The ACLU filed a request for records supporting Maine Governor Paul LePage’s claim that 90 percent of drug dealers arrested in Maine were Black or Hispanic. After waving around a sheet of page purporting to list the dealers and offering to share it with the public, the governor now claims it will take two or three weeks to fulfill the request for the list. The governor’s claim has been met with considerable skepticism as whites and Blacks use and sell at similar rates. The skewed figures in Maine could be attributed to law enforcement’s ignoring white’s drug crimes. (American Civil Liberties Union, September 2, 2016, by Alison Beyea)
The Portland Press Herald also filed a request for the records under the state’s Freedom of Access Act. Beyea also said the statistics showed that whites were more likely to sell drugs than Blacks, and national figures show that in 2012 38 percent of people arrested for selling drugs were black. (Portland Press Herald, August 25, 2016, by Scott Thistle)