The Antelope Newspaper
Keegan Francl
I vividly remember back in 2016, sitting at the dinner table
with my boyfriend’s mother and brother when his father came home that night. We
were eating extra-cheesy lasagna with caesar salad and toasted garlic bread.
My boyfriend’s father by the name of Dave stumbled in
through the door. He almost resembled a Dalmatian looking white with paleness with
a few exceptional black and blue bruises spotted amongst his body.
Dave was a correctional officer at the Lincoln prison. It
was often that he would come home bruised and beaten up by the inmates because
they were so understaffed. They could barely keep control of the prisoners
which were being held at 200% capacity.
Nebraska’s prisons conditions are operating at an inhumane
rate which ultimately is hurting public safety and costing taxpayers’ dollars.
According to aclu.org, 14 percent of Nebraska prisoners are serving time for
drug related offenses including marijuana charges. In fact, only New York and
Washington D.C. have higher marijuana possession rates than in Nebraska.
Legalizing medical marijuana and dropping these drug related
crimes is the first step to prison reform in Nebraska.
Last week Antelope Reporter Braydon Conell wrote a story on
Senator Anna Wishart’s visit to UNK. The purpose of her visit was to discuss
and bring attention to medical marijuana laws in Nebraska. According to the
poll insights mentioned in the article, 70 percent of Nebraskans support the
legalization of cannabis for medical purposes.
If more than half of the Nebraska population is for medical
marijuana, why is there still so much pushback towards its legalization?
Further, why is it that in the nineteenth century, marijuana
became so popular that many medicinal products were sold openly to public
pharmacies. How did we go from selling marijuana in public pharmacies to declaring
‘reefer madness’ and scheduling the substance as a scheduled I drug along with
heroin, LSD, and others?
The short answer? Racism.
Following the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Mexican immigrants
swamped into the U.S. introducing American culture to recreational use of
marijuana. The fear-mongering Americans became prejudice and associated
marijuana with the Spanish-speaking newcomers.
In the 1930s Harry Anslinger, head of Federal Bureau of
Narcotics turned the battle against marijuana in to an all-out war associating
the substance with minorities such as African Americans saying that it had a
negative effect on these “degenerate races,” such as inducing violence or
causing insanity. According to some studies, African Americans in the early 21st
century were nearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested on
marijuana-related charges- despite both groups having similar usage rates.
Unsurprisingly, the New York Academy of Medicine in 1944
issued an extensively researched report declaring that despite popular belief,
use of marijuana did not induce violence, insanity or sex crimes, or lead to
addiction or another drug use.
Despite this evidence, the “War on Drugs” continues to leave
its mark in Nebraska which in recent years, experts estimate the costs nationally
to run closely to 40 billion annually. This has occurred despite the fact that
“every dollar invested in drug treatment saves taxpayers $5. Drug treatment
cuts criminal activity by as much as two thirds…”
It’s time Nebraska makes an impactful change for their
correctional facilities. It is absolutely terrifying knowing that a family
member such as Dave could be beaten or killed during weekly prison riots due to
overcrowding and understaffing.
We must keep our families and inmates safe with prison
reform. We must pass meaningful legislation legalizing marijuana.