The Human Toll: How the War on Cannabis Targeted Black America

Produced by Vanity Fair with PAX Labs and featuring MPP Executive Director Steven Hawkins | Wars cannot be waged on things, they can only be waged on people. This three-part docuseries delves into how U.S. drug policy — and specifically cannabis prohibition — over the last century has been a driver of racial inequality, unjust incarceration, and devastating harm to communities and people of color.

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In Part One, leaders from the Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, Law Enforcement Action Partnership and Brookings Institution uncover the racist origins of the war on drugs and explain how these dangerous policies, dating as far back as the early 1900s, have shaped our carceral system to this day. 

Part One: The War on Race (released March 12, 2021)

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In Part Two, leaders from the Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, and Brookings Institution explain how cannabis policing and prosecution is, and always has been, racially charged and intensely punitive. We learn about the heavy toll that communities of color often suffer — from endemic psychological trauma to mass incarceration. We are introduced to Corvain Cooper and Evelyn LaChapelle, both previously incarcerated for non-violent cannabis offenses, whose stories provide powerful testimony to the extent to which the deck is stacked against people of color.

Part Two: Collateral Consequences (released March 25, 2021)

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