JIM CROW, THE SEQUEL

Just as the effectiveness -- and sanity -- of mandatory minimums for
nonviolent drug offenses are being questioned nationwide, Congress, in
its superior wisdom, voted Wednesday (Sept. 27) to institute mandatory
minimums for possession of methamphetamine -- but specifically
excluded so-called "club drugs" such as Ecstasy (which, incidentally,
is a methamphetamine-based drug). Why the disparity? Could it be
because meth, like crack, is associated primarily with minority users,
while "X" is favored by middle- and upper-class white kids? Or should
we be on the lookout for a spike in all-night raves up on The Hill?

"What you have here," Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) told me, "is not
a war on drugs, but the selective imprisonment and disenfranchisement
of young people of color who make mistakes." Indeed, who needs Jim
Crow when you have the one-two punch of mandatory minimums and
disenfranchisement statutes?

According to a groundbreaking study by the Sentencing Project and
Human Rights Watch, 1.4 million African American men -- 13 percent of
the total black male population -- are now ineligible to vote because
of state laws that deny even those felons who have fully paid their
debt to society access to the polls. In Florida and Alabama, almost
one in three black men is permanently barred from voting.

Last week, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's
School of Law filed a suit challenging Florida's lifetime ban on
behalf of Thomas Johnson, an ex-felon who is now executive director of
a program that helps released prisoners readapt to life on the
outside. "I paid my debt," said Johnson, "and now I have a job that
helps people and improves my community. I am contributing to the
growth of my society, but I can't influence its direction. I can only
watch while my community forms around me without my input."

Many states -- especially in the South -- enacted disenfranchisement
laws following Reconstruction so as to undercut the newly gained
voting power of African Americans. This was achieved by, among other
things, singling out crimes that were thought to be committed more
frequently by blacks and excluding those thought to be more commonly
perpetrated by whites. Sound familiar?

So while racially targeted obstacles to voting -- such as literacy and
property tests, poll taxes and grandfather clauses -- have been
eliminated, our nation's "tough-on-crime" drug laws have produced
remarkably similar results. While blacks make up 13 percent of drug
users, they account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges,
55 percent of those convicted and 74 percent of all drug offenders
sentenced to prison. "It's a vicious cycle," Rep. John Conyers
(D-Mich.) told me. "Our drug policies, combined with law enforcement's
focus on low-level users and dealers, have led to incarceration rates
among blacks 8.5 times higher than the general population -- and that
in turn leads to dramatically higher disenfranchisement rates."

Conyers has introduced legislation to grant ex-felons the right to
vote in federal elections, but it remains stuck in committee. He
promises that if the Democrats regain the House, and he becomes
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, both this piece of legislation
and drug reform in general will be top priorities.

The political impact of disenfranchisement becomes startlingly clear
when you juxtapose the 1.4 million black men who won't be able to vote
in the 2000 election with the total number of African American men who
voted in 1996: 4.6 million.

Since Al Gore and the Democrats are so dependent on the African
American vote (84 percent of blacks voted for Bill Clinton in 1996),
now is the time to leverage this electoral power by demanding
criminal-justice reforms. "We have a rendezvous with redemption," Gore
recently told a large crowd at Howard University in Washington.
Replacing Barry McCaffrey would certainly speed up the rendezvous.
Both Conyers and Jackson consider the choice for the next drug czar a
critical appointment for the African American community. "We are tired
of the military model of drug czars," said Jackson, "fighting a losing
battle on the supply side and ignoring the stark reality that drug
addiction is a medical problem -- not just a criminal one." Having had
command of tanks and jet fighters isn't important in a drug czar;
having command of common sense is. Gen. McCaffrey is as out of place
leading a war on drugs as he would be leading a war on cancer.

In other words, it's way past time to move from clueless generals
prosecuting a misguided drug war to drug-policy decisions based on
science and public-health considerations. Otherwise, any attempt to
move nonviolent drug offenders from incarceration to treatment will be
stymied by the prevailing orthodoxy. Which is exactly what happened
the other day to Conyers' amendment that would have allowed federal
judges to divert nonviolent drug offenders to drug courts and
treatment programs.

The tenfold increase in the number of people locked behind bars over
the last three decades has brought a new urgency to the injustice of
disenfranchisement laws. And it has thrown into sharp relief the
strong racial undertones in our drug policies -- just reconfirmed in
the U.S. Congress.

You can contact Arianna Huffington via e-mail at info@ariannaonline.com
or at 1158 26th Street, Suite #428. Santa Monica, Calif. 90403.