A new trend has fully emerged.
When an African-American man, woman, boy, or girl dies a violent death, and is either found with marijuana in their system or on their person, the marijuana is blamed, directly or indirectly, for the death.
It's being implied now with Sam Dubose, who was shot and killed by a University of Cincinnati police officer.
Waller County, Texas, officials are hinting at it in the death of Sandra Bland.
They did it with Mike Brown.
They even tried to do it with Trayvon Martin.
When the officers who killed Sean Bell, who was shot at 50 times by the NYPD, went on trial, they tried to imply that a small bag of weed found near the scene somehow meant the whole car was full of reckless criminals.
But let's be perfectly clear: this argument has absolutely nothing to do with the real effects of marijuana and everything to do with nobody wanting to held responsible for the deaths and murders of African Americans across our country.
Studies are finding that marijuana is an effective agent against depression, but authorities want us to believe that it somehow caused Sandra Bland to be more depressed. Other studies are suggesting that marijuana use actually reduces incidents of violence, but we are expected to believe that it sent Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin into uncontrollable rages.
Trayvon Martin wasn't killed by marijuana. He was stalked, chased, confronted, and killed by George Zimmerman.
The death of Sam Dubose had nothing to do with marijuana. The officer didn't know he had it and concocted a series of complex lies to explain why he shot and killed a man after a routine traffic stop.
Not only that, but it is the height of hypocrisy to celebrate weed culture from coast to coast with widely known users ranging from the Grateful Dead to Willie Nelson to Cheech and Chong, while simultaneously making out like what routinely makes famous users chill out and relax turns African Americans into complete lunatics.
Again, this isn't about weed, it's about blackness and the absurd attempt at criminalizing behaviors of black people that are all but dismissed elsewhere. This isn't about marijuana, it's about those who so easily kill black bodies needing an excuse other than the one staring at them in the mirror.