The Racialized Politics of Drugs: Analyzing Racial Resentment and Cannabis Policy, Milo Richardson, UG '25 (FF7686F0)

Amidst a national shift toward the acceptance of marijuana legalization, a divide emerges between the robust support for recreational marijuana legalization and the hesitant implementation of expungement policies. Although considerable scholarship has focused on the expansive support for legalization, research on expungement and the social factors influencing its acceptance (or lack thereof), remains sparse. To fill this gap, I develop a theoretical framework suggesting that the profit-driven legalization policies, benefitting a largely white-owned industry, are directly opposed to expungement policies that would disproportionately aid Black Americans by combatting the racially-biased history of the war on drugs. Such policies have the potential to dismantle socioeconomic barriers imposed by criminal records, directly challenging the status quo that is upheld by racially resentful individuals who believe that racial progress undermines white socioeconomic dominance. To test this, and discover if there is a relationship between individual racial resentment and support for marijuana legalization, I administered a survey to 800 white Americans, to measure their support for marijuana legalization when presented alongside tax benefits and automatic expungement. The results indicated strong overall support for legalization regardless of the policy presented. When dividing respondents by their resentment levels, however, support was conditioned by this resentment, where more racially resentful individuals showed significantly lower support for these policies, specifically the policies presented with expungement. These findings not only highlight the enduring influence of racial attitudes on policy support, but also underscore the critical need to confront these biases to achieve more equitable outcomes in drug policy reforms.