cannabisnews.com: Drugs Taking Heavy Toll on Nation Drugs Taking Heavy Toll on Nation Posted by FoM on March 21, 2001 at 16:16:47 PT By Greg Cunningham, Globe-News Staff Writer Source: Amarillo Globe-News The war on drugs is not measured by casualties or damage inflicted on an enemy, but its statistics are alarming nonetheless. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 17,000 people died of drug-induced causes in 1998. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says 550,000 people made drug-related emergency room visits in 1999. The 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse shows 14.8 million Americans recently used drugs. The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) statistics show 35 percent of people sentenced in state court are sentenced for narcotics violations. The federal government spent $18 billion fighting drugs in 2000. The war on drugs is not fought in some far-off land or exclusively on this country's borders. Its main battlefields are in homes, schools and cities. The war is fought in towns large and small, including one of its more recent battlefields - Tulia. The battle lines in Tulia are drawn between supporters of law enforcement who demanded action on a perceived drug problem in the town and supporters of 46 people arrested in 1999 for selling drugs to an undercover officer. Those arrested in Tulia are seeking justice in the courts, but many of the individuals and organizations involved on their behalf have a bigger target: the war on drugs. Opponents of the drug war who helped bring Tulia to national prominence say the town embodies all that is wrong with the nation's drug policy: excessive sentences for small-time users, the destruction of families whose parents are sent to jail, and the inordinately large number of minorities arrested for drug crime. "I'm truly sorry this happened to Tulia, because the people there have been so nice to me,'' said Randy Credico, who brought his battle against drug policy to Tulia on behalf of New York's William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. "Tulia just happens to be the example that best illustrates the problem.'' Dr. G. Alan Robison, executive director of the Houston-based Drug Policy Forum of Texas (DPFT), said his organization also got involved in Tulia as part of the larger fight to change drug policy. "Everything about drug policy in this country is wrong,'' Robison said. "We should have learned from alcohol Prohibition that you cannot regulate a black market. It's easier for kids to get drugs than it is to get beer because at least the people who sell beer and cigarettes are required to ask for (age identification).'' Some may write these organizations off as pushing a drug legalization agenda, but nearly everyone involved said legalization is not their objective. Robison said he personally favors legalization, but the DPFT supports only reform of drug laws. Credico carefully refused to commit one way or another on legalization, but fights fiercely and openly against current drug policy. The element of drug policy most at question in Tulia is the disproportionate number of minorities arrested for drug violations. According to ONDCP figures, blacks make up about 15 percent of cocaine users, yet account for 38 percent of those charged with powder cocaine violations and 88 percent of those charged with crack cocaine violations. Crack constitutes approximately half of the cocaine use in the United States. That nearly all of the people arrested in Tulia are black, although blacks make up only about 10 percent of the town's population, perfectly illustrates how the drug war is inherently racist, according to Credico. "Right now, the war on drugs is the most egregious example of racism in the legal system,'' Credico said. "Blacks are unfairly singled out for arrest, but everybody knows that it's not only blacks that are doing drugs. If they made these kinds of arrests in a white, middle-class neighborhood, it would never stand.'' Credico said blacks are unfairly targeted because they are generally easier to arrest and less likely to be able to provide themselves a quality defense. That assumption is borne out by the experiences of Rodney Williams of Houston, whose 31/2 years of undercover work in Texas and Florida gave him a firsthand view of the problems with the war on drugs. "The whole drug war we were fighting, we were fighting it wrong,'' Williams said. "The drug war now is about money, It's about meeting those quotas and keeping that federal money coming in. It's not about fighting drugs.'' Williams' experience started in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where he worked undercover buying narcotics. He said he saw the effects of the money provided by the federal government manifested in pressure to make arrests. Williams said officers would focus on making quick, easy busts to keep their numbers up, which would inevitably result in the arrests of the poor, mostly minority street dealers. Things only got worse when Williams went to Palm Beach County, Fla., where he experienced not only unfairness in the system, but outright corruption. The officers in Florida were required to make five drug arrests a month and