EDITORIAL: RACE AND 'DRUG WAR'

Considering that blacks are far more likely to go to prison for drugs, one
would assume that blacks are far more likely to do drugs. Not even close.

Federal statistics find that five times as many whites have used cocaine as
blacks. Yet black men are sent to prison at 13 times the rate of white men.

What are the reasons? For one, blacks living in high-crime areas might be
more likely to be arrested or singled out when in low-crime areas.
It's called profiling. For another, laws treat crack cocaine, commonly
associated with blacks, far more harshly than powder cocaine. For another,
the age-old assumption seems to hold: People of privilege will be treated
differently than people of humble means.

All of which should be good reason to reconsider the nation's drug laws,
just as courts were forced to re-examine the death penalty for the
unevenness in its application among races.

Consider the 100-fold difference in sentencing between crack cocaine and
powder under federal law.

One can receive a five-year federal prison term for having five grams or
more of crack, while it takes 500 grams of powder to get the same sentence.

The difference in potency between crack and powder may justify some
difference in sentencing, but not to this degree.

Unfortunately, when asked by the Clinton administration to pare down the
disparity, the Senate made the wrong response. It voted to make powder
cocaine penalties dramatically stiffer - a mandatory five years for 50
grams rather than 500. Blessedly, that measure did not advance further.

We do not need harsher prison sentences for non-violent crimes.

Mandatory sentencing has caused our federal prisons to grow flush with drug
offenders. Our nation must re-examine this policy. It must shift its focus
to prevention and treatment rather than incarceration.

Congress needs to abolish mandatory sentencing for non-violent crimes.

At the local level, states need to ban racial profiling, a clear factor in
the overabundance of young black men being charged with drug violations. And
judges need to administer justice evenly in spite of skin color.

More fundamentally, we must re-examine the flooding of the prisons with
non-violent offenders who are there because of addiction.

Drug treatment must rise to the top of priorities. And we must tone down the
"tough-on-drugs" rhetoric. Scandalously, the drug war is much tougher on
some Americans than on others.