THE WAR WE WON'T TALK ABOUT

The war on drugs has gotten little traction during this presidential
campaign. The last time it was even mentioned was during the
Republican debate in September 2007 at Morgan State University in
Baltimore, when Republican candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) spoke of
its inordinate toll on the black community.

"I think inner-city folks and minorities are punished unfairly in the
war on drugs," Paul had said. "For instance, blacks make up 14
percent of those who use drugs, yet 36 percent of those arrested are
blacks and it ends up that 63 percent of those who finally end up in
prison are blacks. This has to change."

Paul is right, but his sense of urgency never caught on. The social
injustices encouraged by these policies are seeding unprecedented
domestic turmoil, and its racial biases are threatening black
America's viability.

The United States is the world's leading jailer, and a growing number
of those jailed are drug offenders. Between 1980 and 2006, arrests
for drug offenses more than tripled, according to a Human Rights
Watch study released in May. In 1980, the number of arrests was
581,000. By 2006, it was 1,889,810.

African Americans have paid a heavy toll. In many resource-poor
communities, young blacks often are tracked into the underground
economy and invariably into the prison pipeline. Incarceration has
become a central part of life for at least two generations of black youth.

According to the Sentencing Project, at the current rate of
incarceration, one out of every three black males born today can
expect to be imprisoned in his lifetime. Drug offenses are the major
reason for this. More than 38 percent of all blacks entering prison
in 2003 had been convicted of drug offenses, noted the Human Rights
Watch report.

On average, one of every 14 black children has a parent in prison.
Many cities with high incarceration rates also have serious gender
imbalances. In parts of Washington, D.C., there are only 62 men for
every 100 women. Black communities in many other parts of the
country suffer similar imbalances.

I wrote about the ominous prospects of these imbalances more than
three years ago. "There are more than 30 percent more black women
than men in Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago and Cleveland," I noted
in June 2005. "In New York City the number is 36 percent, and in
Philadelphia, 37 percent."

Those statistics spell out catastrophe. Yet, discussions of this
seem to be off limits, even for Sen. Barack Obama, a black man from
the South Side of Chicago - one of the many "ground zeros" of the crisis.

Many in the black community are reluctant to discuss the drug war's
collateral damage for fear it might tarnish Obama's glow. But
shouldn't someone mention it?

During the heat of the campaign early this year, the Justice Policy
Institute (JPI) released a study that documented the disproportionate
damage the drug war has caused the African-American community.

"In 2002 there were five times as many whites using drugs as African
American," the report read. "However our analyses indicate that
African Americans are admitted to prison for drug offenses at nearly
10 times the rate of whites."

JPI's study is one of many that have made the same point about
adverse affects of the drug war and the delusions of the
prohibitionists. We should have learned long ago that prohibition
and crime are mutually reinforcing.

That symbiotic relationship is crippling much of the black community.

On a weekly talk show I host on Chicago's only black-owned radio
station (WVON-AM), the callers' most consistent complaint is about
neighborhoods brimming with ex-inmates seeking capital but lacking
skills. This is another part of the deadly formula keeping much of
black America in a descending spiral. That descent will pull all of
America down, but many Americans are unaware of the danger.

We have heard much about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but little
has been said about a domestic policy that is endangering this
nation's future by threatening black America's viability.

Expressing the urgency of this task has been left to fringe
candidates, such as the libertarian Paul, the Green Party's Cynthia
McKinney or the independent Ralph Nader.

But the crisis demands mainstream attention because change won't come
until the new president ends the drug war and, with Congress,
channels massive investment into education and employment.