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| Drug War is a Peril To Children and Sanity |
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Posted by FoM on July 21, 2001 at 09:31:26 PT By Gregory Kane Source: Baltimore Sun 
"Let me get this straight: A young, promising college student gets involved with a drug dealer, becomes a mule carrying weapons for this miscreant and then refuses to cooperate with authorities on his whereabouts." Thus began an e-mail from Kurt Heinrich on one Kemba Smith, who did 6 1/2 years in federal prison for her role in drug dealer Peter Michael Hall's narcotics ring. She was sentenced to a 24-year mandatory minimum sentence but was pardoned by former President Bill Clinton and released in December. Several African-American organizations, individuals and publications had taken up Smith's cause and urged her release. Delta Sigma Theta, a predominantly African-American sorority, was one of the groups urging a pardon for Smith, who spoke at the DST convention in Baltimore last Saturday. Heinrich wrote to express his bewilderment with it all. "I am happy she is making the most of her second chance," Heinrich continued. "But doesn't the fact that she stands to make a profit on her book deal bother you? Don't you think this is ridiculous? A reformed felon profiting because she broke the law? She may be considered a 'nonviolent drug offender' but I wonder how many people were killed or injured with the weapons she transported. Call me crazy but this is not right!" No, Kurt, you're not crazy. And let's be even more realistic. Smith is not only going to get a book deal. HBO and Showtime will probably have a bidding war over the rights to a cable movie. Smith will make a bundle. I have no problem with that. Almost everyone connected with the O. J. Simpson murder trial has written a book and tried to cash in on the horrible death of two people. And if Mark Fuhrman, the self-confessed thug with a badge, can make money from a book, Smith sure as hell can. My gripe is with the lack of perspective many African-Americans have shown on this issue. They see Smith and other women imprisoned for similar misdeeds as victims. Indeed, they may well be. But mandatory minimums were instituted with concerns for other victims in mind. In my second column on Smith, written in April 1998, I wrote about one of them. His name was Tauris Johnson. He was only 10 years old. In November 1993, he was caught in a cross-fire between rival drug gangs. Tauris took a bullet to the head. The tough little guy hung on for more than eight hours, his parents spending minute after agonizing minute at Johns Hopkins Hospital as their little boy struggled for his life. Tauris didn't make it. You didn't see two front-cover stories on Tauris or his parents in Emerge magazine, which did two - including a 17-pager - on Smith. I doubt if anyone from Delta Sigma Theta has gone by his parents' home to express condolences or ask what they can do. There will be no book deals for his parents, or movie deals either. Black America's collective response to Tauris Johnson's death has been, roughly, "Got shot in the head by a drug dealer and died, huh, kid? That's your tough luck." There is a reason the response for Smith was different, of course. When black Americans make Smith a victim, and wail and moan about the injustice of mandatory minimums, we make "the system" the perpetrator. And, as everyone knows, another name for "the system" is "the white man." With young Tauris as a victim, we know we have only ourselves to blame. So, we keep his victimization on the down-low. In our search for a victim to rally around, we lose sight of solutions. As Smith noted in her interview for Wednesday's column, hundreds of black women are still in prison, most of them nonviolent drug offenders. What do black Americans propose to do about them? If we're going to wimp out on mandatory minimums - which were imposed for our protection, not our oppression - then we should go whole hog and say let's end the drug war, treat addiction as an illness and legalize drugs. What, after all, has the drug war gotten us? Tauris Johnson and others, young and old, killed in cross-fires. A staggering body count among young black men in major cities as they shoot each other for control of drug turf. Entire communities terrorized. Undercover cops Ed Toatley and Mike Cowdery assassinated in the line of duty. Violations of civil liberties and privacy as both police and the courts display a sneering contempt for the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. Racial profiling, based on the assumption that minorities use and deal drugs more than whites, neither of which is supported by statistics. No, Kurt, you're perfectly sane. It's our society that's crazy. First, we ask for harsher, more Draconian sentences in order to effectively fight the drug war, based on the theory that such punishment will deter first-time offenders. Then, when these first-time offenders claim ignorance of those laws - apparently, they never read a newspaper - they plead for leniency based on being first-time offenders. Then we give it to them. It's as if we suffer collectively from drug-induced stupidity. Source: Baltimore Sun (MD) Related Articles: Harsh Drug Sentences Must Be Re-Examined Kemba Smith Granted The Gift Of Freedom Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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Comment #7 posted by kaptinemo on July 22, 2001 at 08:02:11 PT:
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Dear Sirs, As a distant reader of the Sun, I'd like to applaud Mr. Kane in his forthrightness in standing up and saying what few people in minority communities dare say. Given that the War on Drugs has always targeted minorities specifically (I invite the skeptical to visit Minority leaders, especially African-Americans, are justifiably angry at the outcome of the last election. But I haven't heard too many speaking out about one aspect of the whole matter: the disenfranchisement of Black voters. Black voters disenfranchised because of felony convictions for being caught with something as relatively harmless as marijuana. By removing these prospective voters from the electorate, the balance of political power is changed. And those right-wing types favoring even harsher drug laws gain the upper hand, because they know how effective those laws are at excluding their opponents. It's long past time that the minority communities of America wake up and realize that the last elements of the Jim Crow laws are still on the books, and they are deliberately designed to thwart minority hopes of gaining their share of the American Dream. If they continue to ignore this fact, then they better get used to having the Supreme Court decide who's going to be the next Prez, as they won't have any real say at all. Sincerely, [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by Ellis Dee on July 22, 2001 at 04:34:16 PT |
