Editorial: Drug war's two faces

A drug raid at San Diego State University last week made headlines. Student drug dealers were caught openly selling drugs to fellow students over the Internet, in frat houses and dormitories. The arrest of children of privilege is noteworthy mostly because of its rarity. Despite rampant drug use on many college campuses, student dealers and users seldom risk prosecution.

The novelty of the SDSU raid stands in sharp contrast to the contents of two reports issued last week about the nation's 30-year "war on drugs." The reports detail the devastating effects of a drug policy that has targeted poor blacks in inner cities even as rates of illegal drug use have remained similar for blacks and whites.

The reports, one by the Sentencing Project and the other by Human Rights Watch, rely on federal law enforcement data to document racial disparity in drug arrests and imprisonment. The statistics show a consistent pattern of discriminatory enforcement that has sent blacks – young men especially, but black women as well – to prison at rates disproportionate to their presence in the population.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, African American men are nearly 12 times as likely to be imprisoned for drug convictions as whites. In its report, "Targeting Blacks: Drug Enforcement and Race in the United States," Human Rights Watch includes statistics from the 2003 National Corrections Reporting Program. Combined reports from the 34 states that responded show that blacks are imprisoned for drug crimes at a rate of 256 for every 100,000 African Americans. Whites were imprisoned at a rate of 25 per 100,000. In California the rate was 280 blacks in prison for drug crimes per 100,000, compared with 26 for whites.

The incarceration strategy has had a destructive impact on black communities. For black men, imprisonment carries a stain that is impossible to erase. It leads to joblessness and hopelessness that in turn translate into more crime.

It has also contributed to the widespread belief among African Americans that the criminal justice system is racist, that young black men selling nickel bags of crack in the gritty inner city of San Diego are more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and sent to prison than young white men who sell drugs out of frat houses. The recent reports give those beliefs substance.

The point here is not to treat white drug dealers more harshly. What the nation needs is a drug strategy that treats everyone equally and moves from a failed strategy of expensive incarceration toward greater emphasis on treatment, education and social programs that are more effective and less damaging to individuals and communities.

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• Links to the two studies are available online at www.sacbee.com/links.