FILE -
In this
April 9,
1988,
file
photo,
Los
Angeles
police
officers
search
one of
seven
people
arrested
for
selling
narcotics
in the
south-central
area of
Los
Angeles,
as more
than
1,000
police
officers
raided
gang
strongholds
to
attack
on drug
dealing
and
street
violence
in the
nation's
second
largest
city. In
1971,
President
Richard
Nixon
declared
a war on
drugs.
It is
questionable
whether
anyone
won the
war. Who
suffered
the
worst
losses
is
clearer:
Black
Americans,
their
families
and
their
communities.
(AP
Photo/Douglas
C. Pizac,
File) |
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50-yr
war on
drugs
imprisoned
millions
of Black
Americans |
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By AARON
MORRISON
apnews.com
Landscaping
was
hardly
his
lifelong
dream.
As a
teenager,
Alton
Lucas
believed
basketball
or music
would
pluck
him out
of North
Carolina
and take
him
around
the
world.
In the
late
1980s,
he was
the
right-hand
man to
his
musical
best
friend,
Youtha
Anthony
Fowler,
who many
hip hop
and R&B
heads
know as
DJ Nabs.
But
rather
than
jet-setting
with
Fowler,
Lucas
discovered
drugs
and the
drug
trade at
arguably
the
worst
time in
U.S.
history
— at the
height
of the
so-called
war on
drugs.
Addicted
to crack
cocaine
and
convicted
of
trafficking
the
drug, he
faced 58
years
imprisonment
at a
time
when
drug
abuse
and
violence
plaguing
major
cities
and
working
class
Black
communities
were not
seen as
the
public
health
issue
that
opioids
are
today.
By
chance,
Lucas
received
a rare
bit of
mercy.
He got
the kind
of help
that
many
Black
and
Latino
Americans
struggling
through
the
crack
epidemic
did not:
treatment,
early
release
and what
many
would
consider
a fresh
start.
“I
started
the
landscaping
company,
to be
honest
with
you,
because
nobody
would
hire me
because
I have a
felony,”
said
Lucas.
His
Sunflower
Landscaping
got a
boost in
2019
with the
help of
Inmates
to
Entrepreneurs,
a
national
nonprofit
assisting
people
with
criminal
backgrounds
by
providing
practical
entrepreneurship
education.
Lucas
was
caught
up in a
system
that
limits
him and
a
virtually
unknowable
number
of
people
with
criminal
drug
records,
with
little
thought
given to
their
ability
to
rehabilitate.
In
addition
to
employment,
those
with
criminal
records
can be
limited
in their
access
to
business
and
educational
loans,
housing,
child
custody
rights,
voting
rights
and gun
rights.
It’s
a system
that was
born
when
Lucas
was
barely
out of
diapers.
Fifty
years
ago this
summer,
President
Richard
Nixon
declared
a war on
drugs.
Today,
with the
U.S.
mired in
a deadly
opioid
epidemic
that did
not
abate
during
the
coronavirus
pandemic’s
worst
days, it
is
questionable
whether
anyone
won the
war.
Yet
the
loser is
clear:
Black
and
Latino
Americans,
their
families
and
their
communities.
A key
weapon
of the
war was
the
imposition
of
mandatory
minimums
in
prison
sentencing.
Decades
later
those
harsh
penalties
at the
federal
level
and the
accompanying
changes
at the
state
level
led to
an
increase
in the
prison
industrial
complex
that saw
millions
of
people,
primarily
of
color,
locked
up and
shut out
of the
American
dream.
An
Associated
Press
review
of
federal
and
state
incarceration
data
showed
that,
between
1975 and
2019,
the U.S.
prison
population
jumped
from
240,593
to 1.43
million
Americans.
Among
them,
about 1
in 5
people
were
incarcerated
with a
drug
offense
listed
as their
most
serious
crime.
The
racial
disparities
reveal
the
uneven
toll of
the war
on
drugs.
Following
the
passage
of
stiffer
penalties
for
crack
cocaine
and
other
drugs,
the
Black
incarceration
rate in
America
exploded
from
about
600 per
100,000
people
in 1970
to 1,808
in 2000.
In the
same
timespan,
the rate
for the
Latino
population
grew
from 208
per
100,000
people
to 615,
while
the
white
incarceration
rate
grew
from 103
per
100,000
people
to 242.
Gilberto
Gonzalez,
a
retired
special
agent
for the
Drug
Enforcement
Administration
who
worked
for more
than 20
years
taking
down
drug
dealers
and
traffickers
in the
U.S.,
Mexico
and in
South
America,
said
he’ll
never
forget
being
cheered
on by
residents
in a
predominantly
Hispanic
neighborhood
near Los
Angeles
as he
led away
drug
traffickers
in
handcuffs.
“That
gave me
a sense
of the
reality
of the
people
that
live in
these
neighborhoods,
that are
powerless
because
they’re
afraid
that the
drug
dealers
that
control
the
street,
that
control
the
neighborhood
are
going to
do them
and
their
children
harm,”
said
Gonzalez,
64, who
detailed
his
field
experiences
in the
recently
released
memoir “Narco
Legenda.”
“We
realized
then
that,
along
with
dismantling
(drug
trafficking)
organizations,
there
was also
a real
need to
clean up
communities,
to go to
where
the
crime
was and
help
people
that are
helpless,”
he said.
Still,
the law
enforcement
approach
has led
to many
long-lasting
consequences
for
people
who have
since
reformed.
Lucas
still
wonders
what
would
happen
for him
and his
family
if he no
longer
carried
the
weight
of a
drug-related
conviction
on his
record.
Even
with his
sunny
disposition
and
close to
30 years
of sober
living,
Lucas,
at age
54,
cannot
pass
most
criminal
background
checks.
His
wife,
whom
he’d met
two
decades
ago at a
fatherhood
counseling
conference,
said his
past had
barred
him from
doing
something
as
innocuous
as
chaperoning
their
children
on
school
field
trips.
“It’s
almost
like a
life
sentence,”
he said.
___
Although
Nixon
declared
the war
on drugs
on June
17,
1971,
the U.S.
already
had lots
of
practice
imposing
drug
prohibitions
that had
racially
skewed
impacts.
The
arrival
of
Chinese
migrants
in the
1800s
saw the
rise of
criminalizing
opium
that
migrants
brought
with
them.
Cannabis
went
from
being
called
“reefer”
to
“marijuana,”
as a way
to
associate
the
plant
with
Mexican
migrants
arriving
in the
U.S. in
the
1930s.
By
the time
Nixon
sought
reelection
amid the
anti-Vietnam
war and
Black
power
movements,
criminalizing
heroin
was a
way to
target
activists
and
hippies.
One of
Nixon’s
domestic
policy
aides,
John
Ehrlichman,
admitted
as much
about
the war
on drugs
in a
22-year-old
interview
published
by
Harper’s
Magazine
in 2016.
Experts
say
Nixon’s
successors,
Ronald
Reagan,
George
H.W.
Bush and
Bill
Clinton,
leveraged
drug war
policies
in the
following
decades
to their
own
political
advantage,
cementing
the drug
war’s
legacy.
The
explosion
of the
U.S.
incarceration
rate,
the
expansion
of
public
and
private
prison
systems
and the
militarization
of local
police
forces
are all
outgrowths
of the
drug
war.
Federal
policies,
such as
mandatory
minimum
sentencing
for drug
offenses,
were
mirrored
in state
legislatures.
Lawmakers
also
adopted
felony
disenfranchisement,
while
also
imposing
employment
and
other
social
barriers
for
people
caught
in drug
sweeps.
The
domestic
anti-drug
policies
were
widely
accepted,
mostly
because
the use
of
illicit
drugs,
including
crack
cocaine
in the
late
1980s,
was
accompanied
by an
alarming
spike in
homicides
and
other
violent
crimes
nationwide.
Those
policies
had the
backing
of Black
clergy
and the
Congressional
Black
Caucus,
the
group of
African-American
lawmakers
whose
constituents
demanded
solutions
and
resources
to stem
the
violent
crack
scourge.
“I
think
people
often
flatten
this
conversation,”
said
Kassandra
Frederique,
executive
director
of the
Drug
Policy
Alliance,
a New
York-based
nonprofit
organization
pushing
decriminalization
and safe
drug use
policies.
“If
you’re a
Black
leader
30 years
ago,
you’re
grabbing
for the
first
(solution)
in front
of you,”
said
Fredrique,
who is
Black.
“A lot
of folks
in our
community
said,
‘OK, get
these
drug
dealers
out of
our
communities,
get this
crack
out of
our
neighborhood.
But also
give us
treatment
so we
can help
folks.’”
The
heavy
hand of
law
enforcement
came
without
addiction
prevention
resources,
she
said.
Use
of crack
rose
sharply
in 1985,
and
peaked
in 1989,
before
quickly
declining
in the
early
1990s,
according
to a
Harvard
study.
