The War on Drugs in America: Disproportionality and Race
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Contact the author. May 3, 2003. The War on Drugs is a U.S. federal policy carried out at all levels of government prohibiting the use of the chemicals that the government has declared verboten to citizens and non-citizens of the country alike. The War on Drugs has stretched as far as Mexico and Columbia, all for the greater “purity” of U.S. livelihood. What are the origins of the War on Drugs? How did drug prohibition come to be? What are the problems related to class and race in the War on Drugs? The War on Drugs has a heavy impact along racial lines, has been portrayed as necessary by popular culture (entertainment, music, the media, ect.), and has gone through many changes since the beginning of the last Century. Origins of the Drug War Before 1883, there were no federal, and few state, prohibitions against the manufacture, sale, use, or possession of drugs. At the turn-of-the last century in America, people were free to use opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, and marijuana with few restrictions. Popular tonics, Coca-Cola and some other "soft drinks" contained traces of cocaine, and hundreds of medicines like Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup contained psychoactive drugs. Millions of Americans took opiates and cocaine, including many children; parents would give their children medicines containing cocaine. Many of the "medicines" which contained cocaine and other drugs now banned were advertised widely, including in family magazines and health journals. In 1925, a 10-year-old girl could walk into a local pharmacy and purchase cocaine without restriction. They didn’t do it. Why? It wasn’t forbidden fruit. Race and the Drug War The first federal law that regulated consumable products was the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. When cocaine was outlawed in 1914, it was done so in fear that black men would go on a sexual rampage and rape white women. In the early 1900's, newspapers referred to them as "Negro Cocaine Fiends" or "Cocainized Niggers.” Marijuana was outlawed in 1937 because the plant had a “violent effect on the degenerate races.” One problem with American’s drug policy is that it disproportionately affects the lives of black Americans. The impact of the black market and drug enforcement on the black community is socially, economically and politically devastating. The relationship of communities of color to their government has also been twisted by the enforcement of drug prohibition. It is well known, for instance, that "driving while black,” commonly called racial profiling, is enough to get one pulled over and harassed in many parts of the country. The pervasiveness of racial profiling in traffic stops has led many to dub the practice "DWB" – Driving While Black or Brown. Because drug law enforcement is so much easier to carry out in poor, non-white neighborhoods, leading to high percentages of non-whites arrested on these charges, all non-whites have become suspect in the eyes of the drug warriors. Once arrested, people of color are once again treated more harshly – this time, by the criminal justice system itself. The best-known example of the disparity in sentencing is the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentences. Crack and powder cocaine both contain the same active ingredient, but crack is marketed in less expensive quantities and in lower income communities of color. Selling only five grams triggers a five-year federal mandatory minimum sentence for crack cocaine, while an offender must sell 500 grams of powder cocaine to get the same sentence. People of color also disproportionately face health risks due to the war on drugs. Despite the proven success of needle exchange programs in reducing the spread of HIV, AIDS, and Hepatitis C, most states do not allow them to operate legally. Additionally, today, "Up to 90% of drug offenders in state prisons today are black" (Worden par. 1). According to Human Rights Watch, devastating to black Americans. It contradicts faith in the principles of justice and equal protection of the laws that should be the bedrock of any constitutional democracy; it exposes and deepens the racial fault lines that continue to weaken the country and belies its promise as a land of equal opportunity; and it undermines faith among all races in the fairness and efficacy of the criminal justice system. Urgent action is needed, at both the state and federal level, to address this crisis for the American nation” (par. 18) In 1990, of the 739,960 sentenced prisoners in Federal and State prisons, 370,400 were black. By 2000, the number of black inmates had grown to 572,900 out of a total of 1,237,469 sentenced prisoners (Beck-Mumola par. 18). Prison sentences for blacks “are 27 to 57 times that of whites” (Worden par. 6). It is time to look for less oppressive, less destructive and more creative and humane solutions to the problem of substance abuse. The damage being done to our Constitution, our children, and our citizens -- particularly as pertains to non-white populations -- is devastating. There has been enough oppression. There have been enough chains