Best Practices: Protecting Immigrants When Decriminalizing or Legalizing Marijuana

Report October 10, 2020

Many states, even conservative strongholds, have embraced marijuana reform as a common sense step towards reversing the harms of the racialized drug war. Given the growing risk of deportation, advocates are supporting efforts to ensure that immigrants are not being left out of the conversation when these drug laws are changed.

To help advocates guide their drug reform work to include immigrants, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Immigrant Defense Project, and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center put together this resource guide. We recognize that communities of color have long been those most harmed by the war on drugs. While there are many equity-based considerations that must be included in any effort to legalize marijuana, this resource focuses exclusively on ways to lessen the immigration-related harms of marijuana criminalization.

View the guide  (PDF).
A young woman holds a sign that says "End the Drug War."

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