In April Pa. Governor Tom Corbett got a bit of attention for a comment he made on the "Ask the Governor" program on the web site PAMatters.com. 

He said: "There are many employers that say, 'We're looking for people, but we can't find anybody that has passed a drug test.' That's a concern for me because we're having a serious problem with that."

So given the governor's belief in widespread drug use, and given that Pennsylvania's arrest rate for marijuana possession has risen 23 percent in the past 9 years, it's probably no surprise that the state budget that gained approval from the House Appropriations Committee on June 4 (and now moves to the floor for debate) allocates a 3.2 percent increase to the funding of the Department of Corrections.

By comparison, there is only a .908 percent increase in the amount budgeted for basic education, despite lots of public outcry. and advocacy. Remember this, because we'll get back to it later.

An ACLU report released in June shows that although drug arrests overall have been in decline nationally, the number of arrests for marijuana possession have risen dramatically. They account for over half of all drug arrests in America. This is proof, the report declares, of a failed war on drugs that has consumed a huge number of resources and contributed to "jaw-dropping" rates of incarceration. 

It is a war on people of color, the report states bleakly, and then goes on to chart figures that shore the statement up. Across the nation a black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, despite marijuana use being nearly on par for both. 

It gets worse when we look specifically at Pennsylvania: a black person is five times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, according to the report, and in certain Pa. counties, 10 times more likely to be arrested. A full 82 percent the people arrested for marijuana possession in Philadelphia are black.

Although the numbers may be a revelation, the rest is not news to communities of color. African Americans and Latinos have long asserted that we are far more likely to be stopped and frisked, and then booked if anything deemed suspicious is found on us. 

Though the report doesn't track numbers for Latinos (only New York and California's Departments of Corrections give the option to check Latino as a racial group), it calculates that we are 2.5 times more likely to be arrested on marijuana possession charges than whites.

Neighborhoods with large concentrations of people of color are often characterized as neighborhoods where drugs predominate. We heard that very clearly earlier this year during the trial of the police officer accused of striking a woman in the face at the end of the Puerto Rican day festivities. In exonerating the policeman of any brutality charges, the judge referred to the 5th and Lehigh neighborhood, in the heart of Philadelphia's barrio, as full of people smoking marijuana.

Philadelphia is beset with a high poverty  rate and a high dropout rate that affects many African Americans and Latinos. It points to a systemic racism which the disparate rate of arrests and incarcerations of people of color also bear out. 

The ACLU report is a wake up call in terms of the equity of law enforcement practices throughout the state, and nation. It also makes clear that the amount of money spent on funding these racially biased arrests is in the billions.

Billions we're willing to spend in the apprehension, and as the Pa. budget plan prepped for approval shows, for incarceration. The fact that we are willing to give a bigger increase to the department that administers our jails than to the state's public education system is telling. We've put our future in shackles.

• A black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person

• A Latino is 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person

• In Pennsylvania, a  black person is 5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person

• In Philadelphia 82 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession are black

• In Lycoming and Lawrence counties (in Pennsylvania) blacks are 10 times more likely to be arrested than whites

From "The War on Marijuana in Black and White," American Civil Liberties Union, June 2013