Cocaine isn’t our bailiwick here at NORML and personally I have a no-white-powders rule. But one of the biggest glaring examples of the racism of the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs is the Crack-Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity.
It works like this: if you’re caught with 5 grams of crack cocaine, you get the same mandatory minimum as someone caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine. Crack cocaine and powder cocaine, chemically speaking, are identical with respect to addictive potential and psychoactive effect.
The difference, of course, is that crack cocaine is used by urban poor black people and powder cocaine is used by suburban affluent white people. Generally speaking.
So Congress, controlled by huge Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate, is sending a bill to the Democratic president who campaigned on eliminating the crack/powder disparity. This bill will increased the trigger of a mandatory minimum for crack from 5 grams to 28 grams (an ounce).
Meaning that instead of a 500:5 disparity for white vs. black people’s cocaine, the disparity will now only be 500:28. For the math-impaired, that means that our cocaine sentencing laws will go from being 100 times more racist to blacks to being 18 times more racist to blacks.
I suppose I should be thrilled with any adjustment to mandatory minimums, but I have suffered one too many “compromises” by a huge Democratic majority and president I voted for who promised a whole lot of things I really believe in*, only to start negotiations in the middle, compromise to the right, and call it a victory for the left. (Funny, I don’t remember George W. Bush, with a barely-GOP majority, ever being stymied in pushing through Congress anything he wanted, except privatizing Social Security. And it was a Democratic Congress under Republican President Reagan who gave us this 500:5 mandatory minimum disparity in the first place!)
Chris Weigant at HuffPo nails how me and many others are feeling about this latest victory for bi-partisanship:
In true incrementalist fashion, Democrats have now made things slightly less unfair, but fell far short of actual fairness. It’s as if, right after the Civil War, Congress announced that black people would now count as four-fifths of a person, instead of the previous three-fifths — in other words, a step towards equality, but not exactly the giant leap of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. Which makes it rather hard to praise such an effort, even though it does represent (some) progress.
This is landmark legislation, I realize. Moving away from the “lock them all up” mentality, for politicians, is remarkable simply because it does not happen often (read: “ever”). Backing down on Draconian drug laws is not exactly atop the priorities list of many politicians, because the ads attacking them for doing so just about write themselves. So I do applaud Congress for addressing the issue (both houses have now passed the bill).
While Congress did not have the courage of their convictions to do so this time around, they did take a baby step in the right direction. This is momentous, because it is the first such step in this direction in three or four decades. But I still can’t help but wish that Congress had tackled the problem not in such an incrementalist political fashion, but rather as an issue of rank inequality to be rectified by removingall of the legally-codified unfairness at once — to restore the concept of equal treatment under the law, rather than perpetuating (if slightly lessening) the inherent injustice which still exists.
* For example…
Holding accountable the companies that spied on us without warrants.
Ending extraordinary rendition of prisoners for torture.
Closing Guantanamo Bay
Ending “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”
Allowing Medicare to negotiate in bulk for lower drug prices.
“I won’t sign any health care reform bill without a public option.”
Ending DEA raids on legal medical marijuana states
Supporting Main Street over Wall Street.
I was just hoping for a change more meaningful than “He’s better than Bush”. Shee-it, I’M better than Bush!
[...] Meaning that instead of a 500:5 disparity for white vs. black people’s cocaine, the disparity will… [...]
This is seems comparable to the stunt the California legislature pulled with a decrim measure in the face of Prop 19 as a means to show there is little need to make “drastic changes.”
I’m not dismissing this by any means, but I still think this smells of larger agendas.
On a side note about the party system: I cannot tell a real difference in how these folks are doing things. Regardless of “platforms” and “party alignment” their actions have not been truly polar in many decades. All self serving and completely removed from being representative of anyone not living on the Hill or Wall Street. Your stated example of the mandatory minimums is a prime example of what most would consider a “conservative” vote. Plenty of others, but it shows clearly there is something amiss.
Lets hope financial concerns will sway all of their moralistic arguments moving forward with cannabis though. It seems the bottom line will prevail where science and common sense has failed.
Agree with your sentiments at the end, Russ. There have been disappointments and frustrations, but this administration has done quite a bit so far.
I’d been toying with not helping libs/progressives in the upcoming elections, as punishment for not being strong enough; but what it comes down to for me is that I’ll be damned if at this point I’ll allow conservatives any advantage in the fall election, whether by voting for them (GAG!) or not voting.
(The problem I see with liberal/progressive leaders is that they confuse their principles with their job: as a whole, we should be bipartisan and inclusive, but our leaders are supposed to be our HEROES in congress. They are supposed to fight for their base who got them in office, for the people who aren’t able to directly affect policy. Did they really expect conservatives to selflessly go along? Republican representatives understand their job better, and that’s why we had the 2000s–they excelled at being champions of selfishness, fear, and general assholery.)
It’s not that I’m voting out of fear (I do believe in voting FOR a candidate or principle), but I remember the stain left by GWB and Republicans in the 2000s. I also know there are lots of ignorant people in the good old US of A ready to vote against their interests (and that includes the stupid and selfish people in CA campaigning against Prop.19. What the fuck is wrong with you assholes?)
It’s only been two years since trying to dig out of what is arguably America’s worst period in contemporary history. Two. A lot can be done in two years, but I don’t understand people who expected a perfect, Great New Society to just manifest itself magically. At this point, progressive and liberal candidates represent my interests the best, and I’m willing to give them a full Presidential election cycle to solidify our recovery out of the stinking 2000s. I’m sure as hell not going to vote for a party of “NO,” especially when such a party is willing to put our country’s prosperity and future at risk for stupid, hypocritical “principles,” damn the consequences.
Since this post probaly just passed the “crazy ranter” length, I’ll bid all a good day and slink back into my cave. . . .