acquire two search warrants to keep up with productivity requirements attached to federal money. Williams said some officers would get to the end of the month and be short on arrests, so they would plant evidence on suspects to make their quota. "In Texas, they may have bent the rules a little bit, but they did it right for the most part,'' Williams said. "In Florida, the only thing that mattered was making that quota, and some of those guys were willing to do whatever it took to make it.'' Williams said he reported the corruption to his supervisor, but the officers received only a slap on the wrist. Williams was subjected to harassment, transferred from the narcotics unit and eventually quit law enforcement altogether. Lt. Mike Amos with the Panhandle Narcotics Trafficking Task Force in Amarillo refused to discuss specifics of the Tulia undercover investigation, but was willing to talk about drug policy. Amos agreed the federal government demands results for the money it spends fighting drugs, but he said the pressure is not so high as to result in corruption. "There's a little bit of truth to that, in that we have to show results, but it's not just arrests,'' he said. "We do all sorts of other programs. There's no sort of quota going on here.'' Amos said the Task Force submits federal grant applications annually, and must detail the work done with the money. The work includes training and public awareness programs as well as arrests. The money trail in drugs runs farther than narcotics agents, according to Credico. The system requires a constant stream of new prisoners to justify the huge expenditures in building new prisons and to support the economic benefits associated with prison employment, he said. "Prisons are a self-sustaining economic system,'' Credico said. "You're creating a slave class (of prisoners) to justify the economics of prisons.'' A study released this year by the Justice Policy Institute backs up many of Credico's claims. According to the study, the prison population in Texas grew at 11.8 percent yearly during the 1990s, nearly twice the national rate of 6.1 percent. Texas now places first among all 50 states in the number of prisoners. The study also shows blacks are incarcerated at seven times the rate of whites in Texas, with one in three young black males either in prison, on parole or serving probation. Amos said he has seen statistics indicating 85-90 percent of prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes or were under the influence of drugs when they were arrested. With such startling numbers, the obvious question is what can be done to address the concerns? One solution gaining steam is a movement toward treatment rather than incarceration for drug offenders. Bob Weiner with the ONDCP in Washington, said treatment options came into favor during the Clinton administration and have shown great promise. Drug courts, which allow non-violent drug offenders to choose treatment over prison, have risen in number from 12 to 700 nationally in the past few years. Funds for treatment have risen 35 percent, while prevention spending has gone up 55 percent. "The legalization advocates talk about treatment, but we've been leading the way in that for years,'' Weiner said. "I love how they're just now catching up, but you'll never see them giving the government credit.'' Weiner said the recidivism rate among offenders in drug courts has declined by 25-50 percent. Defendants who fail drug tests while in treatment are simply sent to prison and treated as any other prisoner, Weiner said. The disparity in jail sentences for minorities may be harder to overcome, however. Weiner said former White House National Drug Policy Director Barry McCaffery pushed hard for the reduction of the federal sentencing disparity between crack cocaine, a largely black drug, and powder cocaine. The sentencing differential currently sits at 100 to one. Beyond that, Weiner said the answers lie in education and changes to the socio-economic factors pushing many poor blacks into the drug trade. "Education is really the key,'' Weiner said. "You have to keep at it generation after generation. But you also have to consider the demographics of the criminal. You have to look at the poverty factor, the health-care factor. You have to deal with the whole picture.'' Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX)Author: Greg Cunningham, Globe-News Staff Writer Published: March 21, 2001Fax: (806) 373-0810Copyright: 2001 Amarillo Globe-NewsAddress: P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, TX 79166Contact: letters amarillonet.comWebsite: http://amarillonet.com/Forum: http://208.138.68.214:90/eshare/server?action=4Related Articles & Web Sites:Justice Policy Institute: http://www.cjcj.org/Drug Policy Forum of Texas: http://www.dpft.org/Amarillo Globe's Special Section: http://www.amarillonet.com/specialsection/Fight Goes National : http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9101.shtmlDrug War Reveals Racial Disparity: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8267.