The World’s Melting Pot

From criminalization to legalization, New York’s marijuana laws have left a complicated legacy for the minority communities most affected by them.

In the 1970s, a scourge gripped New York City. Its smell lingered throughout streets, its effects—potent. The situation? Dire. Across the city, and especially in Harlem, grifters and miscreants would converge to deface the city in locations called Teapads. The following is a real, direct account from an undercover police officer at one of these gatherings: “[There was] a series of pup tents arranged on a rooftop in Harlem. Those present, the undercover ‘sociologists’ reported, ‘proceeded to smoke their cigarettes in the tents. When the desired effect of the drug had been obtained, they all merged into the open and engaged in a discussion of their admiration of the stars and the beauties of nature.’” This drug was marijuana. 

To the detriment of minority groups in America, cannabis was primarily criminalized to support the interests of a few specific white coalitions. Until the early 1900s, cannabis—widely grown as hemp for clothes and paper, or consumed as medicine—was completely legal. However, as the prohibition movement gained support in the states, Americans found smoking cannabis to be a cheap alternative to moonshine. Consequently, a concurrent movement emerged to ban hemp manufacturing and hemp consumption. 

This movement was particularly fueled by William Randolph Hearst, a media and lumber magnate. According to Esmeraldino from Cannactiva, Hearst “felt [intimidated] by hemp production and began distributing propaganda against Cannabis.” One source of that concern was the invention of a machine called the decorticator. This machine improved the production of hemp paper, threatening to make hemp the new industry standard. This innovation posed a risk to Hearst’s lumber business. As a result, in the 1930s, Hearst used his vast news network, which included major newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and a film production studio, to demonize the plant. 

Hearst took advantage of the influx of Mexican immigrants to California as a result of the Mexican Revolution, pushing the idea that the plant was somehow “Mexican.” This is where the term “Marijuana,” the name Mexican immigrants had for hemp, comes from. Hearst’s media sensationalized the effects of the plant, claiming it caused psychosis. In particular, Hearst's propaganda asserted that Mexican immigrants would smoke cannabis before “[going] out to kill white children.” In The Control of Drugs and Drug Users: Reason or Reaction? author Ross Coomber writes about this, stating that “demands for the total suppression of [marijuana and alcohol] increased in intensity … partly justified by a perceived threat to Protestant morality and social order from newly arrived immigrants or African Americans.” 

Indeed, Hearst—one of many people in a large movement—exploited existing racial prejudices of the time to ban cannabis and, in doing so, created lasting effects for minority groups.

In the decades that followed, the criminalization of cannabis disproportionately affected African American and immigrant communities. Prior to legalization, according to The New York Times, “Black people were arrested on low-level marijuana charges at eight times the rate of white, non-Hispanic people…[and] Hispanic people were arrested at five times the rate of white people.” 

This is despite the fact that, according to William Kornblum, author of Drug Legalization and the Minority Poor, “Illegal drugs are largely exogenous to African-American culture and its communities, certainly those of urban North America.” Historically, substances such as marijuana “were introduced by people who were not natives of those cities.”

Black people are the largest minority group in the U.S. arrested on marijuana charges; However, this is due in significant part to historical circumstances including migration patterns and aggressive policing. In the mid-1900s, as poor immigrants and African-Americans migrated to urban areas, they settled into the least expensive neighborhoods. These areas were also home to vice districts, located far enough from wealthy white populations to avoid provoking the city’s ruling class. 

Additionally, policies like Stop-and-Frisk turned the police from protectors to oppressors. As a result, Black Americans and immigrants had to adapt to a poor economic situation, crime, and racism all at once. 

Later in his paper, Kornblum writes, “African-American, Latino, and white working class males continue to be incarcerated for drug possession and sale at rates that severely tax the capacities of existing penal institutions… Yet national statistics show that among the middle classes, where much of the demand for drugs originates, whites are significantly more likely than blacks to use illegal drugs and alcohol.” Indeed, the propaganda surrounding marijuana and minority groups' unintended proximity to it have resulted in the incarceration rates we see today. 

In 1965, social psychologist Kenneth Clark recorded the testimony of a 26-year-old Harlem resident: “I hope that in the future they offer kids, or my sister’s kids, or someone’s kids, a better opportunity than they offered me… I either accepted a porter’s job for the rest of my life regardless of how much education I had, or went to jail.” 

Eventually, however, after decades of illegality, marijuana finally began to be decriminalized, and it started in New York City. By and large, marijuana was decriminalized in the city in response to many of the issues outlined above: racism, disproportionate arrest rates, and longstanding prejudice surrounding the drug. According to The New York Times, past NYC mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on a promise to “reverse the racial impact of low-level marijuana arrests.” 

And on March 31, 2021, according to “The History of Cannabis in New York City” by Point 7, “Governor Cuomo signed [the] Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, establishing the legislative foundation upon which a regulatory infrastructure would be built to host a network of licensed operators to host cannabis consumers.” 

