DRUG WAR DISPARITIES

The importance of the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, the
initiative that will be on the state ballot in November, is highlighted by
a report released last Thursday by Human Rights Watch, an international
watchdog organization. It demonstrates in such detail that it can no longer
be ignored that the war on drugs is waged disproportionately and cruelly
against African-Americans. (www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/).

Voters need to hear from both major-party candidates how they would address
this situation, which contributes significantly to a growing distrust of
the judicial system by minority Americans.

As Jamie Fellner, associate counsel of Human Rights Watch notes, "Most drug
offenders are white. Five times as many whites use drugs as blacks. But
blacks comprise the great majority of drug offenders sent to prison."

These figures could be tweaked slightly. Black people make up about 13
percent of the population, white people about 73 percent, so there are
slightly more than five times as many white people as black people, which
might mean a slightly higher percentage of black people than white people
use illicit drugs. Still, if the laws were applied equally, one would
expect to see about five times as many white people as African-Americans in
prison for drug offenses.

But that's not how it is. Nationwide, black people comprise 62 percent of
drug offenders sent to state prison. Nationwide, black men are sent to
prison on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men. In California, 69
percent of all drug offenders sent to prison are African-American.
California sends a much higher percentage of the population to prison for
drug offenses (91 per 100,000 residents) than for violent crimes (59 per
100,000).

Can anyone fail to be shocked at such disparities? There may be reasons
besides blatant racial prejudice why this might be the case, as Human
Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth told us. Drug use and drug
transactions in black neighborhoods are more likely to occur on the
streets, which police can patrol, than inside suburban homes. Some police
departments use "profiles" to identify suspects in ways that bring more
black people to police attention. And the enhanced sentences for "crack"
cocaine compared to powder cocaine tend to put more black people than white
in prison for longer periods.

Whatever the reasons, however, this is an unjust, divisive and potentially
explosive phenomenon.

Human Rights Watch recommends the elimination of mandatory minimum
sentences for drug offenses, more use of alternatives to incarceration,
more use of "drug courts," more treatment programs and the end of racial
profiling. Those modest steps should be just the beginning of a wholesale
reconsideration of a disastrous approach to drug policy. The current policy
hasn't worked and has imposed the costs disproportionately on racial
minorities.