Quick bump: Pardon me?

The Governor of Maryland recently "pardoned more than 175,000 low-level marijuana convictions". That's wonderful. There's no reason the government should persecute people who want to peacefully enjoy marijuana. But the announcement came with some uncomfortable wording.

The Governor and his administration framed these pardons less as rejecting bad policy, and more as helping an ethnic minority. While the Governor seems to have good intentions, his announcement felt weirdly racist.

In announcing his pardons, the Governor spoke about drug prohibition laws: "We're talking about tools that have led to the mass incarceration of Black men and boys." The Attorney General supported the racial angle: "The enforcement of cannabis laws has disproportionately and overwhelmingly burdened communities of color." Even the Executive Order itself talks about "Black Marylanders" being disproportionately affected by anti-marijuana laws. This is probably all accurate. But it says the government acted on considerations of race. That should never happen in a free country.

When race is a consideration of government, it is a racist government. Such governments are not only incompatible with human freedom and flourishing, they have a long history of being particularly evil. You might say, "we're talking about the United States here, it's different." That's the point. We are supposed to hold the United States to a higher standard. If we don't, it stops being different.

It shouldn't matter which races have been harmed by the drug prohibition. It is enough that good people are being harmed by bad laws. We should roll back the drug prohibition without cultivating racist government.