The Pit Falls of the War on Drug

Mark Bradford

EDGE

6/2/05

The Pit Falls of the War on Drug

The drug laws that are in place right now are very inefficient. This paper will focus on the people and the specific elements that are affected by the inefficiency of the drug laws. When looking at the drug laws at a glance a person might be lead to think that they would be very effective and they seem reasonable. While drug laws in themselves are necessarily wrong, some of the discrepancies in the laws make them unfair and take from the category of handing down justice and puts them into the category of cruel and unusual. First there will be an analysis of prohibition throughout American history, then an analysis of what the actual crimes and punishments are for a few of the drug in the United States. Next there will be a look into who is affected by the laws and how. Finally, this paper will try to provide some kinds of solutions to the problems that are being caused with the drug laws.

First the definition of a drug is any substance that has an effect on the mind and body except food, and the definition of a crime is an act or omission that is punishable or goes against a law. When crime is looked at in this sense it can be said that government is the cause of all crime because every crime that is committed has to go against a law that is passed by the government. In looking at the problems with the drug laws, a history of where the drug laws come from is necessary. In the first 140 years of the United States all drugs were legal. This means that if a person wanted to do any drug at any time that the person could do it without having to worry about any penalties. The actual first federal law that was passed was the Pure Food and Drug act of 1906. This law was did not even put a restriction on the drugs that were available. This act was more of a labeling act. This was used to make sure that people knew what they were taking. This act stated that the consumer had a right to know the correct identity of the product. This was a time period where the government was very liberal pertaining to drug laws. The government did not think that it was their place to tell people what was useful for them to take or not. During this time period the U.S. used to import and export opiates to other countries. In the period before 1913 the alcohol taxes provided about half of the federal income, but in that year an income tax was introduced which in turn made a decision to prohibit alcohol much easier for those who were making the decision in the government. Between of years of 1919-1923 is where the American people lost their rights to control their own medical treatment. The act that was passed that took this right away was the Harrison act. This act restricted doctors to prescribing narcotics only in the course of their professional practice. The passing of this law lead to lead to the harassing of doctors who did no follow the laws and sent a message to those who did not pay close attention to the specific definition of what constituted as professional practice. This was of course dependant on the persons interpretation was. There ended up being a number of doctors that ended up getting jail time and many others with warnings. This act also put a restriction on the physicians and their ability to give drugs. The physicians could only give drugs on a doctor’s prescription. January 16, 1920 was the beginning of the alcohol prohibition. Since the beginning of prohibition there have been entrepreneurs that have stepped up on the opportunity to capitalize on the market of selling what has been prohibited when the demand on the prohibited is great. Smuggling has come a long was since the beginning of the prohibition of alcohol. One example of the how far its come is that “ One early smuggler was a cab driver who simply drove his clearly marked New York City taxi cab 350 miles north to Canada, loaded up all the whiskey that it could hold, and drove back to New York with cases of whiskey plainly visible through the windows” ( From these humble beginnings the act of smuggling has come a long way, into much more sophisticated and thought-out techniques. April 4, 1933 was the official end to the alcohol prohibition. The act of prohibition is still alive today in the form of drug laws that still exist today.

When taking a look at the drug laws and the viewing the different demographics of people in the prisons it has to be said that a lot of the drug law punishments are not equivalent to the crime that is committed, they are in essence too harsh. When looking at the fact that minor non-violent drug offenders are receiving some of the same sentences as murderers and rapist is when one has to think that the sentences are a little bit excessive. “Only offenders convicted of murder and kidnapping/ hostage taking serve longer sentence than crack offenders. Those convicted of robbery serve an average of 108 months; arson, 68 months; sexual abuse, 65 months; and manslaughter, 25 months” ( The people going to prison for drug violations are not only receiving tougher sentencing but they are more of them in the prisons than those who went to prison for any other reason, the fact is that 60% of all federal prisoners in prison are in for drug offenses. Those convicted for crack cocaine serve an average sentence length of 119 months in prison! Tobacco is responsible for the death of millions and is still legal while on the other hand a drug like marijuana has not been the proven cause of one death but is still illegal. Due to the war on drugs the “The estimated time served by drug offenders in state prisons increased a full year between 1987 and 1996; federal drug sentences doubled” (

When dealing with powder cocaine the mandatory minimum sentence for defendants convicted of selling 500 grams of cocaine is five years in prison. For five kilos the minimum sentence is ten years in prison. The crime of simple possession of powder cocaine by first-time offenders is considered a misdemeanor and is punishable by no more than one year in prison. There is a big discrepancy between the punishments of crack cocaine and the punishments of powder cocaine, even though there is no big difference in the damage that is incurred by the user.

