A local law making marijuana offenses the lowest law-enforcement priority in Seattle has resulted in fewer drug arrests, but black residents are still being arrested in disproportionate numbers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Jan. 8.

Far more whites than blacks live in Seattle, but more black residents were arrested and charged with marijuana offenses in 2006 than whites, according to a report from the Marijuana Policy Review Panel, which is responsible for monitoring implementation of the law.

'The report highlights the racial disparity in marijuana enforcement, which is indicative of the disparity of all drug enforcement," said board member Dominic Holden, who also chaired the campaign that got the law passed in 2003. Since the law went into effect, the total number of marijuana cases in the city has declined. But 57 percent of men arrested in 2006 were black, up from 52 percent in 2003, while arrests of black women increased from 35 percent to about 50 percent of the total in the same time period.

No increases in crime, youth marijuana use, or other public-health consequences were seen as a result of the law, the report said.