Courtesy of Christopher BlackwellI was 12 years old the first time I was arrested for weed. I was handcuffed and taken to juvenile detention, the start of a life caught in the web of the carceral system. I grew up during the height of the war on drugs, which led to an explosion in the number of people arrested for drug offenses. By the time I was 14, I had been arrested more than a dozen times and I dropped out of school. And although kids can get in trouble for underage drinking, they are rarely arrested and sent to juvie for the offense.

Source: Huffington Post May 31, 2022 15:15 UTC