A demonstrator waves a marijuana-themed flag in front on the White House. President Biden is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of "simple possession" of marijuana under federal law. Jose Luis Magana/AP

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President Biden announced this month an executive order to pardon federal, simple marijuana possession charges for thousands of Americans – an important first step, advocates say, to reversing decades of uneven drug enforcement policy that has historically burdened Black communities.

"Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit," Biden said in a statement last week.

"And while white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people have been arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates."

These are the long-term effects of the United States' War on Drugs, pioneered by the administration of disgraced former-President Richard Nixon, which purported to help rein in the interstate trade and use of illegal drugs.

The war's ultimate outcome, however, was the overpolicing of Black communities, leading to massive arrest rates for accused Black drug users.