America 's War On Drugs

Hence the drug paraphernalia law was enacted to prohibit the use of equipment. This law was discussed when Social Worker Jeff was providing clean needles to individuals in the community who used crack/cocaine intravenously in order to reduces the spread of HIV. The use of crack cocaine is associated with high-risk sexual practices as well as the use of unclean syringes that leads to the spread of the HIV virus. Crack/cocaine was highly prevalent in the 1980s and received a wide spread of media attention. Mandatory sentencing law was passed by congress and sentencing for crack cocaine use or sale can be up to 20

It a ludacris ratio, but they stuck with it and stuck it to a lot of low level users and dealers. There was an even harsher punishment for those who carried 5 grams of crack cocaine or more. A first time offender who was in possession of 5 grams of crack would be given a mandatory 5 years in prison. That means that you would be given the same amount of prison time for having 500 grams of powdered cocaine in your possession. If an individual was caught we 50 grams of crack, it would be an automatic 10 years. There has never been a class of drug in the history of the United States that has been as racially skewed in regards to the number of offenses. According to the United States Sentencing Commission, which I might add came about as a product of the Anti-Drug-Abuse Act, 79% of the 5,669 sentenced crack offenders in 2015 were African American 10% where Hispanic, and the remaining 10% were white. When you contrast that with the 6,103 cases were cocaine was the charge, the numbers are a little more spread out along the playing field: 53% Hispanic, 27% Black, 18% white. Rightfully so, someone finally took care of the injustice that was created back in 1986. In 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act. What the Act did was it lowered the ratio of crack to cocaine from 100-1 to 18-1. That’s still a very high number for two almost identical drugs that have the same effects, has the same molecular structure, and is just as addictive. Bills are currently being presented in order to lower the sentencing ratio down to

"Cocaine and crack are among the most addictive substances known to modern science, and they have already ruined the lives of millions of Americans" (Morganthau and Miller, 208). Cocaine and crack are both dangerous, harmful drugs. Though pleasurable effects can be obtained from these drugs, the use of crack and cocaine cannot be worth the actual consequences that are inflicted on mind and body. The bad effects of these drugs, by far outweigh the good. Because crack and cocaine are so closely related, it is important to have a firm understanding of both drugs.

Most of us would agree that drug abuse and addiction is no respecter of persons. Regardless of age, race, gender, or economic status drug addiction can rear its ugly head in any situation. Like most Americans, I have personally been affected by the pitfalls of drug addiction from relatives and friends. Therefore, I have witnessed firsthand the devastation that it leaves on family members, friends, and the communities, in which they reside. Since its inception in 1986 the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, as caused more harm than good. At the start of this Act, Congress implemented maximum drug quantities initially targeted at “serious” and “major” drug traffickers. Congress concluded that 500 grams of powder cocaine would trigger a five-year mandatory minimum, and five kilograms would trigger a ten-year mandatory minimum. However, for crack cocaine the triggering quantities were significantly less. Only five grams of crack cocaine would prompt five-years and just fifty grams to prompt a ten-year sentence. This massive gap became known as the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity. Soon after several states began to legislate sentencing disparities between powder cocaine and crack cocaine into their criminal codes. The original targets of

In 1982 the crack epidemic started, which shortly after Ronald Reagan expanded the war on drugs that Nixon started, one of his top aides admitted that the war on drugs was used to “target African Americans and hippies”. The number of incarcerations before the war on drugs was expanded in 1980 was four thousand seven hundred forty-nine for drug related crimes, in 1990 that number increased to twenty-four thousand two hundred ninety-seven, sixty percent of those incarcerations were African Americans (sentencingproject.org). If you were caught with one gram of crack you got the same sentencing as someone found with eighteen grams of cocaine, it was policies like these that targeted lower income black communities because crack was much cheaper than cocaine and was more likely for a white person to have cocaine.

Since the inception of mandatory minimum cocaine laws in 1986 to the advent of the Armstrong case, not a single white offender had been convicted of a crack cocaine offense in federal courts serving Los Angeles and its six surrounding counties. Rather, virtually all white offenders were prosecuted in state court, where they were not subject to that drug’s lengthy mandatory minimum sentences. The impact of the decision to prosecute the black defendants in federal court was significant. In federal court they faced a mandatory minimum sentence of at least 10 years and a maximum of life without parole if convicted of selling more than 50 grams of crack. By contrast, if prosecuted in California state court, the defendants would have received a minimum sentence of three years and a maximum of five years (United States v. Armstrong, 1996).

Since the 1980s drug offenses have increased from nineteen thousand to two hundred sixty five thousand in 2008. For many years now, our jails have been struggling with overcrowding. In 2010, our President Barack Obama, signed the Fair Sentencing Act. The Fair Sentencing Act helps reduce disproportion between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The act helps in determining whether a person who is caught with five grams of crack/ powder cocaine, should receive the same sentencing as someone who has one hundred times more than that. According to the National Governor’s Association, forty-six states were faced with a budget deficit. With the implementation of the Fair sentencing Act in place, we can begin to see the reduction in jail overcrowding.

But if a drug is the same, and you have the same amount wouldn't you think that you would be charged and given the same sentencing? Well, in the United States court system this is not the case. There are different charges for powdered cocaine as there is for crack cocaine (the smokable version of cocaine). Research shows that both of these drugs have the same effect on the human body, if it is either smoked or snorted. But with the racial ideas and laws that the United States puts in these two drugs are treated completely differently. Also, according to the book, The New Jim Crow, written by Michelle Alexander, "They also argued that the law discriminates against African Americans, because the majority of those charged with crimes involving crack at that time were black (approximately 93 percent of convicted crack offenders were black, 5 percent were white), whereas powder cocaine offenders were predominantly white.”(90). Crack cocaine is known as an inner city drug, and who lives in the inner city? Black and colored people. And who typically uses the powdered form of cocaine? Whites. This shows how internally racist the government is. Also stated in the book The New Jim Crow “Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America:

Alexander argument is the War on Drugs was purposely started to mass incarcerate African Americans. With the new Drug War, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was passed. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act punished crack cocaine a hundred times harder than powder cocaine. Crack and powder cocaine are the same drug, however different effects on the human body. According to the US Department of Justice, crake cocaine has a more psychological effect than powder, which leads to more people becoming addicted to the drug and heavier usage of the drug. Crack cocaine caused a great deal of violence, family deterioration, abuse, and neglect. Powder cocaine did cause abuse and violence, however powder cocaine make people want to go to the club, dance, drink, and have

Prior to the passage of this legislation, many people convicted with possession of drugs were given significantly long sentences under state laws; often this included individuals receiving life sentences for what is now known as simple possess (Courtwright, 2004). In this regard the Controlled substance act could be viewed as a liberalization of drugs policy by breaking up all drugs into schedules with differencing penalties. This does not mean that the legislation is not without

The sale of five grains of crack cocaine results in a minimum of five years in prison. Throughout the years, the number of imprisoned federal prisoners has dropped. Within the correctional filter, the most important participant is the prosecutor’s office. This is where prosecutors implement their discretionary power to dismiss charges or reduce them to where the defendant is more than likely to plead guilty. This is known as plea bargaining.

When they do get caught, they find out that what they do, can lead to a new world. A world in which they don't wanna go through. Attorney General Eric Holder has now declined to pursue charges that could lead to mandatory minimum sentences for low-level, nonviolent drug offender. Holder cited the case of Stephanie Nodd, an Alabama woman who served 21 years in federal prison for her first and only conviction: conspiracy to sell crack cocaine. Although the indictment never cited any violent crimes, prosecutors named her as a trusted lieutenant in a drug ring that dealt crack. Perhaps, one case that underscores the call for reform is that of Southeast resident Antwuan Ball, whom prosecutors in 2005 indicted for his role in a massive drug conspiracy and murder. Ball was acquitted on all but one count of distribution of crack cocaine, but still received an 18-year prison sentence which law experts called excessive. Ball, now 43, recently lost an appeal of his sentence. His lawyer, Steven Tabackman, told ABC News that Ball should have been sentenced to no more than six years, but mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines were still used even for the charges which the jury voted not guilty.Due to mandatory minimums, people spend more time in jail than they rightfully should. Illegal actions should be punished. Ball has spent more than plenty of time in jail for his crimes. But the Constitution states no cruel or unusual punishments.

The criminal justice system became a kind of invading force, aimed mostly at young black men. There was, of course, the inexplicable sentencing disparity between those caught with powdered cocaine and those caught with crack cocaine. States were emboldened to be equally punitive. In Illinois, for instance, the Legislature passed a law that automatically transferred a juvenile to adult court if caught with drugs within 1,000 feet of a public housing complex — a law clearly directed at African-American teenagers. The war on drugs mangled, if not destroyed, any trust between residents of distressed urban communities and the authorities.

The Federal laws states that crack cocaine, or rock cocaine, weighing the same as a nickel carries a five-year minimum sentence, but to get a five year minimum sentence with powder you have to have 500 grams on your person (Locy 3A). This law is known as the 100-to-1 law and primarily affects minorities due to the fact that crack is usually found and sold in inner cities. National survey statistics showed that Caucasians and African Americans are equal when it comes to the distribution and sale of drugs, yet 63 percent of drug offenders in jails and prisons are black (Browne 5). Institutions, such as prisons, are supposed to be used to rehabilitate and remobilize people. Once a person has committed a crime he or she is seen as a deviant, someone who goes against the norms and laws of society. Deviants go through degradation ceremonies to strip them of their identity in hopes of reshaping the person into someone new who is accepted by society. When people are arrested they go through humiliation; they are stripped of their names and given a number, have their personal clothes taken away and are given a standardized uniform, and they’re removed from society. All of this is used to try and change the person. They are put into prison with other inmates who have committed crimes and they must socialize with them. If a person goes to jail for 25 years, their main contact is with criminals. Then when their time has been served, they are going to have that mindset and

A supply factor affecting the supply of cocaine is state of technology. While the state of technology consists of raids of either homes or vehicles and the use of dogs sniffing