and enough cages. It is not within the rights of legitimate government to "control" certain segments of the population in this manner. A Dismal Failure Four-year-old Launice Smith was killed in a shoot out between rival drug dealers at an elementary football game in the nation’s capitol in 1993. “Each year, hundreds of children like Launice are killed because drugs are illegal” (Shenk par. 6). When innocent civilians are wasted away because of government policy, isn’t it time to question the government policy itself? Right now, fifty-five percent of those entering the judicial system are doing so because of drug-related mishaps (Federal Bureau of Prisons 10); of the one million plus drug offenders, only about 330,000 of them are actually violent offenders. If the U.S. simply decriminalized possession of drugs, there would only be slightly over one million people in prison today instead of the over two million currently incarcerated. Drug abuse is a terrible personal tragedy that affects far too many Americans. But the government has elevated a personal tragedy into a national crisis that has caused a criminal black market in drugs to thrive, financed gang warfare, and increased violence in our cities. In early 2000, the number of people in prison reached two million (par. 1), according to a report from the Lindesmith Center for Drug Policy Research. This means that “one in every 143 U.S. residents” were incarcerated in “state or federal prison or a local jail” (Beck-Harrison par. 8). Indeed the drug war has put so many people in prison for victimless crimes that there's no room left for the violent criminals – the murderers, the rapists, and the child molesters who are now going free because of plea bargains and early releases. For instance, in the case of Nevada resident Larry Singleton, convicted of raping a young hitchhiker, hacking off her forearms with an ax, and leaving her in the desert to die, the murderer was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. But he was released in 1986, just eight years after the 1978 attack that changed Mary Vincent's life forever (Shenk par. 26). Around the time Singleton was being released from prison, Gary Fannon of Michigan was sent to prison for life when he was eighteen under the state's mandatory sentencing laws. Under the Michigan drug-lifer law, anyone convicted of intent to deliver over 650 grams of cocaine or heroin was granted a sentence of life in prison without parole. Over 200 Michigan citizens are currently serving life in prison because of that law (Bjorhus par. 11). Justice? You be the judge. Larry Singleton, a convicted murder, was a free man while accused cocaine dealer Gary Fannon was serving hard time. What an abomination that is! Singleton went on to murder an innocent woman in 1997. "Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child” (12), according to Boston University Professor Randy E. Barnett. Indeed Barnett is correct; is it justifiable to allow a violent murderer free, but not allow a non-violent individual free? Media and the War on Drugs The media is an obstacle in exposing the truth about the War on Drugs to the American people. Countering deceptive advertisements from The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) takes time, effort, and money – all of which are difficult to come across. The Drug Czar, John Walters, and former Drug Czar William J. Bennett are constantly covered in the media, always discussing the ramifications of drug use and how we must curb drug use now. The mainstream media aren't in the business of getting down to the bottom of issues because time, resources and money limit them. Additionally, since the military now has an expanding stake in the War on Drugs, it is only logical to assume that the media will emphasize stories about the downside of drug use because the interconnection keeps the paychecks on time. But despite the media’s traditional pro-Drug War bias, opinions are changing – some might say as a direct result of the fact that the mainstream media is waking up to the fact that the war on drugs is not working. Let’s Re-Focus In the early days of the drug war, heroin addiction was considered a public health problem; a national network of treatment programs proved successful in curbing demand. But today, with more than 250,000 heroin addicts in New York, there are only enough treatment dollars for 35,000 of them. Heroin addicts are more likely to go to jail than get treatment. Politicians purport to believe that pushing more money into the drug war itself – prosecution, persecution, prison, and sentencing – will decrease drug addiction. Yet after three decades of waging the drug war, there is no substantial evidence that drug use has declined. Despite the fact that credible evidence suggests that drug use is on the rise in America and that there is a greater black market dependence on drugs, the politicians choose to ignore that the drug war has failed, minority communities are disproportionately affected, and treatment works better than criminalization. Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity fits cohesively with U.S. Drug Policy: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The costs to society of providing inadequate treatment or no treatment at all for drug offenders in the long run are considerable. In the American drug policy debate, rhetoric dominates at the expense of facts; the result is casualty in treatment for addicts in need. American notions of recovery, success, and failure in addiction and treatment are often beholden to political ideologies and social norms that may have no basis in fact whatsoever. If all drugs were legal – or even decriminalized – addicts could seek help by going to doctors – no longer afraid of being prosecuted for their medical problems. Why have American politicians focussed too much on criminalizing drugs instead of treating drug abuse problems? Could it be because the drug war allows them to continually expand their power over our property, our bank accounts, and our private lives? The contradictory ideas in American drug policy have resulted in a system which mandates treatment for some who may neither need it nor want it, and, at the same time, leaves desperate addicts who really want treatment stranded on waiting lists for months. A rational drug policy would investigate, experiment with, and promote a wide range of treatment options to reach the greatest number of addicted persons. A humane drug policy would provide treatment on demand for all those who desire it and for those who need it most. These are ideas that are gaining currency around the world, but have until recently been conspicuously absent from the drug policy debate in the United States. To quote Martin Luther King, Jr., "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." If you want your city, your country, and your children to be safe, we must end the war on drugs before it destroys us. Understandably, many Americans fear that ending the drug war would produce hundreds of thousands of addicts, crack babies, children trying drugs, and other evils. But that's what we have now. Re-legalizing drugs would eliminate the criminal black market -- ending the violence, the incentive to hook children and the selling of bad drugs that destroy people. And addicts could seek medical help openly and inexpensively – instead of hiding their habits from the law. So as we can see, the problem with the War on Drugs for black and Hispanic Americans is that it is waged disproportionately on minorities. One out of three young black man (ages 18 to 35) in the United States are in prison or on some form of supervised release. This is unacceptable. Our country has more black men in prison than in college. This is equally unacceptable. We call ourselves the 'Land of the Free', yet we have a four times higher percentage of black men in prison than South Africa at the height of apartheid, an official national policy of institutionalized racism. Despite the fact that most illicit drug users are in fact white, black Americans constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations. Blacks comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies. A study released in 2000 by the widely known watchdog group Human Rights Watch includes the first state-by-state analysis of the role of race and drugs in prison admissions. All of the 37 states Human Rights Watch studied send black drug offenders to prison at far higher rates than whites. In Maryland, for example, blacks make up 27 percent of the population and 90 percent of those sent to prison on drug charges - a rate that is 28 times greater than whites. Since 1972 the U.S. government's National Institute on Drug Abuse has surveyed teen-age drug use – which in every major category has doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. The war on drugs costs taxpayers more than $40 billion dollars a year. More than two-thirds of this money is spent on enforcement, court and prison, while only one-third is spent on drug education. An additional $20 billion is spent by state and local funders on anti-drug measures for things such as imprisonment, policing and prosecution. Drug treatment, the most widely recognized solution to drug abuse and addiction is inadequately funded and unavailable to the majority of those most in need. Works Cited Beck, Allen J., Ph.D., and Christopher Mumola. US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 1998 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, August 1999), p. 9 Beck, Allen J., Ph.D., and Paige M. Harrison. US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2000 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 2001), p. 1-2. Bjorhus, Jennifer. "Getting into prison." Columbia Journal OnLine. July/August 1994. 6 Dec. 2001. http://www.cjr.org/year/94/4/prison.asp. 1+. Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs 12.2. Jun. 2000. Human Rights Watch. Washington, D.C. 6 Dec. 2001. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa. Shenk, Joshua Wolf. "Prohibiting Drugs Has Serious Consequences." At Issue: Legalizing Drugs. Ed. Louis Gerdes. (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. Washington, DC: Washington Monthly, 1995. 22.) Stossel, John. "Pouring money into a bad idea." ABC News OnLine. 5 May 2001. 6 Dec. 2001. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/DailyNews/2020_ 010524_GMAB_dare.html. 1+. |
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