TWO MYTHS OF THE DRUG WAR

There are many myths about the drug war, promulgated by both proponents and
opponents. Here are two of them:

Myth No. 1: Most of the million-plus drug law violators serving those
horrendously long prison sentences without hope of parole are there for
using or directly selling minor amounts of drugs. For the most part they are
guilty of those acts, but that's not why they are in prison.

Under federal law the maximum sentence for simple possession of any quantity
of drugs (other than crack cocaine) is one year, and the mandatory minimum
sentences for selling do not kick in until 500 grams are involved (five
grams in the case of crack cocaine). Most state laws are similar. There are
not enough people involved with those quantities of drugs to account for our
inmate population growing from 400,000 to over two million in under 30
years.

The large majority of drug war prisoners are there for violating the drug
conspiracy laws. In the 1980s a simple one-sentence change made conspiracy
to commit a criminal act the equivalent of the act itself, with the same
penalties. Conspiracy is much easier and certain; guilt is presumed;
innocence is not. Hearsay testimony is allowed (for the prosecution), and
its truth is presumed. It has been broadly defined by the Su-preme Court to
make merely having knowledge of a drug crime and not reporting it to be
conspiracy.

The main reason for charging conspiracy rather than actually selling,
possessing or using drugs, however, is that the conspiracy laws now allow
imposition of those dreadful mandatory minimum sentences on users and the
smallest of sellers. By definition, knowingly buying an illegal substance
has always been a conspiracy between buyer and seller. But a buyer is now
presumed to know that the seller is a dealer, and can be charged with
conspiracy for all the drug sold by that dealer, and be subject to the same
penalties. That goes for all of a dealer's customers.

Since judges no longer have discretion in drug sentences, the only way out
is to cop a plea with the prosecution by snitching on others. Dealers
routinely do that, and usually end up with a fine and short sentence, often
just parole. The customers receive the mandatory minimums though, unless
they snitch on others. Many do just that. And truth is not a prerequisite.

A typical conspiracy victim is a woman whose husband is a major dealer with
little if any involvement by her; she may not even be aware of it.

He is caught dealing and drugs are found hidden in her home or car, and she
is presumed to have been aware of his activities. She can be charged as a
conspirator, even if he says she knew nothing (testimony of dealers is
credible only as government witnesses, don'tcha know), and sentenced to 10
years and up - most likely up - without parole.

The same applies to all of his customers. But because he has cooperated by
snitching, he is let off with a fine and a few years, or even parole. His
woman and customers have no one to snitch on, unless they lie. Many do. And
truth is not a requirement.

The only way she can establish her innocence is to prove she couldn't have
known. A bit difficult if they've been living together.

Not surprisingly, the female prison population is rising far faster than the
male.

Myth No. 2: The drug war is ineffective and irrational. To the contrary, it
has been extremely effective and totally rational.

The drug war was originally sold as necessary to save our children from the
scourge of drugs, by going after the drug lords and major traffickers. But
the stringent law enforcement soon required more prison capacity. Much more.
That led to the prison boom, more than a thousand new ones built between
1980 and 2000 - one a week - and 1.5 million new beds. Prisons became an end
in themselves.

The prison-industrial complex developed - a confluence of interests
including those building and staffing the prisons, bureaucrats enlarging
their fiefdom, rural areas revitalizing their economies with the new prisons
built there, politicians getting elected and reelected with their
tough-on-drugs rhetoric while keeping the costs hidden, and other drug war
profiteers - forming a so far unstoppable constituency behind the drug war.

But prisons require prisoners. The drug war criteria became the body count -
body years actually - rather than curbing drug use. The simplest and surest
way to raise the body year count is application of the revised conspiracy
laws. Concentrating on blacks and other politically impotent minorities
reduced the political pressure against it.

The war on drugs has become a war on people, mostly blacks. It is being
waged for those most rational of human motives: money and power. And it is
causing far more harm than any amount of drugs could ever do.