The instant that Sanford police
officials in March, 2012 leaked to the media school records that showed Trayvon
Martin had been suspended from school for possessing a trace amount of
marijuana, there was little doubt that George Zimmerman's defense attorneys
would jump all over this to prove their point about Martin. The point was, and
is the centerpiece of their Zimmerman self-defense claim, that Martin's
marijuana use made him edgy, aggressive, and violent. And since this is supposedly
the case, it bolsters two of Zimmerman's contentions that Martin came under his
watch because of his drugged out, suspicious behavior and more importantly that
Martin attacked him and he had to resort to deadly force to save himself from
mortal harm from a doped out Martin. A toxicological report found a trace
amount of marijuana in Martin's system the night of his slaying.
Zimmerman's attorneys wasted no time in
loudly demanding that this be entered as prime evidence of Martin's alleged aggressiveness.
Prosecutors rightly opposed its admission as being irrelevant since Zimmerman
could not have known this and even if he had ESP and did know it there is
absolutely no evidence that marijuana use predisposes anyone to violent
behavior. Judge Debra Nelson initially seemed to agree. Her reversal and decision
to allow Martin's alleged marijuana use into the trial is potentially a huge sop
to the defense.
But if facts mean anything it shouldn't
be. The few studies that have tried to link marijuana use to violent behavior
have managed to prove only two things. One is that there is no firm connect
between the drug's use and individual violence. The other is that whatever
violence an individual that tokes up may exhibit is because that individual has
a violent or criminal history. In other words, there's a predisposition to
violence that has absolutely nothing to do with their marijuana use. The White
House which relied heavily on a report from the Office of National Drug Control
Policy takes a hard-nosed stance against marijuana
liberalization and any slack off in tough federal enforcement of medical
marijuana regulation. But it did not make any case that marijuana increases
violence. It focused instead on the need for enforcing the law and continued to
insist that marijuana represents a health hazard, and a harmful addiction, but violence
due to its use, no. Even if there were no studies on marijuana use and violence
or White House concern over marijuana use and its alleged harmful effects, the notion
that marijuana use spurs violence notion is ludicrous.
The National Survey on Drug Use and
Health, 2009 and 2010, report found that nearly two-thirds of the nation's adult
population aged 21 to 54 has used marijuana at least once. Common sense
would tell us that if even a fraction of the tens of millions of people that
have tried marijuana rampage in their homes and in the streets, the jails would
be bursting at the seams with those arrested for drugged out marijuana induced violent
acts. However, that's only part of the problem in trying to separate fact from
deliberate distortion about marijuana use.
The other part is the public perception
of who uses drugs and their effects. Studies and reports have overwhelmingly
found that African-American students are far more likely than white students to
be suspended or expelled from school for marijuana use and possession. They are
far more likely to be arrested and convicted for drug use than whites. This
despite countless studies that show that blacks do not use drugs in any greater
incidence than whites, and in some cases, even less than whites. This
reinforces the deeply ingrained stereotype that not only is the average drug
user and pusher a young black male. But that a young black is the cause of most
of the drug related violence in the country.
Zimmerman's defense attorneys, however,
aren't interested in these facts or the corrosive effects of racial stereotypes
and drugs. Their defense game plan is to tar Martin as a violent druggie and further
muddle the issue for jurors whether Martin's behavior was the trigger for his
killing. This was crudely and insultingly put by one of the attorneys to Martin's
mother on the witness stand when he flatly asked her whether she thought he had
any culpability in his death.
The issue then boils down to whether the
Zimmerman jurors can separate his defense attorney's deliberate muddle of the
facts and trash of Martin and see that there's absolutely no credible proof
that marijuana use in and of itself induces violent behavior in anyone. There
is not a scintilla of evidence that Martin was inherently aggressive and
violence prone. The prosecution's job is
to make sure that they see this. Anything short of this could bolster the
terrifying thought the defense has worked overtime to implant and that's that
marijuana use made Martin a legitimate target.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His
new ebook is America on Trial: The
Slaying of Trayvon Martin ( Amazon ).
He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is a weekly co-host of the
Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson
Report on KTYM 1460 AM Radio Los Angeles and KPFK-Radio and the Pacifica
Network.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson
