This Ain't Your Grandmother's Weed

Truth be told we have many issue's in our communities. Lately, I've noticed the up tick in marijuana. It's hard not to notice who is smoking. The smell can't be disguished. Talking with young folks these days you would think weed is a legal substance. They don't have a problem with using it openly.

Ohio just went through a fight to make the use of marijuana bankable for a few. Twenty-one million dollars spent to legalize a drug that has sent countless African Americans away for a long time and locked them out of the American Dream. A nickel bag his sent many brothers down the road of no return. Fast forward 30 years after the War on Black communities began and now one of those drugs that was part of the 100 to 1 Federal sentencing guideline is on the table to make some folks very wealthy. Within all of the legal mumbo jumbo there were no provisions to educate on the use of a controlled substance. No provisions to expunge the receords of all of the people whos lives were impacted.

African Americans spend billions on luxury items i. e. car's, shoe's, jewelry. But, there's a huge chunk of change spend on wraps (cigars designed to smoke weed). I was in a gas I counted one hundred and eight types of wraps. Fifteen minutes in the place fifty dollars was spent on these item's alone. The cashier said "We sell close to one hundred dollars a day on wrap." Yet, taking a look in a suburban business they had more cigarettes than cigars or wraps.

I voted against the legalization of marijuana because of my strong feelings regarding the dispropotionate burden of incarceration that drug policies had on African American men. These were young men that have now become old facing extreme poverty, chronic disease, alcohoism and addiction. Marijuana is still a gateway drug. Start with weed and along that dark road it can lead to more adventures and experiemental drug use including lacing marijuana with Ecstasy, Coke, Herion. More treatment programs that include mental health services are needed. We have men that have been locked away from their families; locked away from opportunities; locked away from life. We must make sure that if marijuana becomes legal that African American men don't continue to be at the crossed roads and seeking fulfillment from something that took everything away.

One thing that is for sure the marijuana that they are using "Ain't Your Grandmother"s Weed.