War On Drugs And Racism

The facts speak for themselves, people of color are the enemies and targets in the war on drugs. They also tell us that fighting back is useless due to the racial bias that is inherent in the criminal justice system. This might come as a surprise to the majority that believe discrimination is no longer in existence, considering that it is a black man living in the White House. Ever since Barack Obama pledged to serve as the forty-fourth president

As the variables above are added up it, quickly becomes apparent that the “war on drugs,” during the mid 1980s-early 2000s had a negative impact on American life. With all the money spent and lives ruined, the United States came no closer to solving drug issues it had faced in the years prior. Citizens took the biggest brunt of this “war” with the fact that not only did they have to forcibly financially support the “war on drugs,” but in some cases, they had their civil liberties encroached upon or even completely violated. It could be argued that retrospectively looking at the “war on drugs” makes criticizing our country and the officials in charge easy, but when you actually look at the statistics and events surrounding this time period criticism

The federal law, which punished crack offenses at a rate 100 times that of powdered cocaine, is a racist policy. The criminal justice system penalties for possession of crack, a drug often used by poor African American are more harsher than the penalties for the possession of powdered cocaine, whose users are white people. This is evidence of the racial disparities in the War on Drug. The War on Drugs has allowed minorities to become easier targets for law enforcement. The unequal treatment in sentencing between crack and powdered cocaine users is not justified. Crack is popular in black community and powdered cocaine is more commonly use by white. Law enforcement uses the federal law, which impact lower minority people who are able to afford

This paper aims will provide a concise history of drugs deriving from the erythroxylum coca plant and the sociological impact powder and crack cocaine legislation in the American justice system.

The war on drugs was and is racist for several reasons. It was used to jail African Americans and hippies in the early 1970’s, keep more people of color in jail for, and to deport immigrants. In June 1971 President Nixon declared the war on drugs to jail those who would vote against him. Two small but loud groups, hippies and African Americans and hippies were against Nixon. At the time these two groups were stereotyped as heavy marijuana users. After Nixon, jail sentences were then lengthened for possession of marijuana to unreasonable and illogical lengths. Then during the 1990’s, when Bill Clinton was president, the number of policemen was dramatically raised. The number was raised so much that there was not enough money for sufficient training

“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.

In the past forty years, the United States has spent over $2.5 trillion dollars funding enforcement and prevention in the fight against drug use in America (Suddath). Despite the efforts made towards cracking down on drug smugglers, growers, and suppliers, statistics show that addiction rates have remained unchanged and the number of people using illegal drugs is increasing daily (Sledge). Regardless of attempts to stem the supply of drugs, the measure and quality of drugs goes up while the price goes down (Koebler). Now with the world’s highest incarceration rates and greatest illegal drug consumption (Sledge), the United States proves that the “war on drugs” is a war that is not being won.

In many ways, the war on terror and the war on drugs have merged. The type of red scare rhetoric from the McCarthy era became nearly interchangeable with the drug war and terrorism during the Reagan administration. “We’re in the middle of a major epidemic...Parents have a right to feel terror,” said Donald Ian MacDonald, Reagan’s top drug advisor. He was referring to drugs. Marlin Fitzwater, Reagan’s Press Secretary openly admitted that “everybody wants to out-drug each other in terms of political rhetoric.” This battle of hyperbole was waged on both sides of the political aisle. Even liberals like former Rep. Stephen Solarz (D-NY) compared the danger from the cartels to “intercontinental ballistic missiles” and wondered “why we treat (their) threat so lightly?” Likewise, former Rep. Thomas F. Hartnett (R-SC) declared that drugs were a “national security threat...worse than any nuclear warfare or any chemical warfare waged on any battlefield.”

“Over 40 year ago president nixon, Declared Drug abuse public enemy number one, starting an unprecedented global Campaign, the war on drug.

“The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners. The cost of housing all those inmates: $80 billion a year” (Whitaker, 2016). The United States (U.S.) has been fighting an unwinnable war for the past thirty years. The U.S. government and the War on Drugs has disproportionately impacted African Americans and the prison population has quadrupled over the last thirty years. The U.S Government polices of the war on drugs have contributed to the mass incarceration of African American males due to sentencing and race disparities, over-policing, and anti-drug policies.

Harsh, cruel, and unusual is an understatement to the punishments given to drug dealers for their drug related offenses. Mandatory minimum drug sentencing was arguably established to target higher level drug dealers but recently the majority of cases have been low level drug dealers. Distributing narcotics is a serious offense, but do these people who are trying to support themselves, a family, or an addiction deserve to spend close to a lifetime incarcerated?

In recent decades, there have been increasing trends of incarceration, specifically in relation to the use and possession of illegal drugs. In 2010, there were 1.6 million people arrested for drug related offenses, which is approximately 1 person every 19 seconds. The majority of the arrests, however, are for possession of small amounts and are minor offenses (Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, NAACP). The controversy over the drug war is the element of concentration in cities, consistently in underprivileged neighborhoods, resulting in the emphasis of disproportionate incarceration of minority groups, expressly African Americans. This group is influenced heavily by over-imprisonment, which affects their economic standing and place in society, causing inequality between them and whites. The war on drugs and the measures used by the government to control drug use contributes to racism and inequality problems, as well as to the stigma following African Americans in modern America.

Throughout history, the drug war has always targeted minority groups. “At the root of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race, which is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s (Cohen, 56)”. There were many drug laws that targeted minority groups such as the marijuana ban of 1930s that criminalized Mexican migrant farm workers and in the Jim Crow South, reformist wanted to wage war on the Negro cocaine feign so they used African Americans as a scapegoat while they overlooked southern white women who were a bigger problem for the drug epidemic (Cohen, 57). Instead of tackling the root of the drug problem they passed the blame to struggling minority groups within the United States.

The current policy in use by the United States concerning illegal drugs is both outdated and unfair. This so-called war on drugs is a deeply rooted campaign of prohibition and unfair sentencing that is very controversial and has been debated for many years. The war on drugs is designed so that it will never end. This current drug was has very little impact on the overall supply of prohibited drugs and its impact on demand seems non-existent. United States’ taxpayers are spending billions of dollars on this failure of policy. They are spending billions to incarcerate drug users instead offering drug treatment which could help lower demand. Legalizing illicit would lower abuse and deaths from use and could have a positive economic impact on the United States. Certain industries are making massive sums of money by capitalizing on the drug war.

In 2009 1,663,582 people were arrested for non-violent drug charges. These people’s lives are now forever changed because of a mistake they made. This mistake is continually made every single day and Americans are being punished in extreme ways for a non violent crime. The United States needs to decimalize all drugs because the drug war is costly, causes high incarceration rates, and isn’t effective as European drug solutions.