The drug war has come down on women like a huge hammer in recent years. During the 1990s, drug offenders accounted for the largest source of the total growth among female inmates (36 percent). As of 2004, almost one-third of all women prisoners were convicted of drug offenses; in federal prisons, this figure was 65 percent. In 1979, only 10 percent of women in state prison were drug offenders. Much of the increase in women prisoners comes from the impact of mandatory sentencing laws, passed during the 1980s crackdown on crime. Under many of these laws, mitigating circumstances (e.g., having children, few or no prior offenses, non-violent offenses) are rarely allowed. A majority of women in prison are there for the first time; many had no prior felony convictions. When the harsh Rockefeller drug laws (New York) were passed in 1974, only 400 women were in prison and only 100 were in for drugs. [continues 618 words]
Nevada's Prison Budget Doesn't Have to Keep Climbing Two recent news reports have brought up some old sores for me. They have to do with the ever-growing Nevada prison population. The first story, appearing Jan. 25, reported that Nevada's prison population, expected to rise to about 11,800 by 2007, may "go through the roof," according to state Budget Director Perry Comeaux. His comment came as state legislators began to review the governor's proposed plan to spend $532.3 million on prisons in the next two years, representing a 20 percent increase over current spending on the prison system. [continues 863 words]
Expensive Drug War Still Not Working Well, it's the end of another year and time for what has become for me an annual update on our glorious "war on drugs." Before I begin my usual summary of the amount of money spent and the number of people arrested and other "hard data," I thought I would first offer a few headlines and news items that I have collected. One headline, dated Nov. 12, was "Austin, Texas, Cop Killed Enforcing Marijuana Possession Law." This one is from the website www.stopthedrugwar.org. This group began to keep tabs on the number of police officers killed each year while enforcing the drug laws. They found that last year there was an average of just more than one per month. [continues 818 words]
We just passed the halfway point of 2004 and it is time for an update on the "war on drugs." Sad to say, it is still going strong. According to the website www.drugsense.org, we have spent more than $20 billion so far this year on this "war," putting us on a pace to surpass last's year's expenditure of $39 billion. More than 800,000 people have been arrested for drug offenses so far (377,780 for marijuana), and if this pace continues, more than 1.5 million will have been arrested by the end of the year. Thus far, more than 120,000 people have been sent to prison for drug law violations, and if the trend continues, we will have sent 236,800 to prison for this "crime" by year's end. [continues 681 words]
What is the world coming to? During the past few months two of America's leading spokesmen for conservative beliefs have admitted they were addicts. First there was Bill Bennett, the man who has spent the past 20 years or so castigating those who have succumbed to various addictions, saying they merely made a choice and therefore must be punished. Bill finally came clean and admitted he was addicted to gambling. By the way, Bill, how's your cigarette addiction coming along? [continues 953 words]
Startling stats continue to make the case against war on drugs Those who have read my columns in this and other local papers know that I often speak out against the "war on drugs." I am constantly reviewing documents in order to keep up to date with the various aspects of this "war," often by consulting several websites (such as www.drugsense.org). I will summarize some of the most recent literature on drug use, drug abuse and the impact the drug war is having. [continues 781 words]
The number of people in American prisons and jails passed 2 million last year. That figure reflects the results of the "get tough," ultra-conservative crime polices that began in the early 1970s. The effect of these policies is that the crime rate today is about the same as it was in the early '70s. Yet during this same period the incarceration rate has increased by more than 400 percent, while annual expenditures on the criminal justice system went up by 1,500 percent (approaching $200 billion). [continues 890 words]
More than 1 million people will be sent to prison this year on drug charges. Sentences in drug cases have accounted for about 40 percent of the increase in the prison population in the past two decades. Despite the fact that there is no difference in the rate of illegal drug use according to race (some recent surveys find whites with higher rates of use than blacks), blacks are 40 percent of those arrested on drug charges, and about 70-80 percent of those sent to prison on such charges. The black incarceration rate is about eight times greater than for whites, mostly because of the drug war. All available evidence points to patent racial bias in our drug laws and their enforcement. All of these points (and many more) help explain why a young black man named Lashawn Banks is at the center of a case to be heard soon by the U.S. Supreme Court. [continues 799 words]
I showed the original film Reefer Madness to one of my classes recently, drawing a lot of laughter, as usual. The film, released in 1938, was a product of the hysteria propagated by our first "drug czar," Harry Anslinger, who headed what was then known as the Bureau of Narcotics (now the Drug Enforcement Administration). History has shown Anslinger to be nothing less than a madman who craved public attention and went to great lengths to create mostly lies and distortions about what he termed the "Assassin of Youth" (the title of a book he wrote). [continues 743 words]
