CASUALTIES OF THE WAR ON DRUGS

Gore And Bush Ignore Nation's Irrational Policy

Published Oct. 16, 2000

BY JOANNE JACOBS

AL Gore and George W. Bush are pushing drugs for the elderly. But
neither is pushing for change in our nation's failing war on drugs.
The war on drugs rumbles on, destroying lives and neighborhoods,
filling prisons with non-violent offenders, consuming billions of
dollars. But the major-party candidates barely talk about it. They're
too busy quibbling over who'd hand out more goodies -- tax credits,
tax cuts or tax-paid benefits.

Both have official positions with the standard drug war
rhetoric.

Gore pledges to ``toughen our fight against illegal drugs,'' and
stresses more testing of parolees.

Bush calls for ``a balanced policy of education, treatment, and law
enforcement,'' including ``character education in our schools'' and
``faith-based'' treatment. But he's a big believer in fighting the
drug war overseas and at the border, despite all the evidence that it
doesn't work.

Both Gore and Bush support U.S. military aid to Colombia, a $1.3
billion policy that bears an eerie resemblance to the early days of
the Vietnam War. Except we had a better chance of defeating the Viet
Cong than we do of ending cocaine abuse in the U.S. by sending
advisers, helicopters and herbicide to the jungles of Colombia.

Both candidates oppose racial profiling. Neither mentions why federal
customs agents and state troopers started using profiles: To look for
drugs.

At the second debate, Gore was eager to bring up a grisly racial
murder in Jasper, Texas. He attacked Bush for not pushing a hate
crimes law, apparently unaware that Texas has such a law increasing
penalties for racially motivated crimes. (The bill Gore mentioned
added gays.)

In beating the hate crimes drum, Gore offers symbolism to black
voters. He isn't offering real protection against a far more dangerous
destroyer of black lives, the war on drugs. That's where the body
count is high.

``Ostensibly color blind, the war on drugs has been waged
disproportionately against black Americans,'' concludes a Human Rights
Watch report, ``Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on
Drugs'' (www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa).

Blacks make up 62.7 percent of all drug offenders sent to state
prison, the report found. That's 13.4 times the rate at which white
men are imprisoned for drugs.

While blacks and whites have similar rates of drug abuse, blacks are
more likely than whites to be arrested for drug offenses, more likely
to be convicted if arrested and more likely to be imprisoned if
convicted; blacks also get longer sentences for similar crimes.

Some drug offenders serve more time than murderers and
rapists.

Black youths charged with drug offenses are 48 times more likely to be
sentenced to juvenile prison than whites charged with similar
offenses, according to the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency.

Federal law discriminates against sellers of crack cocaine, who tend
to be black. They get five years for five grams of crack cocaine,
while powder cocaine dealers, more likely to be white, must be caught
with 500 grams to get the same penalty.

Both Gore and Bush have questioned whether the disparity is justified.
But neither has made it an issue, or come up with a proposal to change
the law.

While 49 percent of crack users were white in 1998, according to
federal estimates, only 6 percent of those convicted in federal court
for crack sales were white. Blacks, 34 percent of users, were 85
percent of federal convicts.

Federal ``mandatory minimums'' also discriminate against women. A
woman who takes a phone message for her dealer boyfriend can be
charged with participating in a conspiracy; her sentence will be set
by the weight of the drugs, not by her complicity. While the guilty
can get lighter sentences by testifying against others, those in the
girlfriend category usually don't know enough to help convict anyone
else. So they can get longer prison sentences than mid-level and
high-level dealers.

Bush, happy to brag about his state's increase in juvenile prison
beds, may be OK with long prison sentences for minor offenders.

But what about Gore? If he's really ``fighting'' for the underdog, he
should be fighting against federal and state policies that
discriminate against minorities and women, create enormous injustice
and suffering, cost billions of dollars -- and don't work.

Repealing unfair mandatory minimum sentencing laws would be a first
step to new drug policies. Neither ``compassionate'' Bush nor
no-profile Gore is willing to lead.