"The War on Drugs" focused on small-time drug dealers, who were generally POOR young BLACK males from the inner city. Ultimately, the prison population doubled due to the arrest of drug dealers and their customers. One in every four African American males aged 20 to 29 was either incarcerated or on probation or parole by 1989, which contributed to the United States’ having the highest incarceration rate in the world. By 1995, that statistic had increased to nearly one in three.
Crack cocaine first appeared in Miami, where Caribbean immigrants taught adolescents the technique of converting powdered cocaine into crack. The teenagers eventually introduced the business of producing and distributing crack cocaine into other major cities of the United States
Crack cocaine first hit the national radar in 1986 but, contrary to media reports, it was not a new drug. Before 1986, federal sentencing laws treated possession of crack and powder cocaine the same. That year, national news outlets began reporting INFLAMMATORY anecdotes supposedly revealing a “CRACK EPIDEMIC.”
The media mischaracterized crack as MORE potent, MORE addictive, and MORE likely to lead to violence than powder cocaine or other drugs. These dire reports multiplied, despite the LACK OF scientific evidence to support them. Not incidentally, this media feeding frenzy happened during the second Reagan administration, which had made law and order a major element of its agenda.
Congress passed a law that led to the imprisonment of THOUSANDS of young black men for many years for simple possession of crack.
100-to-1 crack versus powder cocaine sentencing disparity under which distribution of just 5 grams of crack carries a MINIMUM 5-year federal prison sentence, while the distribution of 500 grams of powder cocaine carries the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence.
