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1996-05-06
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From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Date: 24 Jul 93 12:47 PDT
Subject: USA Today: RACIST Policies
Message-ID: <1484000280@igc.apc.org>
IS THE DRUG WAR RACIST? DISPARITIES SUGGEST THE ANSWER IS YES
USA Today, 7/23/93, Front Page, Cover Story
by Sam Vincent Meddis
>>>>>>> chart:
Blacks are four times as likely as whites ti be arrested on drug
charges -- even though the two groups use drugs at almost the
same rate.
Drug arrests per 100,000
Blacks 1,609 Whites 408
U.S. Adults who used illegal drugs within the past year:
Nationwide 13% Whites 12% Blacks 16%
Sources: USA TODAY analysis of drug arrest records filed with the
FBI: NIDA Household Survey on Drug Abuse. (1991-latest available)
----------------------
first part of article:
If you are black in the USA, you are four times as likely to be
arrested on drug charges as a white person.
If you live in Minneapolis, youa re 22 times as likely.
In Columbus, Ohio, 18 times; in Seattle, 13 times.
Although law enforcement officials say black and whites use drugs
at nearly the same rate, a USA TODAY computer analysis of 1991
drug arrests found that the war on drugs has, in many places,
been fought mainly against blacks.
In every part of the country -- from densely packed urban
neighborhoods to sprawling new suburbs, amid racial turmoil and
racial calm -- blacks are arrested at rates sometimes wildly
disproportionate to those of whites.
At the same time, cr4itics charge, the decade-old war against
drugs -- the largest and costliest mobilization against crime in
U.S. history -- routinely has not paid as much attention to drug
use and dealing where it happens most: among whites.
"It's just astonishing," says Allen Webster, president of the
National bar Association, the USA's largest black legal group.
"Basically, it's a war against minorities."
"it just shows how deep racism is institutionalized in American
criminal justice," says Jesse Jackson, Washington D.C.'s shadow
senator, upon seeing USA TODAY'S analysis.
"It's racist, that's the bottom line," says Rep. Charles Rangel
D-NY, head of the House narcotics abuse caucus.
..........................
Lee Brown, new director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy, says it is time for a change in drug control
policy -- an issue that will be taken up by Congress this fall.
He wants the focus to shift more to treatment and prevention.
..........................