Drug
sales
and use
were
concentrated
in
cities,
particularly
those
with
large
Black
and
Latino
populations,
although
there
were
spikes
in use
among
white
populations,
too.
Between
1984 and
1989,
crack
was
associated
with a
doubling
of
homicide
victimizations
of Black
males
aged 14
to 17.
The
increases
tapered
off
among
Black
men in
older
age
groups.
By the
year
2000,
the
correlation
between
crack
cocaine
and
violence
faded
amid
waning
profits
from
street
sales.
Roland
Fryer,
an
author
of the
Harvard
study
and a
professor
of
economics,
said the
effects
of the
crack
epidemic
on a
generation
of Black
families
and
Black
children
still
haven’t
been
thoroughly
documented.
A lack
of
accountability
for the
war on
drugs
bred
mistrust
of
government
and law
enforcement
in the
community,
he said.
“People
ask why
Black
people
don’t
trust
(public)
institutions,”
said
Fryer,
who is
Black.
“It’s
because
we have
watched
how
we’ve
treated
opioids
— it’s a
public
health
concern.
But
crack
(cocaine)
was,
‘lock
them up
and
throw
away the
key,
what we
need is
tougher
sentencing.’”
Another
major
player
in
creating
hysteria
around
drug use
during
the
crack:
the
media.
On June
17,
1986, 15
years to
the day
after
Nixon
declared
the drug
war, NBA
draftee
Len Bias
died of
a
cocaine-induced
heart
attack
on the
University
of
Maryland
campus.
Coverage
was
frenzied
and
coupled
with
racist
depictions
of crack
addiction
in
mostly
Black
and
Latino
communities.
Within
weeks of
Bias’s
death,
the U.S.
House of
Representatives
drafted
the
Anti-Abuse
Act of
1986.
The
law,
passed
and
signed
by
Reagan
that
October,
imposed
a
mandatory
minimum
federal
prison
sentence
of 20
years,
and a
maximum
life
imprisonment,
for
violation
of drug
laws.
The law
also
made
possession
and sale
of crack
rocks
harsher
than
that of
powder
cocaine.
The
death of
Len Bias
could
have
been one
of the
off-ramps
in
Lucas’s
spiral
into
crack
addiction
and
dealing.
By then,
he could
make
$10,000
in four
to five
hours
dealing
the
drug.
“One
of the
things
that I
thought
would
help me,
that I
thought
would be
my
rehab,
was when
Len Bias
died,”
Lucas
said. “I
thought,
if they
showed
me
evidence
(he)
died
from an
overdose
of
smoking
crack
cocaine,
as much
as I
loved
Len
Bias,
that I
would
give it
up.”
“I
did not
quit,”
he said.
He
was
first
introduced
to crack
cocaine
in 1986,
but kept
his drug
use
largely
hidden
from his
friends
and
family.
“What I
didn’t
know at
the time
was that
this was
a
different
type of
chemical
entering
my brain
and it
was
going to
change
me
forever,”
Lucas
said.
“Here I
am on
the
verge of
being
the
right-hand
man to
DJ Nabs,
to
literally
travel
the
world.
That’s
how bad
the drug
did me.”
By
1988,
Fowler’s
music
career
had
outgrown
Durham.
He and
Lucas
moved to
Atlanta
and, a
few
years
later,
Fowler
signed a
deal to
become
the
official
touring
DJ for
the hip
hop
group
Kris
Kross
under
famed
music
producer
Jermaine
Dupri’s
So So
Def
record
label.
Fowler
and the
group
went on
to open
for pop
music
icon
Michael
Jackson
on the
European
leg of
the
“Dangerous”
tour.
Lucas,
who
began
trafficking
crack
cocaine
between
Georgia
and
North
Carolina,
never
joined
his best
friend
on the
road.
Instead,
he
slipped
further
into his
addiction
and
returned
to
Durham,
where he
took a
short-lived
job as a
preschool
instructor.
When
he
lacked
the
money to
procure
drugs to
sell or
to use,
Lucas
resorted
to
robbing
businesses
for
quick
cash. He
claims
that he
was
never
armed
when he
robbed
“soft
targets,”
like
fast
food
restaurants
and
convenience
stores.
Lucas
spent
four and
a half
years in
state
prison
for
larceny
after
robbing
nine
businesses
to feed
his
addiction.
Because
his
crimes
were
considered
nonviolent,
Lucas
learned
in
prison
that he
was
eligible
for an
addiction
treatment
program
that
would
let him
out
early.
