The stigma surrounding Cannabis is heavily intertwined with America’s racially oppressive past. Since marijuana is classified and

recognized federally as a schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act, disproportionate punishments for similar

crimes between the white population and black is fueled by systemic racist policy. According to the ACLU or American Civil Liberties

Union, marijuana related arrests make up more than half of the drug arrests in the United States, where African-Americans are dis-

proportinately targeted despite similar rates of cannabis usage among both whites and the BI-POC community in America (NPR.org).

This stigma is enforced by racial stereotypes of laziness, incompetency, and drug abuse that are aimed to discredit and harm Black

Americans. The legalization of pot is cool, but there are still systematic policies enforcing racial prejudice. Since the influx of legalization,

pot charges in relation to sales have been used to detain and arrest legal black consumers. This rebranding and normalization of pot

use, medical or recreational, fails to acknowledge and address the racial prejudice and stereotypes regarding America’s POC and marijuana.