Terence

Drug Charges & Discrimination

The discrimination in drug-related crimes

Terence McCormick

AP Literature

Mr. Janosch

11/30/18
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Drug Charges & Discrimination

When the now named “War on Drugs” campaign was kickstarted by president Nixon in 1970 by

passing the controlled substance act, drastic actions were taken to prevent the spread of drugs

and narcotics within the United States. Many of these actions included no-knock warrants (A

warrant given to law enforcement that allows them to enter someone’s home without warning)

and mandatory sentencing (A predefined sentence for a specific crime). These actions were

blatantly unconstitutional and racist, and this trend of discrimination and racism is still going on

today.

Even though 1970 was the year the war on drugs began, it really goes way back into the 1800s

and it only furthers the connection between race and drugs. The early stages of drug prohibition

began in the 1870s when the first anti-opium laws were passed. These laws directly targeted the

Chinese immigrants that came to California during the Gold Rush, and outlawed the smoking of

opiates, but didn’t outlaw the injection or the drinking of it. “It outlawed the smoking of opium

and was directed at the Chinese because opium smoking was a peculiarly Chinese habit.” (Judge

Frederic Block). This Anti-opium campaign was only set in San Francisco, but in 1909,

Congress reinforced these laws and made them federal offenses, and reinforced the racism that

came with it. “It reinforced Chinese racism by carving out an exception for drinking and

injecting tinctures of opiates that were popular among whites.”(Block).

Going back to the Drug war era, statistics are beginning to show a racial disparity in drug

sentences. These statistics show the drastic difference in the sentencing for possession of cocaine
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and the possession of crack. Both of these drugs are nearly identical when looked at by a

scientific point of view, but crack was a much cheaper, unrefined form of cocaine. This drug was

popular among the lower class citizens, which is primarily composed of blacks and Hispanics,

although white people did use it. According to the U.S Sentencing Commission in 2003, whites

constituted 8% of defendants sentenced under the harsh laws, while African Americans

constituted nearly 80% of defendants sentenced(Cracks in the System) Compare these sentences

to the actual users of crack/cocaine, you will see that 66% of people that use crack/cocaine

during this time are actually white, while 34% consists of African Americans and

Hispanics.(Cracks in the System)

This discrimination isn’t only limited to race, but it stretches to gender as well. Incarceration for

African American women increased 800% since 1986, mainly driven by drug convictions,

compared to a 400% increase for women of all races during that same time frame(Cracks in the

System). While there was an increase in incarceration for all races, African American women

were clearly charged more often with drug-related crimes over every other race, and by a big

margin. Since the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 have been put in place, there have

been efforts to make them less harsh on small-time drug offenders, such as presidents Obama

granting commutations to people with federal drug offenses. These efforts still do not take into

account certain aspects of the person, as stated by Aldina Mesic “These heavy-handed policies

disproportionately target women of low socioeconomic status who are minimally involved with

these crimes as the wives, acquaintances, and girlfriends of men using or selling drugs”.
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This discrimination with drug charges continues into the present day, where it now affects

immigrants who have come to the U.S for sanction. Immigrants who are in the process of gaining

naturalization must follow the federal and state laws that the United States has. If an Immigrant

commits a crime while in the process of being naturalized, they would be deported back to their

country. This is an issue when it comes drugs such as marijuana, which is legalized for

recreational use in 11 states, and medically legal in 21 states, but the use of and possession of is

still a federal crime. If an immigrant without naturalization is found guilty of drug possession of

even a decriminalized drug like marijuana, the government can take away their green card and

deport them back to their native country. More than 250,000 people have been deported from the

United States for drug law violations every year since 2007, and simple marijuana possession

was the fourth most common cause of deportation for any offense in 2013 with more than 13,000

people being deported in 2012 and 2013 for possession.(Race and the Drug War).

