DRUG FIGHT HAS FOSTERED RACIAL BIAS, ACLU REPORTS

The war on drugs has significantly increased the number of traffic stops
based on race, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a report released
Wednesday.

"Skin color has become a substitute for evidence in a way that really
resembles Jim Crow justice on the nation's highways," said Ira Glasser, the
group's executive director.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's "Operation Pipeline" has trained at
least 27,000 law enforcement officials on how to spot drug couriers on
highways and has unfairly created a perception that blacks, Hispanics and
other minorities are more likely to possess drugs, Glasser said.

The ACLU said the practice is so common that minority communities have
given it the derisive term "driving while black or brown." The ACLU has
filed suits in Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey and Oklahoma challenging
racial profiling.

Officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington did not
immediately return calls for comment.

The ACLU's 43-page report is largely a collection of case studies from 23
states. It was released to rebut police denials that racial profiling
exists, said David Harris, a law professor at the University of Toledo in
Ohio and an author of the report.

"By laying out the facts in such detail in this report, we hope that we can
now get beyond 'Is there really a problem?' to 'What are we as a nation
going to do about it?'" Harris said. "We don't suggest that this will be
easy, only that it is necessary if we are to call ourselves a democratic
nation."

The ACLU is calling on police departments to begin documenting incidents of
racial profiling. Some already have, such as the departments in San Diego
and San Jose, Calif.

In April, North Carolina became the first state to pass a law requiring the
collection of such information on all traffic stops. Similar bills have
been introduced in Congress and in Arkansas, California, Connecticut,
Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, Texas and Virginia.