A subset of the studies you mention have in particular looked at illegal drug usage. Why are black people arrested at higher rates than white people if their rates of illegal drug use are the same? Surely it must be discrimination?

Not so fast. That's the conclusion often drawn, but at least one recent study has shown that Marijuana purchasing behavior differs significantly between blacks and whites.

From the study abstract: "Using trivariate probit regression with demographic, drug use, and drug market covariates, analyses reveal that African Americans are nearly twice as likely to buy outdoors (0.31 versus 0.14), three times more likely to buy from a stranger (0.30 versus 0.09), and significantly more likely to buy away from their homes (0.61 versus 0.48). These results provide an additional explanation for the differential in arrest rates between African Americans and Whites."

Study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7178364_Racial_diff...

Yeah, no, it's discrimination. Having a connection so you don't need to be buying on corners is a privilege.

I don't expect the authors of that paper from 2005 in a journal nobody's ever heard of to be aware of it, but I was buying weed on the weekly back then and I'm here to tell you that paper doesn't say what you say it says. That it and you both think it does is unsurprising, but it also doesn't make either any less wrong.