Billy+Gonzalez+Annual+Project 

Billy Gonzalez Annual Project Media Part

Have you ever wondered if your child or young loved one has used drugs such as marijuana? Well it has come to my attention that there is an increase in marijuana usage in young adults. So i wondered, How has the Criminal Justice System failed to prevent marijuana usage in young adults? The Criminal Justice System has failed to prevent marijuana usage in young adults by only punishing the bad and not promoting the good, security isn't up to the task, people want to do something their not allowed to.

One reason how the Criminal Justice System failed to prevent the usage of marijuana in young adults is that they only focus on punishing what people did wrong. The government spends so much money on arresting people just for possesion, when they could have tried to avoid the whole thing and prevent it before it starts.One way the try to catch people with marijuana is the stop-and-frisk policy, which brought a rise to a bigger problem, racial discrimination. Also, according to [|Sciencedaily.com], ʺ Other recent studies have shown that approximately 35 percent of young adult tobacco smokers used marijuana within the last month. ʺ Also, according to activist Russell Barth jail time is not a deterrent to crime. He states:

"//[|The Conservatives are anything but 'tough' on crime. Their crime and drug policy has three parts: 1) To pander to myopic, media-addled, punishment-fetishists who make up his voter base and who think jail is the best cure/deterrent for any behaviour; 2) to paint anyone who speaks sensibly about drugs as "soft" on crime; 3) to impose a U.S.-style, for-profit prison industry onto Canadians].//"

Another reason how the criminal justice system failed to prevent the usage of marijuana in young adults is that security isnt up to the task. Unfortuantly the police cant checkeverybody, there are not enough police officers. So they have to stop people and frisk them to see if are in possession of any legal substances. Sure the idea that people are being locked up for possesing illegal substances might be a good thing but alot of those arrest were classified as "unneccisary" due the importance level. Also the way officers stop people has been an issue. Sopposidly the officers have been trained to stop anyone suspicious of possessing any illigal substances, but many officers have stoped Latinos and african american more often then caucasian males. This brings up a point known as racial discrimination. According to [|The Huffington Post] and more officers have stopped latinos and african americans which might explain why the majority of marijuana related arrests were minorities. According to [|The New York Times], The government is trying new methods to reduce unnecessary arrests. //“Some of our officers are making race-based discretionary decisions on who they're going to arrest for low-level marijuana possession," //said Leroy Gadsden (The president of a branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Jamaica, Queens, and the chairman of the criminal justice committee for the statewide N.A.A.C.P.) . He added //"Therefore, of course, if your a young, black male, even a female, you're going to feel that you're being targeted when you notice that your white counterparts are not being arrested for the same thing."// My third reason why the criminal justice system failed to prevent the usage of marijuana in young adults is that people physiologically want to do things there not sopposed to. We may not all know that. Humans tend to try to see how far the could do something to set up a boundary of some sort. One famous quote pretty much captures my point, "Curiosity Killed The Cat" used by people as early as the 1500's. We all know that certain states legalized marijuana, while others have harsh punishments if you possess or sell illegal substances. States like Massachusetts and California have legalized marijuana, and had no signifancant increase in crime. While other states like News York has seen a huge crime rate involving marijuana. Every state has their own set of laws and punishments on this subject, so everyone who comits the same crime wont have the same punishment.

In conclusion, though the criminal justice system is trying their best to stop this issue, their attempts have failed. There are not enough officers to stop everyone so some officers used race-based accusations to stop Latinos and African Americans, creating or bringing a rise to a bigger issue know as racial discrimination.