For crack cocaine the mandatory minimum sentence for defendants convicted of selling 5 grams of crack is five years. The minimum sentence for fifty grams of crack is ten years in prison. Simple possession of crack by a first time offender is considered a felony, and carries a five-year mandatory sentence. The difference in the two drugs are not big enough for there to be such a difference in the way that they are persecuted. “the mean average sentence length for powder cocaine is 77 months, compared to 119.5 months for crack cocaine” (

Marijuana is a drug that is judged way too harshly. This is a drug that can be compared to other drugs that are legal and would be found less harmful to the user. Marijuana is less dangerous drug than alcohol. “Over 100,000 deaths each year in the U.S. are alcohol related, about 15,000 due to driving accidents. Marijuana deaths approximate zero in a long history” ( The long-term effects of alcohol is much more severe than that of marijuana. Excessive long-term use can lead to organ and brain damage, while there is no clear health damage caused from marijuana. The amount of people that are effected negatively by marijuana being illegal is a far greater number than that of people that benefit. The prison rates of people involved with marijuana are ridiculous especially for a drug that is as harmless as marijuana. “In 1972, after an exhaustive study by a team of experts, President Richard Nixon’s hand-picked National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended decriminalization of marijuana. Five years later, President Jimmy Carter and many of his top cabinet officials made the same recommendation to Congress. Both the Commission and the Carter administration felt that the “cure” of imprisonment was worse than the “disease” of marijuana use. U.S. drug control officials argued strenuously that Congress should ignore such recommendations, which it did”( If someone is found guilty of possession of more than 28.5 grams of marijuana they are charged with a misdemeanor and have to serve 6 months in prison. The punishment for the cultivation of any amount of marijuana is a felony and 16 months in prison. In “ 2001, the average length of a sentence received for marijuana was 38 months” ( Such punishments should not even be in existence because marijuana should be a legal drug. Besides the money that would be saved in holding inmates the government could also make money off of the sale of the product in a legal market. So there is also an economic benefit to the legalization of marijuana on top of the fact that I would be the right thing to do because of the drugs benefits and that the drug is not very harmful.

When looking at heroin the average length of a sentence received by Federal heroin offenders was 63.4 months. Over 80% of those convicted were Black and Hispanic.

One of the reasons that all of the drug laws are so harsh and unfair is the misconception about the connection between drugs and violence. The misconception is that when someone is high on some drug that the person automatically becomes violent, but that just is not the case. Most of the people that become violent when on drugs can be said to be violent people before they were on the drugs in the first place. The causes of the crimes are the people themselves and not the drugs that they are on. This relationship between drugs and violence is misrepresented in most polls and articles because people think of the two as having a causal relationship when that is just not the case. The sentencing behind the drug cases are ridiculous. The sentences that are given have to be justified by the fact that people think that prison is a deterrent and is used for rehabilitation purposes. Both of these views of the prison system are wrong. The truth is that most of the people that deal with drugs don’t think that they will ever get caught so they don’t even factor prison into the equation when making decisions. For the people that get caught and using the prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation, that is one of the most unlikely things to happen. In fact what is most likely to happen is that a non-violent drug offender will become more violent than he originally was at the time of conviction.