But if
he
violated
the
terms of
his
release
or
failed
to
complete
the
treatment,
Lucas
would
serve 12
years in
prison
on
separate
drug
trafficking
charges
under a
deal
with the
court.
He
accepted
the
deal.
After
his
release
from
prison
and his
graduation
from the
treatment
program,
Fowler
paid out
of his
pocket
to have
his
friend’s
fines
and fees
cleared.
That’s
how
Lucas
regained
his
voting
rights.
On a
recent
Saturday,
the two
best
friends
met up
to talk
in depth
about
what had
largely
been a
secret
that
Lucas
intentionally
kept
from
Fowler.
The DJ
learned
of his
friend’s
addiction
after
seeing a
Durham
newspaper
clipping
that
detailed
the
string
of
robberies.
Sitting
in
Fowler’s
home,
Lucas
told his
friend
that he
doesn’t
regret
not
being on
the road
or
missing
out on
the
fringe
benefits
from
touring.
“All
I needed
was to
be
around
you,”
Lucas
said.
“Right,”
Fowler
replied,
choking
up and
wiping
tears
from his
eyes.
Lucas
continued:
“You
know,
when I
was
around
you,
when
there
was a
party or
whatnot,
my job,
just out
of
instinct,
was to
watch
your
back.”
In a
separate
interview,
Fowler,
who is
two
years
younger
than
Lucas,
said, “I
just
wanted
my
brother
on the
road
with me.
To help
protect
me. To
help me
be
strong.
And I
had to
do it by
my damn
self.
And I
didn’t
like
that.
That’s
what it
was.”
___
Not
everyone
was as
lucky as
Lucas.
Often, a
drug
offense
conviction
in
combination
with a
violent
gun
offense
carried
much
steeper
penalties.
At the
heights
of the
war on
drugs,
federal
law
allowed
violent
drug
offenders
to be
prosecuted
in gang
conspiracy
cases,
which
often
pinned
murders
on
groups
of
defendants,
sometimes
irrespective
of who
pulled
the
trigger.
These
cases
resulted
in
sentences
of life
imprisonment
without
the
possibility
of
parole,
a
punishment
disproportionately
doled
out to
Black
and
Latino
gang
defendants.
That’s
the case
for Bill
Underwood,
who was
a
successful
R&B and
hip hop
music
promoter
in New
York
City in
the late
’70s
through
the
’80s,
before
his
33-year
incarceration.
A judge
granted
him
compassionate
release
from
federal
custody
in
January,
noting
his
lauded
reputation
as a
mentor
to young
men in
prison
and his
high-risk
exposure
to
COVID-19
at age
67.
As
the AP
reported
in 1990,
Underwood
was
found
guilty
and
sentenced
to life
without
parole
for
racketeering,
racketeering
conspiracy
and
narcotics
conspiracy,
as part
of a
prosecution
that
accused
his gang
of
committing
six
murders
and of
controlling
street-level
drug
distribution.
“I
actually
short-changed
myself,
and my
family
and my
people,
by doing
what I
did,”
said
Underwood,
who
acknowledges
playing
a large
part in
the
multimillion-dollar
heroin
trade,
as a
leader
of a
violent
Harlem
gang
from the
1970s
through
the
1980s.
Underwood,
who now
is a
senior
fellow
with The
Sentencing
Project,
a
nonprofit
pushing
for an
end to
life
imprisonment,
testified
to
Congress
in June
that his
punishment
was
excessive.
“As
human
beings,
we are
capable
of
painful
yet
transformative
self
reflection,
maturity,
and
growth,
and to
deny a
person
this
opportunity
is to
deny
them
their
humanity,”
he said
in the
testimony.
Sympathy
for
people
like
Underwood
can be
hard to
come by.
Brett
Roman
Williams,
a
Philadelphia-based
independent
filmmaker
and
anti-gun
violence
advocate,
grew up
watching
his
older
brother,
Derrick,
serve
time in
prison
for a
serious
drug
offense.
But in
2016,
his
brother
was only
a month
out on
parole
when he
was
killed
by
gunfire
in
Philadelphia.
“The
laws are
in place
for
people
to obey,
whether
you like
it or
not,”
Williams
said.
“We do
need
reform,
we do
need
opportunities
and
equity
within
our
system
of
economics.
But we
all have
choices.”
Rep.
Cori
Bush of
St.
