Colorado pot arrests plunge, but rate for blacks still higher: study

By Daniel Wallis DENVER (Reuters) - The number of marijuana possession arrests in Colorado fell sharply after its first legal retail stores opened last year, but blacks still faced higher arrest rates than whites, a pro-pot group said on Wednesday. Colorado and Washington became the first U.S. states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana by adults in landmark ballots in 2012. Voters in Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia have since followed suit. Public use of the drug remains illegal, as does unregulated distribution or cultivation of more than small amounts. Citing data from all 64 Colorado counties for two years before and two years after legalization, the Drug Policy Alliance said 2,036 marijuana charges were filed in the state's courts last year, down almost 95 percent from 38,878 in 2010. The advocacy group said that whites made up 90.4 percent of the population and accounted for 88.0 percent of pot possession arrests in 2014. While blacks were only 3.9 percent of the population, its study found, they represented 9.2 percent of such arrests - an imbalance that has remained essentially unchanged from the pre-legalization figures going back to 2010. The group offered no theories why legalization would have affected the disparities. The group also pointed to similar disparities in the rates for more serious illegal cultivation and pot distribution charges, where it found black people accounted for some 9 percent and 18 percent of such arrests respectively last year. While the number of marijuana possession arrests overall has dropped sharply since the passage of legalization, it said, law enforcement practices that produce racial disparities in such detentions have yet to change. "While the overall decrease in marijuana-related offenses statewide has been enormously beneficial to communities of color, one troubling concern is the rise in disparities for the charge of public consumption, especially in Denver," it said. Marijuana use in public spaces remains illegal. The group said it did not have credible data to examine the impact of legalization on Colorado's Latino population. (Reporting by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)