State of Washington vs. Blake: Undoing the War on Drugs

• In Event: Sociology of Law Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Sociology of Law Section Roundtables: Table 6 — Punishment, Governance, and Social Control

Abstract

In the 1970s, Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs, enacting crime control strategies that involved overly harsh punishments and a centralized attack on specific communities for possession (Tonry, 1995; Alexander 2010). Over the last two to three decades, these crime control practices have altered and many states have changed their drug laws. More specifically, Washington state Supreme Court in 2021 ruled on State v. Blake, which deemed that simple and personal possession of a controlled substance was unconstitutional (Supreme Court of Washington, 2021). The decision was set to be accomplished without a uniform practice statewide, allowing counties to have full autonomy and jurisdiction of their Blake relief implementation. Although the Blake decision is very impactful, its execution has produced severely unequal outcomes across counties (Clark, 2025). While some scholars would suggest taking a unified approach would be better, other scholars say that unified practices result in inequality as well. Scholars, however, have not addressed which dimensions of the fragmented court structure generates variation, nor how state agencies and organizations navigate those structural features in their implementation practices. Therefore, this project asks: Institutionally, how do state agencies or organizations understand and frame their efforts towards completing Blake relief in an un-unified and decentralized court system? Using focus groups with several state organizations and agencies across Washington state, I aim to understand how they make meaning of their efforts, how they speak about the impacted communities, and what parts of the court system impact their work in both positive and negative ways. Preliminary findings suggest that legislation offered reform without dismantling the systems that created the inequities and injustices. Ultimately this project calls into question, was the Blake decision about undoing harm and unconstitutional practices or merely an effort to preserve Washington state's progressive image (Bell 1973; Freeman 1981).

Author

• Amber Burrell, University of Washington