STUDY FINDS DRUG WAR TARGETS BLACKS

NEW YORK (AP) - The war on drugs in the United States has been waged
disproportionately against blacks, with about twice as many blacks in
prison on drug-related charges than whites, according to a study released
Thursday.

Nationwide, blacks make up about 62 percent of prisoners incarcerated on
drug charges, compared with 36 percent of whites, according to research
done by Human Rights Watch. Census figures indicate that blacks make up
about 13 percent of the U.S. population and whites - including white
Hispanics - about 82 percent.

Black men are admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate about 13
times that of white men, the study said. On average, 482 of every 100,000
black men sentenced to prison are sent there on drug charges, compared with
just 36 of every 100,000 white men.

The group said the numbers are especially striking because of federal
studies that show white drug users outnumber black drug users 5-to-1.

"These racial disparities are a national scandal," said Ken Roth, executive
director of the New York-based human rights group.

The study was based on 1996 figures provided by 37 states to the Justice
Department. The study doesn't include data for states that did not report
statistics that year.

The study did not differentiate between individuals imprisoned for drug
dealing as opposed to drug use.

Experts at the Bureau of Criminal Justice Statistics, a division of the
Justice Department, say one reason for the disparity could be that drug
abuse among blacks tends to be more chronic and involve harder drugs such
as crack cocaine and heroin.

Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, told The New York Times that the high rates for blacks
imprisoned on drug charges stem from the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s.

The report found that Illinois has the worst rate of racial disparity among
drug offender admissions in the country: Black men are sent to prison on
drug charges at 57 times the rate of white men. And blacks comprise 90
percent of all prison admissions in that state for drug charges - the
highest percentage in the country.

"We as a nation can't afford to have such an astonishing percentage of our
population in prison, especially when so much of it has to do with drugs,"
said Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch associate counsel and author of the
report.

Fellner said that the solution to the inequity is "not to incarcerate more
whites, but to reduce the use of prison for low-level drug offenders and to
increase the availability of substance abuse treatment."