Drug Laws And Slavery

I have two close relatives that have battled crack addiction for a number of years and consequently have cost great pain within my family. My old neighborhood has partly been devastated by the drug trade. Many of my childhood friends are either jailed for or have been consumed by drugs. I understand first hand the devastation that drugs cost in our society and within the family.

However, everyday I go to work in a criminal justice system that is devastating the African-American community. The country’s drug laws, in the shear size of incarceration that is being imposed on the black community, is having a more devastating impact than drugs ever have.

According to the Sentencing Project 32.2 percent of young black men between the ages twenty and twenty nine are either in prison, in jail, or on probation and parole. This is in comparison with 6.7 percent of young white men. A total of 827,440 young African-American men are under the supervision of the criminal justice system at a cost of 6 billion dollars a year. The bulk of these convictions are drug related.

Those young men lucky enough to escape prison are more likely than not given felonies, the 666 of the twenty-first century. In human terms let me explain. To be found in possession of a 10 dollar rock of cocaine is an automatic felony. It means that you cannot vote, you cannot apply for student loans and if you apply for any meaningful job the felony appears on routine background check, which decreases if not blocks your chance for gainful employment.

So in effect each year 32.2 percent of young African-American men are rendered incapacitated in their ability to navigate in a sophisticated global economy. Many are simply removed altogether. Each year thousands go through the door of no return called prison. Like the door of no return of Goree Island in which millions of Africans went through during the slave trade, these young men never come back. A multiple offender sentence at a minimum means 15 years in jail without benefit of probation or parole.

You would never know from the media and going down to drug court and looking at the defendants that the typical crack user is a white suburban teenager. Do you really believe that white America would tolerate 32.2 percent of its young men going to jail primarily for using and selling drugs? Race does matter.

The drug laws in this country are hypocritical and immoral. They have taken a social issue and criminalized it. Other than creating a Prison Industrial Complex these laws are having no impact on crime and drug use.

The African-American community should demand that the drug laws be reformed by decriminalizing all but the most dangerous drugs. I think we can all agree that getting a felony record for possession for marijuana serves no societal purpose.

I personally think that even cocaine should be decriminalized but at the least the penalties for its possession should be greatly reduced. Shifting the money we spend on prisons to drug treatment and education should be our priority moving forward.