Louis,
following
similar
action
by
several
members
of
Congress
before
her,
last
month
introduced
legislation
to
decriminalize
all
drugs
and
invest
in
substance
abuse
treatment.
“Growing
up in
St.
Louis,
the War
on Drugs
disappeared
Black
people,
not drug
use,”
Bush,
who is
Black,
wrote in
a
statement
sent to
the AP.
“Over
the
course
of 2
years, I
lost 40
to 50
friends
to
incarceration
or death
because
of the
War on
Drugs.
We
became
so
accustomed
to loss
and
trauma
that it
was our
normal.”
___
The
deleterious
impacts
of the
drug war
have,
for
years,
drawn
calls
for
reform
and
abolition
from
mostly
left-leaning
elected
officials
and
social
justice
advocates.
Many of
them say
that in
order to
begin to
unwind
or undo
the war
on
drugs,
all
narcotics
must be
decriminalized
or
legalized,
with
science-based
regulation.
Drug
abuse
prevention
advocates,
however,
claim
that
broad
drug
legalization
poses
more
risks to
Americans
than it
would
any
benefits.
Provisional
data
released
in
December
from the
Centers
for
Disease
Control
and
Prevention
show
overdose
deaths
from
illicit
drug use
continued
to rise
amid the
global
COVID-19
pandemic.
And
according
to the
latest
Drug
Enforcement
Administration
narcotics
threat
assessment
released
in
March,
the
availability
of drugs
such as
fentanyl,
heroin
and
cocaine
remained
high or
plateaued
last
year.
Domestic
and
transnational
drug
trade
organizations
generate
tens of
billions
of
dollars
in
illicit
proceeds
from
sales
annually
in the
U.S.,
the DEA
said.
“Many
people
think
drug
prevention
is ‘just
say no,’
like
Nancy
Reagan
did in
the
’80s—
and we
know
that did
not
work,”
said
Becky
Vance,
CEO of
the
Texas-based
agency
Drug
Prevention
Resources,
which
has
advocated
for
evidenced-based
anti-drug
and
alcohol
abuse
education
for more
than 85
years.
“As
a person
in
long-term
recovery,
I know
firsthand
the
harms of
addiction,”
said
Vance,
who
opposes
blanket
recreational
legalization
of
illicit
drugs.
“I
believe
there
has to
be
another
way,
without
legalizing
drugs,
to
reform
the
criminal
justice
system
and get
rid of
the
inequities.”
Frederique,
of the
Drug
Policy
Alliance,
said
reckoning
with the
war on
drugs
must
start
with
reparations
for the
generations
needlessly
swept up
and
destabilized
by
racially
biased
policing.
“This
was an
intentional
policy
choice,”
Frederique
said.
“We
don’t
want to
end the
war on
drugs,
and then
in 50
years be
working
on
something
else
that
does the
same
thing.
That is
the
cycle
that
we’re
in.”
“It
has
always
been
about
control,”
Frederique
added.
As
much as
the
legacy
of the
war on
drugs is
a
tragedy,
it is
also a
story
about
the
resilience
of
people
disproportionately
targeted
by drug
policies,
said
Donovan
Ramsey,
a
journalist
and
author
of the
forthcoming
book,
“When
Crack
Was
King.”
“Even
with all
of that,
it’s
still
important
to
recognize
and to
celebrate
that we
(Black
people)
survived
the
crack
epidemic
and we
survived
it with
very
little
help
from the
federal
government
and
local
governments,”
Ramsey
told the
AP.
Fowler
thinks
the war
on drugs
didn’t
ruin
Lucas’
life. “I
think he
went
through
it at
the
right
time,
truth be
told,
because
he was
young
enough.
Luke’s
got more
good
behind
him than
bad,”
the DJ
said.
Lucas
sees
beauty
in
making
things
better,
including
in his
business.
But he
still
dreams
of the
day when
his past
isn’t
held
against
him.
“It
was the
beautification
of doing
the
landscaping
that
kind of
attracted
me,
because
it was
like the
affirmation
that my
soul
needed,”
he said.
“I
liked to
do
something
and look
back at
it and
say,
‘Wow,
that
looks
good.’
It’s not
just
going to
wash
away in
a couple
of days.
It takes
nourishment
and
upkeep.”
___
Morrison
reported
from New
York. AP
writers
Allen G.
Breed in
Durham,
North
Carolina,
and
Angeliki
Kastanis
in Los
Angeles
contributed.
___
Morrison
writes
about
race and
justice
for the
AP’s
Race and
Ethnicity
team.
Follow
him on
Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.
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