states.

Recreational marijuana use remains illegal in Maryland. In the recent General Assembly session, however, lawmakers passed a bill creating a medical marijuana program in Maryland, as USA Today reported.

Georgetown Patch editor Shaun Courtney contributed to this report.