Drug Wars

Ben Hadley 8/23/2007 Final Crew II

Learning from your mistakes: Drug Wars.

By investigating the past we can help avoid mistakes in the future. Currently the past and the present don't seem to reflect any growth or maturity but instead seem to reflect views that have been held for centuries too long. The first Opium war eventually sparked a revolt and combative war which saw a lot of Chinese bloodshed and not much of a substantial solution to the problem. This led to opium use in the United States which influenced rules and laws against Asian Americans, and later against African Americans who due to continued hatred still face many unfair laws which occur today. The only difference between now and then is that the racism which happens today is silent instead of being boldly evident.

Why would drugs and race have such a large influence on our government policies? Well although the war on drugs has been held for over 4 decades this isn't the first drug war to have seen problems with race. In the mid 1800's even though China and Britain had both banned opium usage, "In 1797, during the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, Great Britain decided to formally supervise narcotics trafficking in the Far East to ensure the nation's revenues and tea supply"1 (Gootenberg 55-56). Large amounts of opium were being shipped from British India to China which caused an opium epidemic and created a black market for the drug. The Chinese Emperor knew that this would be detrimental to his empire and decided to write a formal letter to the Queen asking for a cease in the exportation of Opium to China; unfortunately the letter was never delivered.

The United States around the same time was experiencing a shift west as the sight of gold lured people from around the world to change their lives for the better. Many of the immigrants that came to Americas west coast were Chinese males who had immigrated in order to find work. These men were mostly young and many of them had no formal education so the expansion of the railroad system and the work it provided was a direct way the Chinese could become a part of the work force. This blessing didn't come without a cost, the expansion of the railroads was a very dangerous task of blasting tunnels and laying down miles of track by which many were injured or killed, the payment was also a lot less to an immigrant than to a citizen of the United States. At one point "On the Central Pacific Railroad alone, more than ten thousand Chinese workers blasted tunnels, built roadbeds, and laid hundreds of miles of track, often in freezing cold or searing heat." 7 (Immigration) But in 1869 when the final spike was laid down after 5 years of construction there were very few pictures taken of the many immigrants who had helped create this world record breaking feat of construction. At Around 1875 America showed its appreciation of the Chinese immigrants further when an ordinance was passed aimed at prohibiting the possession and usage of opium which was a way to deter Chinese workers from the U.S. because they were no longer needed to build the rail road systems and during the 1930's were taking jobs of white Americans during the depression. (A similar ordinance was passed in the southwest of the United States around the same time in order to deter Mexicans from immigrating and taking jobs.)

That was then so what's happening now? According to Drugpolicy.org blacks constitute 13 percent of all drug users compared to 65 percent of regular white drug users. With that data one would assume that about 13 percent of all people sentenced to jail due to drug abuse would be black and about 65 percent of them would be white however in reality "black men are admitted to state prison for drug offenses at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than that of white men. This drives an overall black incarceration rate that is 8.2 times higher than the white incarceration rate." 5 (Zhar) Could this be due to the increase in usage amongst minorities? No! In fact According to the Los Angeles Times, who asked that very same question to a number of law officers and Judges, "Although it is clear that whites sell most of the nation's cocaine and account for 80 percent of its consumers, it is blacks and other minorities who continue to fill up America's courtrooms and jails, largely because...they are the easiest people to arrest...There's as much cocaine in the Sears Tower or in the stock exchange as there is in the black community,". But, according to Commander Charles Ramsey supervisor of the Chicago Police Department's narcotics division, "those guys are harder to catch." 5(ZHAR)

A lot of the problem isn't necessarily our police force going out and looking for drug users based on their race although that is a problem. I believe that what the Police Commander was leading up to was how indirectly because of the financial situation many African Americans have been put in due to racism throughout history, when compared to white Americans, while a lower percentage may abuse drugs like cocaine where it's very easy to get addicted what you get as a result is someone on a very tight budget trying to afford a very expensive drug at a constant rate and because of a lack of money that centuries of racism have made possible many have to resort to other crimes such as stealing or drug dealing in order to feed their habit. A white man or woman statistically speaking is more likely to be in a better financial position to afford these expensive drugs or at the very least be able to commit fewer crimes in order to get a hold of drugs. White people are also more likely to live in neighborhoods where cocaine isn't a problem. In some cases the drug itself isn't the problem but instead it's the environment that it is in. "A study of drug-related homicides in New York City recently found 87% of those involving cocaine to stem from territorial disputes and debt collection or deals gone awry."11(GLASSER) Based on this statistic it's obvious that cocaine and its cousin crack can breed violent behavior causing its users to commit more crimes other than the possession or sale of cocaine such as leading to gang violence over "territory".