Connections

Drug Policy Racist?

07/April/2011 11:03 Filed in: Civil Rights
America has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the prisoners. Drugs are the reason. But not only that, American drug policy disproportionately singles out blacks. Blacks represent 15% of crack users but 85% of the races locked up for crack use, most for minimal possesion. Compared to whites, who make up 65% of crack users, only 5% of them are locked up.

Blacks in this country are 5 times more likely to be locked up that a black in South Africa at the height of Apartheid.

When a black American Citizen is addicted to drugs they go to jail. If they are white, they go to Betty Ford. Does prison really solve social problems more than treatment programs, education or other remedies?

Does the evil of these drugs somehow merit the laws and judgements being passed? Alcohol is a drug, but because it is socially acceptable, we don’t lock people up. Yet it presents a greater danger than any drug on the market. America repealed prohibition for a reason--to keep people out of jail, to allow the government to regulate alcohol, and to help diminish crime. Yet illegal drugs don’t even come close to the damage and death created by alcohol. In fact, casual drugs, like marijuana have been showed to have zero deaths.

"Indeed, epidemiological data indicate that in the general population marijuana use is not associated with increased mortality."
Source: Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), p. 109.

Here are the facts. Read the following statistics of annual deaths in America and consider the real reason these laws are in place and what races they target:

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Source: drugwarfacts.com