Call420

Every 19 seconds, someone in America is arrested for a drug offense. Half for marijuana; 88% of those for simple possession. Every year, police arrest hundreds of thousands of people for owning a substance the majority of Americans have tried.

Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately harassed, arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, both relative to their percentage of the population and their percentage of drug use.

Harassment, arrest and conviction for non-violent drug offenses causes a litany of harm, and has had no demonstrable effect on drug use rates.

Harassment and arrest harm includes

  • Deteriorating relationships between law enforcement and poor and minority communities
  • Law enforcement resources directed away from violent crime and toward drug crime, the majority of which is non-violent
  • Armed, no-knock SWAT team raids resulting in needless injury and property damage

Conviction harm includes

  • Skyrocketing HIV rates among the prison population
  • A decrease in the availability of legal, gainful employment for freed convicts
  • A decrease in lifetime earning power after incarceration

You can’t wage war on a substance. The war on drugs is a war on people. And it is no accident that it is disproportionately waged on the portion of society least able to mount a decent defense: those living in poor and minority communities.

It’s time to stand up to the war on drugs by standing up for its victims.

It’s time for every person who has come to understand that this war is economically, legally and morally wrong to come to the defense of impoverished and disenfranchised communities and protect them from harassment, arrest and imprisonment.

Call420 will recruit, organize and train cannabis defense attorneys, and cover victims’ defense costs. Because when police know that they can no longer harass, arrest and prosecute poor and minority populations without a well-organized, well-funded and incredibly effective fight on their hands, they will begin to think twice about who they’re going to victimize.

I need help. I need volunteers, information, connections, ideas. If you have any of that, please fill out the contact form.