Ben & Jerry's Has an Important Message for Your 420 Weekend

This year, April 20, the unofficial weed holiday, happens to fall on a weekend, which is an excuse for celebration, very careful planning, and, probably, some Ben & Jerry's ice cream. But while several states now recognize legal marijuana use, across the country, someone's arrested for it on average every 48 seconds according to the FBI. And the millions of people swept up in the drug war are predominantly people of color.

So Ben & Jerry's, the famously socially conscious ice cream company, published a video over the weekend to highlight that massive discrepancy. The company's main Twitter account posted, "It’s hard to celebrate 4/20 when so many people of color are still being arrested for pot. We have to do better."

A handful of U.S. cities have started expunging the criminal records of people with marijuana-related convictions, even in states like Maryland where recreational pot isn't legal yet. But there's still a long way to go, and hopefully corporate do-gooder campaigns can help to make that road a little shorter.