By Legislative Director Becky Straus

An edited version of this piece appeared in the Eugene Register Guard

Oregonians spoke loud and clear this election when they approved with over 55% of the vote Measure 91 to legalize, tax and regulate recreational marijuana for adults 21 and over. Higher tallies posted in Lane County and up and down the coast, and reached up to 71% support for the measure in Multnomah County.

We should interpret these numbers as a strong mandate: the War on Marijuana has failed and Oregonians reject prohibition. It is time for a new approach that focuses on eliminating the black market and the racial disparity in marijuana enforcement, on regulating the industry and on raising revenue for priorities like education, drug treatment and public safety.

While the Oregon Liquor Control Commission has its work cut out for it to outline a regulatory scheme in the coming year and many of the new laws will not take effect until July, law enforcement agencies in Lane County and across the state should start now to begin to right the wrongs of decades of overcriminalization.

Marijuana enforcement is a wasteful diversion of scarce public safety resources.

Money and valuable police time is better spent on activities that keep communities safe, investigating serious and often unsolved crimes. Clogging our courts with people who buy pot only serves to line the pockets of black market cartels that fuel violent crime.

And, for individuals, the personal cost of marijuana enforcement is often significant and can linger for years. When people are cited or arrested for even small amounts of marijuana, it can affect aspects of their life from public housing, to student financial aid eligibility, to employment opportunities and more.

These are exactly the skewed priorities that voters rejected when they approved Measure 91, so let us take that new approach starting now. The Multnomah County District Attorney announced recently that he will no longer prosecute certain marijuana crimes and will drop pending charges immediately.

Police officers on the streets and prosecutors in the courtroom should take the lead in Lane County too, and across the state, and stop enforcing any marijuana laws that will drop off the books in July. Based on 2012 rates of marijuana citation and arrest, hitting the stop button now could affect over 8,500 Oregonians.

No less, alleviating the stark racial disparity in marijuana enforcement is a hallmark of many Oregonians’ support for reform. FBI Crime Reporting statistics show us that, despite usage rates being roughly equal between blacks and whites, blacks in Oregon are roughly twice as likely as whites to be cited or arrested for a marijuana offense.

Unfortunately, Oregonians’ approval of Measure 91 is not a panacea for these related problems of racial disparity and biased policing. But this meaningful step forward on drug policy reform can be an opportunity to address them head-on.

Not only should law enforcement cease immediately from enforcing those marijuana laws that are affected by Measure 91, all police departments and sheriff’s offices should compile and disclose data that details the racial and ethnic breakdown of marijuana arrests going forward. And those data should report on all stops made by law enforcement, not just marijuana-related enforcement.

The success of Measure 91 is a great step forward for criminal justice in Oregon because it shifts our approach on some drug policies from criminalization to regulation and treatment, with particular concern for the effects of the outdated approach on Oregonians of color. The mandate of this victory should resonate well beyond Election Day.