| To make a move against the idiotic DARE program.I had this idea for an opposing plan,which will also be called DARE,Drugs Aint the Real Enemy,and the represenative personality for the program,would be like some cousin of Ronald McDonalds , yes, It's Druggles The Clown ! with his silly long orange hair,and his tie-dye overcoat which is chock full of drug paraphanalia.A bunch of bongs,roachclips,rolling papers,pipes,hanging on the inside of his trenchcoat.He'd bring along one of those electric water pipes from the late sixties,you know,the ones that were made with an aquarium air pump,a couple of jars and some tubing.Druggles would have that baby hooked up to a gas mask,and show the kids how to get "proper stoned",then Druggles sidekick would come into the room, "Oh no,it's Piggles,the police clown!." Piggles would then proceed to bust Druggles.The message to the children would be about,"if you're going to enjoy drugs,make sure you are very careful not to get caught,because getting caught will ruin your life way more than drugs ever could." [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #5 posted by mayan on July 21, 2001 at 19:34:03 PT |
| I guess it's just fine for the drug warriors to profit from this farce of a policy known as the "war on drugs". I think I'm going to puke. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by jAHn on July 21, 2001 at 15:33:07 PT |
| {{It's so obvious, sometimes I feel like someone exasperatedly watching a TV game show, when a clueless contestant dithers and fumbles when asked "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?"}} -Stern, jAH? ..thanks for wording it for me, so intriguingly, if i may add. I got scared when i heard that question! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by reader on July 21, 2001 at 15:26:45 PT |
| ...this Drug War is a serious threat to the survival of humanity. It's completely unfair to know that, somewhere, someone just got busted with a sack of reefer. Two people have just been apprehended by "officers of the law"! ((It's not far off to imagine this happening in the past minute, for this is how the Drug War Is Thee Drug War, no?)) It's a shame to know that there have been National Reports released on the "Slap-on-the-wrist-if-you're-rich" type of treatment and at that very time Someone is out there Justifying their "Practice." This divided practice of subjectifying certain humans to a couple of years in jail for simple possession, for the self-gratifying purpose of intoxication while letting others go- "Scott Free!?!" What a dumb concept!!! Isn't it self-defeating to let Ashcroft's nephew go with NO penalty while at that very minute, Goodness knows how many people have been captured, incarcerated and subjectified to be a part of sick, mad-man's Bullriding Contest {held for locals on the weekends}, or some other sick bastards' Chain gang? Put it all together and what do we have? Ohhh...just another gang terrorizing America, only this one's got NO primary face. This metamorphosizing doppelganger of the marketplace folk is absolutely Nameless, and Imageless. Is it Aaron Sorking and his evil cast of "Right Wing-oooh, excuse mee...Westerner Wing...ooops....f@#cked up again! West Wing...that's a little better"? Is it Officer Hardass and Srgt. Stadenko in the Unmarked car staring out at "the freak with the basketball!" I realize who these terrorists are. Some people do it differently, i guess. How many people became a statistic last hour? What about right N O W? ((or, maybe Right now)) Now? It's always the same. It's a nominally perfect circle. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Doug on July 21, 2001 at 11:09:15 PT |
| There seems to be a popular complaint that people should not make a profit out of their illegal activities, despite that makeing a profit is what America's all about. Still, I have yet to see many complaints about that large scale war criminal Henry Kissinger making a profit from his books, and speeches, and TV appearances, and .... [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 21, 2001 at 10:37:34 PT:
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| I suspect other reporters have been showing up here, to get their ideas for columns from what's been posted here as comments. For months I've railed here about the massive blind spot many minority leaders seem to have in their mental retinas about how the WoSD is decimating their own peoples. It's so obvious, sometimes I feel like someone exasperatedly watching a TV game show, when a clueless contestant dithers and fumbles when asked "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" I mean, what do you want? Do you want it served up on a silver platter? Cracked on the cranium with a baseball bat with the word "Drug War" burned into it? To be bitten on the backside by it? How obvious does it have to get? For the longest time it seemed that there weren't enough ammonia capsules on the planet to wake certain minority leaders from their stupor regarding the number one threat to their political efficacy in society: voter disenfranchisment via drug convictions ruthlessly pursued against specific minority groups, primarily Blacks. And that the very system used to perform this disenfranchisment was specifically designed to do it. Literally from Day One of it's implementation. What will it take before minority leaders do what nearly every person here has done long ago; engage in the research? Read the words of Anslinger and his sneering references to "degenerate races" having to be kept in line. By their own words, they are damned. But which is worse; those who commit the crimes...or those who are in a leadership position who allow those crimes to be committed against their own people due to ignorance easily cured? How much more urine will minority leaders continue to wipe from their faces before they realize the DrugWarriors are depositing it there while brazenly saying it's a local weather phenomenon having to do with precipitation? [ Post Comment ] |
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