Though president Nixon is often seen as having started the modern war on drugs, his administration’s actual role in drug policy legislation and enforcement never lived up to the inflated rhetoric surrounding the issue. The war on drugs, from a policy standpoint, was largely created under the Reagan administration. Despite having fewer than 2% of the American public reporting that they believed drugs were the most important issue the country faced (Alexander, 2010 p. 49), the Reagan administration announced its war on drugs in 1982. Unlike Nixon’s rhetorical war on drugs, the Reagan administration began creating impactful laws and enforcement mechanisms. Beginning by transferring funds from drug education and drug treatment programs into drug related enforcement mechanisms was only a small indicator of what was to come next.
The controversial Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 introduced mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession and distribution (Alexander, 2010). Controversy did not rise from the idea of mandatory minimum sentencing, but rather the obvious racial bias which arose from the disparities between sentencing for cocaine and crack. This legislation created a five-year mandatory minimum for possession of five grams of crack cocaine, yet to receive that same five-year mandatory sentence, the law required five hundred grams of cocaine (Vagins & McCurdy, 2006). With traditional cocaine use typically associated with upper class whites and crack cocaine use associated with low income and minority groups, it would be extremely challenging to argue that the 100/1 disparity established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 did not discriminate and expressly target low income and minority communities. The stringent battery of laws established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 were expanded in 1988. These expansions included more mandatory minimums for drug offenders and even lowered criteria for mandatory minimums. Beyond biased policy in regards to criminal sentencing, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 established civil consequences for offenders. The 1988 extensions included a potential eviction from public housing as well as a potential loss of eligibility for federal benefits or loans to anyone convicted of a drug related offense (Alexander, 2010). Ever increased sentencing and punishments continued to expand into the 1990’s with the 1996 Felony Drug Provision of the Welfare Reform Act. This provision banned for life anyone with a felony drug conviction from federal aid such as food stamps. Extensions were again made in 1998 through amending the Higher Education Act to deny anyone with a drug related offense from receiving grants, work assistance, or loans to attend higher education (Reynolds, 2004). Under a narrative of strict penalties acting as a deterrence to drug use and distribution, the war on drugs has quickly become the most costly, biased, and detrimental set of policies currently in place within the American justice system. 1.2 Consequences of the war on drugs: Since the 1930’s until the 1980’s, the U.S. maintained an average of around 200,000 prisoners at any given time. Around twenty years later, by 2001, the U.S. had more than ten times this amount and is on the top of the board for most people imprisoned in any country at about 2,300,000 imprisoned people (Gotsch, 2001). With particular focus on those imprisoned for drug offenses, in 1980 about 6% of the state run prison population were people incarcerated for drug related crimes, by 2007 this number was over 19% for state prisons and over 50% for federal prisons (Clear, Cole, & Reisig, 2011). Data which include those on probation or parole as well as those incarcerated shows that in 1980 there were fewer than two million people within this category. But by 2009, over seven million individuals were either imprisoned, on parole, or on probation (Glaze, 2010). Beyond the booms in drug related prisoner population overall, analyzing statistics with particular focus on race and ethnicity of convicts shows that African American men are more than 13 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned for drug related crimes (Clear et al., 2011 p. 529). This statistic is made more shocking by a study conducted in 2010 by the National Survey on Drug
The controversial Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 introduced mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession and distribution (Alexander, 2010). Controversy did not rise from the idea of mandatory minimum sentencing, but rather the obvious racial bias which arose from the disparities between sentencing for cocaine and crack. This legislation created a five-year mandatory minimum for possession of five grams of crack cocaine, yet to receive that same five-year mandatory sentence, the law required five hundred grams of cocaine (Vagins & McCurdy, 2006). With traditional cocaine use typically associated with upper class whites and crack cocaine use associated with low income and minority groups, it would be extremely challenging to argue that the 100/1 disparity established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 did not discriminate and expressly target low income and minority communities. The stringent battery of laws established by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 were expanded in 1988. These expansions included more mandatory minimums for drug offenders and even lowered criteria for mandatory minimums. Beyond biased policy in regards to criminal sentencing, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 established civil consequences for offenders. The 1988 extensions included a potential eviction from public housing as well as a potential loss of eligibility for federal benefits or loans to anyone convicted of a drug related offense (Alexander, 2010). Ever increased sentencing and punishments continued to expand into the 1990’s with the 1996 Felony Drug Provision of the Welfare Reform Act. This provision banned for life anyone with a felony drug conviction from federal aid such as food stamps. Extensions were again made in 1998 through amending the Higher Education Act to deny anyone with a drug related offense from receiving grants, work assistance, or loans to attend higher education (Reynolds, 2004). Under a narrative of strict penalties acting as a deterrence to drug use and distribution, the war on drugs has quickly become the most costly, biased, and detrimental set of policies currently in place within the American justice system. 1.2 Consequences of the war on drugs: Since the 1930’s until the 1980’s, the U.S. maintained an average of around 200,000 prisoners at any given time. Around twenty years later, by 2001, the U.S. had more than ten times this amount and is on the top of the board for most people imprisoned in any country at about 2,300,000 imprisoned people (Gotsch, 2001). With particular focus on those imprisoned for drug offenses, in 1980 about 6% of the state run prison population were people incarcerated for drug related crimes, by 2007 this number was over 19% for state prisons and over 50% for federal prisons (Clear, Cole, & Reisig, 2011). Data which include those on probation or parole as well as those incarcerated shows that in 1980 there were fewer than two million people within this category. But by 2009, over seven million individuals were either imprisoned, on parole, or on probation (Glaze, 2010). Beyond the booms in drug related prisoner population overall, analyzing statistics with particular focus on race and ethnicity of convicts shows that African American men are more than 13 times more likely than whites to be imprisoned for drug related crimes (Clear et al., 2011 p. 529). This statistic is made more shocking by a study conducted in 2010 by the National Survey on Drug