Drug Decriminalization in Maryland Through an African Centered Research Paradigm- Analysis and Recommendations

influences” from your past as a precondition for sobriety. Given these realities, researchers
interesting in productive and emancipatory research must challenge the simplistic notion that
Portugal represents a ”best practice” in drug decriminalization which should be copied in America,
lest one risk ignore a myriad of ways in which the Portugese model can be applied in a manner
which could reflect Anti-Black sentiment and even risk expanding Anti-Black social control and
violence.
This analysis of the Portugese model helps establish the implications of deconstructive,
African Centered Research on meta level analysis of policy recommendations. We can now apply
the deconstructive model to look more directly at research methods and begin to isolate specific
questions and finding which may be useful for “heuristic” research.
Research Methodology and Anti-Blackness. On the Form and Function of Drug Policy
Research
In analysing a cross section of research on drug decriminalization, research methodologies
and practices which are problematized by an African Centered Research Paradigm. For example,
Kozlowski et al pursued a very interesting and potentially useful research project attempting to do
a quantitative analysis of the impacts of cannabis decriminalization in Prince George's County
(Kozlowski et al, 2019). While the findings of these articles will be taken up later in this analysis,
for this section it is the methodology that is under examination. In an attempt to find a variable
which shows statistical significance when used as a lens through which to view their data, the
researcher’s made what, from an African Centered Research paradigm, is a very interesting choice,
writing:
“Additionally, we included an indicator of physical and social disorder, measured as the
proportion of all misdemeanor enforcements within a beat-year that involved a disorderrelated
incident.6 Lastly, we included percent female headed households (in 2010) as an
indicator of socioeconomic disadvantage, measured as the percent of all beat households
(with at least one dependent) that are female-headed. Four other measures of socioeconomic
disadvantage – percent unemployed, percent in poverty, percent without a high
school diploma, and percent receiving public assistance – were also considered for
inclusion.
However, whether as individual variables or collapsed into two indices along with female
headed household, none of these four variables were statistically significant. The only
variable that significantly contributed toward accounting for overall beat-level variation
in marijuana enforcement was female headed household, so we included this variable as
an indicator of beat-level disadvantage.” (Kozlowski et al, 2019)
The idea that female headed households are a symbol of disadvantage may have fits the short term,
instrumental needs of the researchers in the movement, but given the historical context of how
Black communities have been deemed inferior because of their prevalence of female headed
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