As access to legal cannabis increases, we thought it was especially important to check in with the people doing the work to consider the history, our present situation, and what’s on the horizon for drug policy. Enter: Kassandra Frederique (she/her), drug policy organizer and executive director at the Drug Policy Alliance.

Her passion for drug policy reform developed through a mixture of study and lived experience. She notes that non-white people aren’t immune to the racism and propaganda in the media, and when she was growing up, people parroted language insinuating that those who were arrested on cannabis charges put themselves in those situations. And though she knew these narratives were wrong, getting involved in drug policy gave Kassandra a framework through which to look at these experiences. And that’s how she could truly articulate just how “intentional state violence is.” She says, “They already know what the impacts will be when they introduce the policies.” And so, we, too, can learn not to blame folks for being caught up in the system when they’re purposefully being put there by the state.

Read on for more of her insights on cannabis and other drugs.

How has the criminalization of cannabis affected people—particularly Black people, Latinx people, and other communities of color?
Cannabis in general was called marijuana as a means of racist propaganda by using the Spanish word. The government used cannabis as a way to scare the white populace around the safety of white women—especially young white women—who were going to jazz clubs and dancing with Black folks. So, the criminalization was a part of the continual xenophobic policies of drug policy reform in the southwest against Mexicans and the state violence associated with it. Even the concept of cannabis prohibition is deeply based in the subjugation and the punishment and surveillance of folks that are Black and Latinx—specifically Mexican.

When you start from that foundation, then it makes sense why cannabis is one of the top reasons people are deported out of the country. It makes sense why cannabis is also one of the main reasons why parents—especially parents of color—are separated from their children. And it’s also why some people can’t get access to jobs because of drug testing.

Cannabis has been a part of the first frontier in drug policy reform, and we’re seeing that lead to legalization or decriminalization in some states. What are the limitations of that success?
Organizers overestimated the transformational power of cannabis reform. And that’s not to say that cannabis reform is not transformational. However, cannabis reform does not inherently have the ability to take down racism, capitalism, or sexism, but I think organizers were super hopeful about that. Even with cannabis reform, people’s experience of policing hasn’t dynamically shifted. Sure, fewer people are getting arrested for cannabis, but law enforcement is still as powerful and still as resourced. And I think part of it is recognizing that this is just a piece in a long struggle, and we have to be more coordinated across different movements in order for the people that we want to benefit to actually benefit.

Obviously drug policy is about a lot more than just cannabis, and there’s been a  recent push toward normalization and legalization of psychedelics. Can you talk a bit about that?
I think that psychedelic organizers are following a similar cannabis playbook. But there’s a conversation in our movement about whether or not we should keep doing this kind of single class decriminalization.

I think that you’re seeing psychedelic reform happen at a faster pace than that of cannabis because of multiple things. The people that want psychedelic reform are highly resourced and connected, and I also think that more and more people are looking for alternative substances to manage deep trauma and mental health issues. There are so many people impacted by that, so their natural base is bigger. Plus, people are more aware of the misinformation and disinformation that has been propagated around drugs, so people are more likely to experiment now.

And when we’re talking about drugs that are more demonized in society—like heroin, tranq, or meth—what’re the goals for you as a drug policy expert?
I would say that it’s part of the argument why people think we shouldn’t do single class decriminalization because it reinforces the good drugs vs. bad drugs narrative. My belief is that decriminalization is the bare minimum because the criminalization associated with substances that we’re scared of doesn’t make us any safer from these substances. It makes it more chaotic and unpredictable. We’re in a situation where people are using tranquilizers and cancer medicines in the hopes of trying new things, or those drugs are contaminating the current supply because of our criminalization and prohibition, and it’s making everything more dangerous.

People are clear that the war on drugs has failed and they don’t actually want the war on drugs. What they want is to be safe. And our side is still working through what is the intervention that will satisfy the fears of people. When you’re someone who’s dealing with someone in your family who’s struggling with addiction, we need solutions that deal with a very real and complicated human condition. Not everyone who uses drugs is dealing with the criminal legal system, or their family wants them to be because it is one of the largest providers of (subpar) treatment for people.

So, we’re seriously having conversations about what we’re creating. That’s what I want to start with. We’re creating access to non-coercive voluntary treatment, we’re creating access to jobs by getting rid of drug testing, we’re creating access to keeping families together by changing these child welfare rules. That is part of anything that we have to flip when we’re talking about the decriminalization of things like heroin.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I think it’s really critical for people to realize that cannabis prohibition and cannabis enforcement is disrupting the safety of women, especially trans women. If our cannabis reform isn’t connected to police abolition, or connected to a Black feminist agenda, then it’s not reform. It’s just creating another capitalist market that will continue to extract and exploit the people that we name these campaigns for.