Racial implications of the war on drugs 3/90

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Racial Implications of the War on Drugs
by Carol Miller

EVERYONE IS CRYING OUT FOR PEACE, YES.
NONE IS CRYING OUT FOR JUSTICE.

I DON'T WANT NO PEACE.
I NEED EQUAL RIGHTS, AND JUSTICE.

-- Peter Tosh, 10/4/44 - 9/11/87

Neither our majority rule voting process, nor our law-making legislative process insures justice to minorities. Considering the economic and political influences which tend to control media and mold both public opinion and legislative principle, the role of the judiciary is increasingly important in protecting justice to minorities. The courts, however, are not exercising their responsibility to review state and federal laws and policies.

Here in Sonoma County when we challenged our courts to consider the unjust descrimination of the Marijuana laws, both judges who reviewed the case, Mark Tansil & Arnold Rosenfeld, questioned the "authority of the court to review the work of the legislature." Local courts failure to accept and exercise its important role in the system of checks and balances ( as stipulated in Art. III, sec. 2. of our Constitution) is mirrored by the State and Federal Supreme courts who refuse to hear many cases which question the constitutionality of legislative or executive zealuosness. When cases are heard, the l4th amendment guaranteeing "Equal protectuion" is interpreted so narrowly as to make it very difficult to qualify for a just review.

Where then in our majority rule democracy is there protection of minority civil rights, let alone a voice for minority concerns that equal the proportions or needs of those minority communities? Since the Niagra movement of l905, when blacks seeking to organize in the U.S. couldn't even find a meeting hall that would rent them space (they had to meet in Canada), there has been an ongoing, unanswered paradox... do minorities stand a better chance of being represented justly (or at all) in government by attempting to join existing political parties, or by forming separate parties and organizations whose primary goals will be to serve the needs of the minority communities.

Today that debate continues, and no issue reflects the different approaches more profoundly than the War on Drugs. While Jessie Jackson's Rainbow Coalition within the Democratic party echos the "Just Say No" policy of the Bush administration, the Uhuru Movement sees the current War on Drugs as a war against minorities.

"Today the Bush administration is waging an all-out war against the black community through drugs and the 'war on drugs.' Organizations like the Christic Institute have clearly documented that it's the government agencies who coordinate and control the $300 billion a year U.S. drug trade.
They use it as deadly chemical warfare and to criminalize the entire black community, to keep it under martial law and deny all democratic rights to black people."

Uhuru and the African People's Socialist Party are calling for legalization and especially for improved educational and rehabilitation efforts which are appropriate and respectful to the cultural herritage of their communities.

The disparity between white and ethnic economic and social opportunity is directly mirrored in the realities of our cities drug problems. If the Drug Wars have a battlefields then the front exists in our urban streets. Certainly Central and South America and the hills of Northern California as well have been a battlefield , but the brunt of this war has been born by urban minorities. These groups have suffered disproportionately both in decreasing availability of treatment and increased arrest and imprisonment.

Over the past 20 years there has been a profound shift in Government spending away from treatment and toward enforcement. In l970, 44 % of our Drug Policy budget was spent on enforcement and 56% on treatment. In l987 76% was spent on enforcement and 24% on treatment. The shift toward enforcement has been accompanied by a rise in the total budget of as much as l000%. Yet there is no indication that this steady shift is improving the problem. Quite the contrary, the effect these shifts in policy have had on minorities have been devastating.

By comparing the census proportions of Blacks, Latinos and non-Hispanic Whites with arrest statistics, we see that between 1980 and l986, white felony marijuana arrests have dropped by 37% while Black felony marijuana arrests are up 23% and Latino felony marijuana arrests are up by l72%. While Whites make up 70% of the population (ages l5-39) Latinos make up 22% and Blacks 8%. These statistics represent marijuana dealing or cultivation. Marijuana use may be better reflected by misdemeanor arrests and by hospital emergency room mentions of drug use as reported by DAWN (Drug Advance Warning Network.) Misdemeanor possession of Marijuana arrests reflect that twice as many blacks are arrested per capita as whites or Latinos, whileÊfor felony marijuana charges there are 3 times as many Latino as white arrests per capita and 5 times as many black arrests per capita. Considering that CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting), increased White felony cultivation arrests, these statistics indicate that White dealer arrests have dropped in great disproportion to the rise in Black and Latino arrests for similar charges.

If we look at arrest statistics for property crimes we see that the increased rate of Marijuana arrests is not paralelled by similar increases in ethnic property crimes. In fact Latino property crime per capita is down from l980.

Expanding the analysis to include use and dealing of other narcotics reveals a horrifying picture. The ethnic proportional arrest rates in non-drug categories between l980 and l986 remained relatively stable. Felony narcotics arrests for blacks increased 7 times between l980 and l986 , while the same arrests for whites declined. Extrapolating these figures to l990 we could see Black narcotics arrests jump to l5 times the l980 arrests. Marijuana use as indicated by arrests and DAWN statistics reveals that marijuana use has increased by l50 % while amphetamine use has increased 208%, heroine use 400% and cocaine use a shocking l000%. (directly proportional to the increase in governmental Drug War expenditures.)

These disparities can reflect one or both of the following scenarios. Either police and government officials are practicing a discriminatory enforcement policy aimed at destroying minority communities; or the shift in policy which focussed on eradication of marijuana planting in Northern California a few years ago, raising the price of marijuana sky high and in many places totally removing marijuana from the black market, combined with increasingly fewer mainstream opportunities for minorities, has driven minority underclass citizens to increasingly look to drug dealing as a solution to their economic distress and to deal increasingly in crack-cocaine as the cheapest, most available and ironically most addicting and dangerous black- market drug. How unfortunate this shift has been for the minority and especially Black communities in our inner cities, and for our society as a whole."

One analysis of the disparity represented by the felony arrest statistics is offered by S.Wisotsky ("Exposing the War on Cocaine," Wisc. Law Review, l983):

"Policymakers have consistently overestimated the deterrent value of penal sanctions because they have stereotyped White middle-class attitudes about imprisonment . ..A prison term looms larger for middle-class Whites because their opportunity costs are in general much higher than those for American Hispanics or Blacks.... for the underclasses, the risk of a long prison term...may be an acceptable risk for the wealth and status .. not available through legitimate channels."

Perhaps policymakers have overlooked this relationship between increased prices, increased enforcement, increased economic disparity, and increased ethnic involvement in narcotic use , dealing and arrests. But it seems unlikely that our Federal policymakers are so naive as to not have observed these relationships in these (their own) statistics. It seems more likely that the racist results of the "War on Drugs" are, as they have always been, one of the goals of drug prohibition.

SCRAP is organizing a Drug Conference to discuss the issues of the War on Drugs. The Conference "Toward Rational Drug Policy in the 90's" will be held at Sonoma State University, Saturday, May 11th from l0:00 AM till 5:00 PM. As we prepare for this event, we are in need of additional financial support from our community. Please help us produce this exciting event!!

Donations can be made to : SCRAP, P.O. BOX 410, CAZADERO, CA 95421. Thank you.

March 1990

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