Fourth-generation Oakland native Tucky Blunt grew up around weed. His grandmother used it. So did his parents and his friends.
Blunt (yes, that’s his real last name) started selling to friends in the neighborhood when he was 16. He was usually careful, buying in bulk from a trusted supplier and selling to customers who’d call him to meet up.
After nearly a decade of illegal sales, it was $80 worth of pot that got him in trouble. He was found with a handful of baggies stashed in his pants when police officers came for him, tipped off by someone Blunt thought was a friend.
“We were out there trying to make money to help support our families at a time when people didn’t have a lot money. We didn’t think we were hurting anyone,” said Blunt, now 39. “I liked weed. I knew people who liked weed. Why not facilitate them getting good weed? That’s how I looked at it.”
His arrest in 2004 and his conviction left Blunt with a 10-year felony probation, allowing police to stop and search him anytime, for any reason. Meanwhile, all around Oakland, young black men like him were getting arrested while most of the white guys who were selling weed were left alone.
“It affected everybody in my circle because it was only targeted to us. I knew white people that was selling weed that never went to jail,” Blunt said. “The war on drugs was just about putting as many of us in jail in possible. It tore up a lot of families.”
The war on drugs has for decades disproportionately devastated minority communities by punishing people like Blunt and creating a cycle of poverty, incarceration and limited employment options, legal and social justice experts say.
Now, lawmakers and legalization advocates across the country are demanding not just cannabis legalization but remedies to address decades of demonstrably racist policing, from laws that automatically expunge criminal records for marijuana dealing and possession to policies that would give minority communities assistance in building cannabis businesses.
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