The mandatory sentencing for certain drug offenses during the Drug War also targeted primarily

lower class blacks and hispanics. The mandatory minimum during this time was a minimum of a

5 years sentence for drug offenses that involved 5 grams of crack, 500 grams of cocaine, along

with a minimum sentence of 10 years for drug offenses that involved possession of 50 grams of

crack and 5 kilograms of cocaine.(Mandatory Minimums). As it is shown, crack was much

popular in lower class black and hispanic communities due to its low cost, and cocaine was a

popular drug in upper class, primarily white, communities. “Crack is cheaper, so it's found in low

income communities more than pure powder cocaine. Powder cocaine use is more evenly spread

among ethnic backgrounds, and more white Americans have tried powder cocaine than Black
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Americans”(ATTN). The government, knowing that crack was the favorable drug in lower class

communities, made the minimum sentencing for only 5 grams of crack 5 years, while it takes

carrying 500 grams of powdered cocaine to get the same sentencing of 5 years. That is 100 times

more than the minimum for possession of just 5 grams of crack.

There have been supreme court cases in the past that have tried to combat the unfairness of

suspicionless searches along with other search and seizure methods. One of these cases, known

as City of Indianapolis V. Edmond, was largely known for its unconstitutionality and

unfairnesses. In 1998, Indianapolis began to conduct vehicle checkpoints in an attempt to

undermine drug trafficking. Each stop consisted of a inspection of the vehicle and the use of a

drug-detecting dog. The searches can be done without any reasonable suspicion, and leaves it

open to prejudice depending on the person's race or ethnicity. In 2000, two men, James Edmond

and Joell Palmer, were searched at one of these checkpoints and filed a lawsuit against the city of

Indianapolis for the searches violating their 4th amendment rights, specifically the safety against

unreasonable searches and seizures. The lawsuit went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the

court decided in favor of Palmer and Edmond, stating "We cannot sanction stops justified only

by the generalized and ever-present possibility that interrogation and inspection may reveal that

any given motorist has committed some crime”(Indianapolis V. Edmond). The result of this case

limited the power law enforcement had to conduct suspicionless searches and the use of

drug-sniffing dogs.
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The state of Florida has also implemented drug-free zones. These are areas throughout the state

that strictly prohibit the use of any illegal drug, and if caught with drugs in these zones, the

carrier will be prosecuted and given a sentence depending of the severity of the drug. The

problem arises as a majority of these zones are closely spaced, so much so that entire Black

communities are considered drug-free zones, which isn’t done by coincidence. As was the case

with the minimum sentences during the Drug war, Prosecutors are more likely to dismiss charges

in the cases of white defendants, and are more likely to seek harsher sentences and go forward

with cases against Black defendants(Edwards). Along with this, Blacks are nearly 4 times more

likely to be arrested for simple marijuana possession than whites despite the comparable usage

rates(Edwards).

The history of the United states has been flawed by past and current racism and discrimination

targeted at minorities, and this has been proven by countless statistics and physical proof of

people that have experienced it first hand. There are even still acts of blatant racism today that

have been the cause of a lot of change in government of the U.S, and will continue to.
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“Cracks in the System.” ​American Civil Liberties Union​, ACLU,

www.aclu.org/other/cracks-system-20-years-unjust-federal-crack-cocaine-law​ >27 November

2018

Block, Judge Frederic. “Racism's Hidden History in the War on Drugs.” ​The Huffington Post,​

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 5 Mar. 2013,

www.huffingtonpost.com/judge-frederic-block/war-on-drugs_b_2384624.html

Mesic, Aldina. “Women and the War on Drugs.” ​Public Health Post,​

www.publichealthpost.org/research/women-and-the-war-on-drugs/​ >27 November 2018

“Race and the Drug War.” ​Drug Policy Alliance​,

www.drugpolicy.org/issues/race-and-drug-war​.>27 November 2018

“Mandatory Minimums.” ​Criminal Justice Policy Foundation​,>27 November 2018

www.cjpf.org/mandatory-minimums/

​ TTN: 9 Sept. 2015,

ATTN: “Here's How Easy It Is to Go to Jail for Crack Cocaine.” ​ATTN:A

archive.​attn.com/stories/3095/war-on-drugs-crack-cocaine

“Indianapolis V. Edmond.” ​Indianapolis V. Edmond,​ ​www.oyez.org/cases/2000/99-1030

Edwards, Ezekiel. “In Florida, the Racist War on Drugs Rages On.” ​American Civil Liberties

Union​, ACLU, 18 Dec. 2017,

www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/drug-law-reform/florida-racist-war-drugs-rages

(In-Text Citation)
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