WAR ON DRUGS A CRIME

Saturday, August 25, 2001 - Urban legends spawned by the War on Drugs
persist, contributing to racial disparities in arrests and sentencing -
disparities that in Colorado often exceed national averages.

One hardy perennial holds that crack cocaine is worse than powder, and only
blacks smoke crack.

Truth is, powder or crack are the same drug containing the same active
ingredient, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reports. Anyone can convert
powder into crack.

Crack is as popular with whites as blacks. Whites make up 72 percent of
monthly drug users, blacks just 13 percent and Hispanics only 10.5 percent,
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported last
year.

Yet far more blacks are arrested for drug offenses, and their sentences are
disproportionately high.

These truths hit home hard in Colorado, where one in 19 adult black men is
in prison, compared with one in 23 across America.

Blacks make up 3.8 percent of the state population but nearly a quarter of
its prisoners. Hispanics constitute 17 percent of Coloradans yet 28.5
percent of its inmates.

Such statistics have spurred state Rep. Peter Groff, D-Denver, to push for
a study on why such disparities exist. A legislative committee will hear
his findings Sept. 18 and vote in October on whether to pursue the study.
If that fails, Groff will draft legislation.

Nationally, the average federal drug sentence for blacks in 1986 was 11
percent higher than for whites.

Then the government enacted mandatory sentences for crack - the only drug
for which the first offense of possession triggers a mandatory sentence. A
person with 5 grams of crack gets five years. Yet first- time possession of
any other substance, including powder cocaine, is a misdemeanor netting no
more than a year in prison.

Thus did the prison population explode, increasing more than 60 percent
among blacks, 46 percent among whites and 32 percent among Hispanics
between 1990 and 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice reports.

By 1990, the average federal drug sentence was 49 percent higher for blacks.

For police, arresting poor blacks on a ghetto street corner is far easier
than wresting white druggies out of suburban homes. And arresting users
anywhere is easier than busting dealers. Only 5.5 percent of all federal
crack defendants are high-level dealers.

Some police and prosecutors contend that drugs are more rampant among
minorities, but the SAMHSA study contradicts that misconception.

"The best way for a kid who is caught using or selling drugs to get off is
to select a congressman, senator or high-ranking official as one's parent,"
says U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr., a leading opponent of the War on
Drugs.

Indeed, after the son of U.S. Rep. "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., was found
flying an airplane loaded with 400 pounds of marijuana, he was freed on
bail but then tested positive for cocaine three times. He wound up getting
a mere 21/2 years in prison.

Former Education Secretary Richard Riley's son got just six months' house
arrest for conspiring to sell cocaine and marijuana, though he had been
indicted earlier on charges that can lead to life in prison.

Groff's study is desperately needed if Colorado citizens are to be treated
fairly and equally. Clearly, while drug abuse is bad, the War on Drugs is worse.