Today, as propaganda regarding the plant’s effects fades, marijuana continues to be legalized across America. America must now ask itself a grim question: Will the decriminalization of marijuana actually empower minority communities?

Experts worry that the legalization of marijuana paired with subpar investment into minority communities in New York City may lead to more harm than good. The main concern is that underfunded areas of New York City have become reliant on the drug trade as a means to survive. 

According to Kornblum, every “crusade that has fired the zeal of the nation's moral reformers has tended to drive the morally repugnant but highly profitable vice markets to areas of the cities seen as ‘off limits’ for respectable classes” that were primarily populated by minority groups. These outer peripheries of the city were extremely poor, and the introduction of drugs did not harm them economically. In fact, according to Kornblum, it meant “the creation of jobs for those who desperately needed them.”

Now, New York City has only done half the work, effectively removing an economic stimulator for these neighborhoods, while not properly funding and creating real economic opportunities for residents. When marijuana was legalized, buyers took their business to cannabis dispensaries, which are more convenient and safer than purchasing from a dealer. Subsequently, these dealers—who otherwise would have reinvested their money in their communities—would suddenly lose their only substantial source of income. This, paired with the fact that a majority of these communities are underdeveloped and underfunded, means that these neighborhoods will only sink further into economic depression. 

Ultimately, legalizing marijuana is an important step in acknowledging and bringing awareness to the U.S.’s checkered history. However, it is equally important to invest in the communities that are most affected by marijuana to reduce crime and ensure their future economic growth.

In order to understand the barbarity of marijuana, we obviously must hear from the scene of the crime. This leads us back to the very report with which this article began: “[There was] a series of pup tents arranged on a rooftop in Harlem. Those present, the undercover ‘sociologists’ reported, ‘proceeded to smoke their cigarettes in the tents. When the desired effect of the drug had been obtained, they all merged into the open and engaged in a discussion of their admiration of the stars and the beauties of nature.’”

Works cited

Works Cited

Anderson, D. Mark, and Daniel I. Rees. The Public Health Effects of Legalizing Marijuana. IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, 2021. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep61951.

Baxter, K., & Baxter, K. (2022, May 13). The history of cannabis in New York | point seven group. Point Seven Group:. https://pointsevengroup.com/post/history-of-cannabis-in-new-york/

Bonnie, Richard J., and Charles H. Whitebread. “The Forbidden Fruit and the Tree of Knowledge: An Inquiry into the Legal History of American Marijuana Prohibition.” Virginia Law Review, vol. 56, no. 6, 1970, pp. 971–1203. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1071903.

Clark, Peter A. “The Ethics of Medical Marijuana: Government Restrictions vs. Medical Necessity.” Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 21, no. 1, 2000, pp. 40–60. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3343473.

Chu, Yu-Wei Luke. “Do Medical Marijuana Laws Increase Hard-Drug Use?” The Journal of Law & Economics, vol. 58, no. 2, 2015, pp. 481–517. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1086/684043.

Dills, Angela, et al. The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations: 2021 Update. Cato Institute, 2021. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep30177.

Drake, Coleman, et al. Medical Cannabis Availability and Mental Health: Evidence from New York’s Medical Cannabis Program. IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep68722.

Halim, N. (2026, May 7). New laws cut cannabis arrests, but racial disparities persist. Cornell Chronicle. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/05/new-laws-cut-cannabis-arrests-racial-disparities-persist

Kornblum, William. “Drug Legalization and the Minority Poor.” The Milbank Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 3, 1991, pp. 415–35. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3350103.

Meier, Kenneth J. “The Politics of Drug Abuse: Laws, Implementation, and Consequences.” The Western Political Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1, 1992, pp. 41–69. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/448762.

NYPD data: People of color subject to more than 94% of marijuana arrests. (2021, March 10). The Legal Aid Society. https://legalaidnyc.org/news/nypd-data-people-of-color-94-percent-marijuana-arrests/

Mueller, B. (2018, May 13). Surest way to face marijuana charges in New York: Be black or hispanic. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/13/nyregion/marijuana-arrests-nyc-race.html

Thompson, M. (2013, July 22). The mysterious history of “marijuana.” Npr.Org. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/14/201981025/the-mysterious-history-of-marijuana

Pacula, Rosalie Liccardo, et al. “State Medical Marijuana Laws: Understanding the Laws and Their Limitations.” Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 23, no. 4, 2002, pp. 413–39. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3343240.

Project, M. P. (n.d.). An overview of New York’s compassionate care act. MPP. From https://www.mpp.org/states/new-york/new-yorks-compassionate-care-act-an-overview-of-a-6357-e-and-s-7923/

Schlosser, E. (1994, August). Reefer madness. The Atlantic. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/08/reefer-madness/303476/

Single, Eric W. “The Impact of Marijuana Decriminalization: An Update.” Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 10, no. 4, 1989, pp. 456–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3342518.