I think you and Massa are both correct. Crack violence was a scourge and needed to be addressed with stiff penalties and intense police action to protect inner city communities. However, it made no sense to double the sentence of someone found with a kilo of solid cocaine versus someone found with a kilo of powdered cocaine. Who knows why white people preferred snorting and black people preferred smoking but it should have played no part in sentencing.
you ignore that those tougher sentencing guidelines were a symptom of the main problem I addressed. but nice try.
This goes all the way back to Anslinger, and Hoover with their "crazed negro" propaganda trying to scare the American public into believing weed made people w brown skin rape white women. Stop and frisk in New York stops a disproportionate amount of blacks to whites as well. Private prisons now have shareholders, those shareholders make money off of locking people up, so now they can lock up minorities and profit from it. Anyone who says drug laws aren't inherently racist either have their head in the sand or are in complete denial, or are the ones making the money off of it.
1982. February. Congressional Black Caucus releases “Black Leadership Family Plan for the Unity, Survival and Progress of Black People.” The document, penned by civil rights icon and Washington DC non-voting representative Walter Fauntroy, includes criticism that “diminished drug enforcement increases [black youth] vulnerability to drug abuse.” 1986. July 15. Fauntroy testifies before a Committee hearing, describing crack cocaine as “the plague.” 1986. July 23. Actor Ossie Davis joins street vigils against crack epidemic organized by leaders of 60 black churches in New York City. 1986. August. New York’s Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo introduces sweeping drug war legislation that escalates Rockefeller-era penalties, particularly for crack cocaine. 1986. October. MAJOR FEDERAL DRUG WAR LEGISLATION PASSES. Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 passes Congress, enacting far tougher Federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenders, including those caught with marijuana. Establishes a 100-to-1 disparity in punishments for crack cocaine compared with powder form of drug. The measure is supported by the Congressional Black Caucus, though some members want even harsher penalties for drug crimes. Sixteen of nineteen African American members of the House — including Texas Rep. Mickey Leland and California Rep. Ron Dellums — co-sponsor of the bill. - October 27. President Ronald Reagan signs the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. http://prisontime.org/2013/08/12/timeline-black-support-for-the-war-on-drugs/
Tax revenue was robust during the Reagan years. Yes he did increase spending on the military which ultimately led to ending the Cold War. "Many of Reagan’s so-called “tax increases” were actually examples of ending deductions. Overall, Reagan dramatically cut the most odious of taxes. There were real tax increases but they pale in comparison to the scale of the income tax cuts that defined the Reagan era." "Looking back at the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the left clings to only one aspect of the deal: that President Reagan advocated amnesty for those living illegally in the U.S. But in working with Congress, his support for amnesty was clearly a quid pro quo. Amnesty was just one component of a full complement of legal statutes designed to secure the U.S. border, strengthen enforcement procedures and improve the legal immigration system with background checks. It was meant to be a multifaceted solution to tackle a tough problem and, of premier importance, secure our border." Clinton was a moderate.
as much as people hate both Bush presidencies, they did more for black folks or as much as any democractic president in the last 20 years, well maybe not Clinton, but Reagan had a big hand in really destroying the black community as much as the Vietnam War did when it come to drugs and violence.
Unless you think Reagan masterminded (unintended pun) the importation and distribution of crack cocaine in some vast conspiracy to put black people in prison which I don't think you really believe that then for what purpose would he want to put more people in prison causing the expenditure of billions of additional dollars for more prisons and more police. As LSUAthletics has pointed out, the strengthening of the penalties was fully supported by many of the leaders of the black community. The reason the penalties for crack were set higher than the penalties for powder cocaine is that the users of crack tend to be much more violent than the users of powder as well as committing many more criminal acts to support their habits. Smoking crack produces an immediate and intense euphoria that quickly wears off leaving the user with a desire to return to the state of euphoria. Crack is a lot cheaper than powder cocaine and for $10 or $20 a crackhead can get a buzz but he very soon needs more crack resulting in the need for multiple purchases per day. @red55 said he doesn't understand why black people prefer to smoke crack while while people prefer snorting. Its not a black/white thing. Its an economic status thing. Poor white people are just as likely to smoke crack as poor blacks or poor Hispanics. Wealthy to middle class black coke users are more likely to snort powder than smoke crack. Now if someone possesses a kilo or more of either powdered coke or crack that person is dealing and I agree that the penalties should be the same. But since crack users are much more dangerous to the communities they live in than powder sniffers are is a good reason to keep the penalties for small amounts of the drug higher.
all of that is bullshit, its documented that the consequences of selling cocaine to fund weapons in south america was to push it in the black communities, it never saw the light of day in the media, the guy who wrote the story was blackballed immediately. He masterminded the funding of weapons to guerrillas in south america through selling cocaine in the US. Its not about who smokes it, its about geography and where it was mainly sold and who it effected the most. Im not budging from this viewpoint, im reasonable on many things, but this i hold as fact. your logic is very flawed, drug use is drug use, violence is an outlier to a personal user. The sentencing difference is on the form of cocaine, its not tied to whether someone is violent.
