Teachers, Democrats, Legalizing Marijuana, and the 2018 Midterms

Even this non-descript, supposed political breakthrough will likely be embraced by Trump’s base and the some Democrats (Sen. Bernie Sanders has commented on it favorably) because he is presenting this charade as keeping a campaign promise and as a strategy that prevented nuclear war with DPRK, giving a boost to Republicans as they head into the 2018 midterms.

Public school teachers are caught in another ‘trick bag’ as they try to gain their footing in saving public education and stabilizing their profession. Their latest challenge is to decide whether they can continue to support Democratic candidates who are not only remaining silent and largely inactive on preventing the expansion of voucher and charter schools and other forms of public school privatization but who are also promoting the legalization, rather than the decriminalization, or use of medical marijuana as the economic salvation of poverty-ridden urban inner-city communities.

Decriminalization would address the racially disproportionate charging and excessive sentencing of minority males and females who make up the majority of those incarcerated in jails and prisons for drug crimes. These individuals represent the primary human capital in the pipeline that has created the prison-industrial complex chronicled by Michelle Alexander in her 2010 bestselling book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” She documented the harsh mandatory punishments for marijuana sales that both liberal and conservative judges criticized from the bench as they handed them down.

But the current push is for legalization which will make a large number of white businessmen rich. Proposals to permit marijuana sales for recreational purposes are now sweeping the nation, and they have led to legalization in nine states (WA, OR, NV, CA, CO, HI, VT, MA, ME, and Washington, D.C.) for those over the age of 21. But the promises of targeted social uplift for low-income, substantially unemployed communities of color are vastly overstated. The reality is that these residents will receive a relative small percentage, if any, of the benefits of legal pot: jobs, monies for social programs, and almost no minority ownership of the dispensaries that sell it.

The downside for teachers is that the Democrats they are voting for are rabid supporters of this new drug paradigm as the use rate for middle and high school students has escalated in those states that have legalized this so-called harmless drug. More students are sleeping in class, becoming involved in more school fights, and out-of-school car accidents. For many, it is serving as a gateway to more serious drug use. Thus, teachers find themselves supporting politicians who are making their jobs more difficult while flat lining their salaries and benefits and increasing the costs of their benefits and underfunding public education in general.

From Washington State to New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, high profile majority and minority Democratic officials are promoting marijuana legalization as the panacea to urban ills. In New Jersey, the recently elected Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy made marijuana legalization the centerpiece of his first 100 days legislative initiative. He received an overwhelming share of the teacher and minority vote in his near landslide victory over his Republican opponent. However, Murphy is running into increasing opposition from New Jersey’s black community as it has begun to realize the negative impact of the recreational marijuana law if passed.

He has recently combined medical marijuana with recreational marijuana in the latest rendition of the proposed law in an effort to blunt opposition since the former is popular with a majority of voters. So far, Democrats and Republicans are backing Murphy on this issue because ultimately about the money, but minority and low-income communities will see little of it.

African American ministers who soldiered hard for Murphy during the primary and general elections are now quietly pulling their support as their congregations have begun to question the propriety of legalized marijuana as their communities are saturated with victims of the marijuana scourge: babies with birth defects, increased insurance costs, young males who cannot find jobs due to their inability to pass drug tests, and those with criminal records associated with marijuana that will not be expunged by the new law. The prison industrial complex will remain as robust as it is.

In one case, a leading minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was called by his District Bishop and told to refrain from any public show of support for this legislation.

More importantly, marijuana legalization will not result in the release of the thousands of minorities imprisoned for non-violent marijuana offenses as many minority leaders were led to believe. Second, the owners of the corporate marijuana dispensaries, nearly all of whom will be white and who were major financial contributors to Murphy’s gubernatorial campaign, have already lined up and have been essentially guaranteed a license to open a legal cannabis business after the legislation passes. They are also demanding that their prospective companies be held harmless against lawsuits for selling defective hemp.

In addition, a Newark Public Schools eight grader fell ill after consuming tainted edible cannabis during the past month that the African American Mayor of Newark, who supports Murphy’s marijuana agenda, attempted to obscure.

The legalization of marijuana is yet another issue that teachers need to consider as they approach the 2018 midterms. Republicans, by and large, have stayed away from championing this program due to their conservative values and religious concerns. Trump opposes federal legalization as did Obama. Democrats are pushing these programs as payback to their campaign contributors and making teaching an even more difficult job.