The High Price Paid by Black People in the “War” on Drugs
by admin on 17/09/08 at 3:55 pm
How a $45 billion policy has had devastating consequences for millions of African Americans:
Absent fathers, orphaned children and growing numbers of HIV and Hepatitis C infections are what some African Americans are facing due to the anti-drug policy, ‘war on drugs’.
Exactly 25 years ago former president Ronald Regan announced his zero tolerance measure to tackle what he saw was a growing epidemic of illegal drug use in the nation.
Politicians believed that millions of Federal money should be spent on prosecuting and sentencing drug users in the hope that it would reduce drug addiction and send out the message of zero tolerance.
This ethos has continued. In 2005 the Office of National Drug Control stated that the Federal government has spent more than $45.5 billion (£26 billion) on the war on drugs programme and it appears that African Americans are facing the brunt of this no nonsense policy.
According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, African Americans make up an estimated 15% of drug users but they account for 37% of those arrested on drug charges, and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.
The impact of American drug policy is to be debated at a conference held by Drugs charity Release this week in at north London’s Hampstead Theatre.
Deborah Peterson Small a former director of the Drug Policy Alliance will speak about the racism within the war on drugs policy at the conference.
“The war on drugs policy has had a devastating affect on African American communities, particularly poor communities that already suffer from a whole host of economic and social problems,” she said.
Pointing to prison sentencing, Small from New York, says the mandatory minimum sentence policy for low-level drug offences, subjects people who are low level participants, to the same or harsher sentences as major drug dealers.
Currently, crack cocaine is the only drug for which the first offence of simple possession can trigger a federal mandatory minimum sentence. Possessing 5 grams of crack with a street value of $1,000 (£500) carries an automatic 5 year jail sentence.
According to Small, this trend has effectively transformed federal prisons into institutions increasingly dedicated to incarcerating African Americans.
“The policing of communities of colour, especially poor communities, combined with long mandatory sentences has pretty much guaranteed that a lot of these people will spend their lives cycling in and out of the criminal justice system,” she explained.
Despite the high rates of African American drug convictions, a recently released report by Human Rights Watch, found that African Americans are not the greatest users of drugs. According to Jamie Fellner, author of the report, whites are more likely to be drug users.
“Whites are the majority of drug offenders but blacks are the majority sent to prison on drug chargers. The alarming increase in drug arrests since 1980, concentrated among African Americans, raises fundamental questions about fairness and justice,” he said.
Small believes that this misconception has led law enforcers to unfairly target African Americans.
“There is a general myth that poor people, black people and Latino people use more drugs than others. However in every study that has been done, it shows that they use drugs in proportion to the rest of the population,” she said.
This misconception was perpetuated in the 1980s. Between 1984 and 1990 there was a huge surge in the use of crack cocaine in major cities and crack houses all over the USA.
As the drug was cheap and simple to produce it became more accessible to inner city communities mainly populated by African Americans.
The social cost proved great for African Americans as between 1984 and 1994, crack related homicide rates for black males aged 14-17 more than doubled and the homicide rate for black males aged 18 to 24 increased nearly as much.
However, Small feels that the media frenzy was unnecessary and has helped stereotyped African Americans as rampant drug users.
“Substance abuse has been racialised in the media and in reality. If you look at the data the percentage of people who tried and use crack cocaine was small and has remained small.
“There was an increase but it was always less than five percent of all drug use so this whole thing about an epidemic was overblown,” she claims.
Adding: “In New York City the majority of people who are using crack cocaine now who are using are in the 30s and 40s. There isn’t a new generation of crack cocaine users because young people don’t tend to use it.”
Having a drug conviction has ensured that some members of the African American community, particularly men, are unable to function or contribute to society.
Under the war on drug policy a convicted criminal can no longer vote, cannot claim welfare benefits and gaining employment is near impossible.
At least one in four black males will spend time in the criminal justice system and Small feels that this has led to a direct correlation between drug convictions and absent fathers.
“For a young man who acquires a felony his ability to generate enough money to support himself, much less a child, is limited.
“His expectations about his life is that he will spend time away from a family and community. When you have a generation of people who have this expectation that doesn’t lead you to develop long term committed relationships,” she explained.
Its not only black men who have suffered under drug policies. African American women are now incarcerated for drug offences between three and four times the rate of white women according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This has led to the breakdown of families says Small.
“Women have it 10 times worse on so many different levels. If you’re doing a long sentence and you don’t have any family members to take care of your child, you can actually end up losing custody permanently as a result of your prison sentence,” she explained.
“If you ever wanted to make a woman feel hopeless about her life, take her kids away.”
Even more worryingly is that the government’s focus on punishment has led to federal funding being cut on drug treatment programmes.
The White House’s budget proposal for 2009, cuts the funding for the prevention and treatment of drug abuse to $4.9 billion.
Small claims that programmes, such as needle exchange where drug users can use clean needles instead of dirty ones, are not being cut. This has increased the rates of HIV and hepatitis C especially amongst black women.
A report by the Department of Health Services, which analysed the prevalence of HIV infection among African American women, stated that black women who injected drugs were more than 3 times more likely to be infected.
“The policy does not allow for federal money to go and support needle exchange programmes. The only places that have them is in cities that have decided to pay for it themselves or private organisations that are willing to put up the money,” she said.
Frustrated by the government’s lack of rehabilitation measures, Small decided to set up the organisation Break The Chains in 2004, in the hope of educating and empowering communities of colour to reverse the negative effects of punitive drug policies.
“Our focus is on promoting policy reform and we work with legislators and try and promote alternative policies,” she explained.
With a new president being elected in November, Peterson is hoping that attitudes towards drug policy will change especially is Barack Obama is elected
“One of the reasons why I do this work is that you have to believe things can happen. He has came out and said that he will reverse some of these get on tough policies on drugs and I do have a lot of hope that this current policy can change,” she said.
Leave a Comment