Replacing Marijuana Prohibition With Common-Sense Regulation Is A Matter Of Civil Rights
Portland, Ore. — The National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) Alaska Oregon Washington State-Area Conference (AOWS-AC) has endorsed Oregon Measure 80, the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act and calls on equality- and civil justice-minded voters to vote for Measure 80 on this November’s ballot.
“Our nation’s long, tragic, failed war on drugs has taken a disproportionate toll on people of color,” said NAACP AOWS-AC President Oscar Eason, Jr. “To right the wrongs of the past, we need to end the drug war immediately and replace it with a common-sense approach. I call on Oregon’s business civic — and especially its religious — leaders to add their voices to the coalition getting behind Oregon Measure 80.”
In July 2011, NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous delivered an historic resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs. As Jealous said, “Today the NAACP has taken a major step towards equity, justice and effective law enforcement… These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African-American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in
America.”
Oregon Measure 80 would regulate the production, distribution and sale of cannabis to adults 21 and older in Oregon, using a similar state-licensing model to the one Oregon currently uses for regulating and taxing liquor. The statute is expected to save law enforcement more than $60 million every year in marijuana-related activities, which would allow law enforcement to focus on our communities’ serious public-safety threats.
“As the nation’s oldest and largest civil-rights organization, the NAACP’s endorsement of Oregon Measure 80 sends a strong signal to mainstream voters that replacing failed prohibition with effective regulation both makes sense and is the right thing to do,” said Roy Kaufmann, a spokesman for Measure 80.
To learn more about Oregon Measure 80, visit www.octa2012.org.
