On eve of Florida legalization vote, notable data on marijuana arrests in Miami area

The Miami Herald this week published this interesting article, headlined "Miami-Dade halted weed prosecutions, but thousands were jailed anyway. Most were Black."   The full piece is worth a full read, perhaps especially for anyone in Florida voting on the state's ballot legalization initiative.  Here are some excerpts:

Fred Johnson was 33 years old when he was arrested for the first time. On a Friday night in June 2023, shortly before midnight, Johnson was smoking a joint as he led a golf cart tour of Ocean Drive for his business....

Johnson’s marijuana arrest came nearly four years after Miami-Dade’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, in 2019 vowed to stop prosecuting such cases after hemp — a substance that looks and smells like marijuana — was legalized in Florida.

But police departments across the county continued to make arrests anyway, locking up more than 4,200 people on misdemeanor marijuana charges over the past five years. Nearly 60% of those cases were brought against Black defendants like Johnson, despite Black people making up just 18% of Miami-Dade’s population. In at least 97% of the cases, prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges, according to a Miami Herald analysis of data from the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts....

The Herald’s analysis revealed a striking increase in the proportion of misdemeanor marijuana arrests of Black people in Miami-Dade County. Although the arrests have decreased substantially since Fernandez Rundle’s memo went out, the proportion of Black people arrested for the offense has gone up. Between Jan. 1, 2018, and Aug. 5, 2019 — the date of Fernandez Rundle’s announcement — 47% of charges involving misdemeanor marijuana possession were filed against Black defendants. Since the announcement, 59% of charges have been lodged against Black defendants. The disparity comes despite data showing that Black people and white people use marijuana at similar rates.