The laws that are in place are bias and leave many people unfairly sentenced. Religious and racial views have an affect on the passing of legislature that in turn leaves a lot of the laws that are in place racially bias due to the attitude of the country in the past. An example of this would be “When southern politicians instinctively objected to federal drug legislation on state’s rights grounds, they were quickly brought around by the sensational stories about cocainized Negroes raping white women” ( This shows how the fear and hate of the black man in the past has shaped up one of the many aspects of the criminal justice system. There are many examples just like this one of decisions being made in the legislative process that were made due to the feeling towards a particular ethnic group. The drug laws that exist seem to be racially bias due to overwhelming incarceration rates of minorities as compared to whites for drug offenses. Almost 95% of the ten thousand people that go to prison in New York State on drug charges are Black or Hispanic. There are many facts such as this that show the discrepancy of minorities in prison and it might be said that maybe minorities are just involved with drugs more than whites are, but that’s just not the case because the fact is that the number of drug users are about the same, and the number of convictions speak for themselves. The number of convictions of Blacks in America is very overwhelming and needs to be looked at. There needs to be some type of reform done so that this pattern does not continue. The injustice is not just held toward those in different ethnic groups either, the laws are even hurting women unfairly. “The number of imprisoned women is increasing at a much faster rate than the number of men, mostly because of tougher drug laws. There were 101,000 women in state and federal prisons in 2003, an eight-fold increase since 1980; roughly one-third were drug offenders, compared to about one fifth of male inmates” ( The laws that are affecting women were actually not put in place to target women, they just getting caught up in a web that was intended to trap drug lords and gang leaders. The laws that are affecting women are the drug conspiracy and compliance laws. These drug convictions are leaving many children without their parents and are tearing a lot of families apart. Many women are involved in drug investigations and sometimes solely due to the fact that they refuse to turn their partners in to the police. There is also an economical bias within the law that leaves the people who are in the lower class at a disadvantage. “Severe drug sentences are fueled by laws that promote intensive policing of poor, minority communities, while white, affluent drug users can maintain their drug habits using computers, telephones, pagers and delivery services that make any street-level activity (where arrest is much more likely) unnecessary” ( Poor communities are targeted for increased police activities and consequently members of these communities make up the majority o the prison population. The laws on crack and cocaine are the best example of the economic bias. Congress passed a 100/1 law that the penalty for one gram of crack would be the same as the penalty for 100grams of cocaine. The drugs are of the same composition and have virtually the same effect on the user except for the fact that one is slightly watered down and cooked with baking soda. Crack is a drug that is cheaper and is more accessible to lower income people and powder cocaine is more “high roller” drug that cost more. That is the only difference in the two drugs and for there to be a 100/1 law is clear evidence of the bias against those who are in the lower income brackets. The economics of the drugs also come in to play when the police force is concerned. Though a shame there is the fact that there are police out in the world who are not all about seeing justice get done. Some of the police are all about getting what they can get for themselves and that’s all that they’re worried about. That is what leads to crooked cops. Some cops are willing to make deals with criminals if they think it is in their best interest financially. In the end the people that they hurt are the people that they were sworn to protect, but I guess that if they are making the deal then they don’t care about that in the first place. One of the best examples of someone that took advantage of the fact that there are crooked people in the judicial system was George Remus. “He moved to Cincinnati because of its proximity to established distilleries in Kentucky and Tennessee, and bought up most of America's best-known whiskey brands. Then he bribed officials to get "medical" permits to ship from his warehouses. Remus made 40 million dollars by the end of 1922, which is 700-800 million in current dollars... in 35 months, which is 35 in current months. His network of bribes included a half-million to the U.S. Attorney General. Once a detective in Cincinnati recorded him giving out bribe money to 44 public officials in one afternoon, but for some reason the District Attorney refused to indict” ( The drug business is such a profitable one that even the people that are supposed to “moral” people can be bought off for the right price. Crooked cops are protected by the shield that they were. While they do not have immunity but are very close to that type of protection from the law. Only about 5% of the cops who get found guilty off crimes are charged, and about 4% of the cops who were found guilty were fired from their jobs. Cops can get away with breaking some of the laws because they are given an exception because they are the ones that enforce the law. It can also be said that the people at the top of the drug latter much less susceptible to being effected by the drug laws but for different reasons, they are less vulnerable because if the worse happens then they could always try to get off with all of the money that they have, whether it be through buying some high price lawyer or by buying of a judge. The money that the people in high places possess give them a type of separation when it comes to the law, leaving them almost untouchable based solely on the fact that they have more money that the next person. This leaves the people that are struggling for funds to take the brunt of the law and most of the times the person who is struggling ends up taking the fall for the person with all of the money.