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #4 posted by QUICKFUZE on May 11, 2001 at 21:56:09 PT: UNDERSTANDING, DEALING WITH,PROLEMS...FACING BLACK I AM BLACK. I AM HERE TO STAY FOREVER. YOU CAN NEVER KILL ME. I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR MY LIFE. I KNOW ME, SO I KNOW GOD.THERE IS NOTHING THAT GOD HAS CREATED OR ALLOWED TO BE CREATED BY MAN THAT CAN OR WILL EVER DESTROY ME AS A PEOPLE,RACE.OR CREED. FOR I AM THE FIRST,AND THE LAST. GET IT TOGETHER BRO. I LOVE YOU. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Dan Hillman on March 22, 2001 at 11:20:06 PT cellis786, even DEA agents agree with you. See March 15 & 16th entries at "The Voice for Special Agents and Drug Warriors":http://members.aol.com/deawatch/daily.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by cya on March 22, 2001 at 05:06:19 PT Black MAN "As a young white woman, it makes me angry. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be a young black male in this country"Dont you see how "male" could be "man" I blame this dehumanizing type of retoric on the media which almost always talks about black men as males. I have even seen black liberals do this. We are all brainwashed.The WOD is as we all know, a RACE war.I do see that you you used "White male" also in your script, I dont think I have ever seen that before. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by cellis786 on March 22, 2001 at 00:20:36 PT post this These types of articles tned to enrage me. I find myself realizing more and more how incredibally racist this country truly is. Maybe it's not the citizens of the United States that are truly racist, but the vast majority of Americans walk through life with their eyes closed to the fact that they have allowed the Aristocratic White Males, the White Anlo-Saxon Protestant rulers of this nation to oppress the black community for so many years. It's enraging. As a young white woman, it makes me angry. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be a young black male in this country. To deal with the fact that you are a walking target day in and day out. To watch women clutch their purses a little bit tighter as you walk by. To hear the constant redicule for the lack of parental responsiblity you take. And why?? Because this is the social environment that has been created by years of oppression and discrimination, and then emmulcified by a so called "War on Drugs".What have we done to these people?? We drag their ancestors across an ocean, ripping them away from their families and their homes, immediately putting a pattern of escapism and lack of a present father figure. Then we persicute and exploit them, causing them to work against their will, because they have no means of escape. They cannot ever achieve freedom. If they do manage to crawl out from under the clutches of slave owners, they are treated as aliens. They are uneducated and they cannot provide for themselves.When they finally are emmancipated, this trend continues. The inner city becomes the American third-world. A class of uneducated people unable to raise enough money to break free of the cycle. Fathers are unable to support children, so mothers turn to government aide. This creates a drain on the economy, and the tension and stress of this kind of life turns to violent acts against each other. What is they government to do to contain this issue.At this point, to quiet the economic drain of welfare, the government creates an industry for the innercity community. I have to hand it to the guy thjat came up with this idea. It's ingenious. Buy cocain from a suffering right wing Nicoraguan drug ring, this promoting power of the Capitolist party in a third world country and empower the third world inhabitants of the inner cities of America. Then, we can make these drugs illegal, and enslave these black people once again. Throw them in prison for making a living off of the industry that we created for them. Exploit them again by forcing them into slave labor through the corrupt prison systems. And, once again, the white man gets rich off of the black mans free labor.This is crap, and yet, we are too affraid to stand up and change it. Or, perhaps, products of the American school system, we are too brain washed, and too uneducated ourselves to know how to stand up and change it. Where do we go from here??I look froward to the day that I can go to the corner liquor store, show my legal, government issued, identification card, and ask for a nice pack of government taxed and regulated dry marijauna. Buy a nice dime sack and roll it on your own for old times sake, or buy that nice perfectly rolled blunt. Buy a nicely cut eight ball, and enjoy it with my friends on a Friday night. Hell, they used to do it at the turn of the century. Or how about, sparking a light and walking home enjoying a nice J. Are we really hurting anyone??The way I see it, people will always become addicted. People will always overdose. But, these people only do these things for one of two reason: 1. They are suicidal, and anyone can find a knife if there are no drugs handy. Drugs just seem to be a little less messy, or 2. They are uneducated. Maybe it is this lack of education that leads the WASP's of the country to lable drugs as evil. Or perhaps it's just that nice padding in their pocket books. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: