Belltower:
Funny you should link that article:
"Rather than the drug use itself, the greatest social costs of crack are associated with prohibition-related violence."

That is one conclusion which only includes violence after crack has been established in most major cities. I don't agree with it, but the article does show ample proof of the rise in crime, specifically murder that was linked with crack.

If the rise in violent crime was mostly prohibition related why is most crime criminal on criminal, not cop on criminal or vice versa?

darkenergy: Thread winners: mellomo, Comedykilla, bobC, Bbq Bob.

A question - does crack really fark you up that much more than coke for that much less?

If we assume that people know the penalties for things like coke (stiff), crack (very stiff), and alcohol (about none unless you drive), why do crack? Is it that much cheaper than coke? Is it that much better than booze/weed, etc.?

Let's accept for a moment the premise that zillions of blacks do crack while almost no whites do crack. Why do so many blacks do crack? Why does such a disproportionate number of people of one race need to get THAT farked up? Have they never heard of alcohol?

The majority of the black population resides in large metro areas where they have easier access to the harder drugs than if you lived in a rural area. Of course, they probably 'know a guy who knows a guy who has access to crack'. After a hit or two, they get hooked to a substance which creates a better/greater high than any alcohol could deliver.
Pretty soon the addiction takes over, and they only live to satisfy the need for another fix. That means friends and family become easy targets for theft to pay for the habit, careers become non-existent, and their lives spiral down the toilet.

C'mon Whoopty, pick a side and stay there, it's funnier that way.

misanthropic1: C'mon Whoopty, pick a side and stay there, it's funnier that way.

I am not really sure what you mean. I don't pick sides. I have my opinions and I voice them.

Suuuuuuuuure.

you think that this child should be labeled and dismissed as someone unable to make a positive contribution?

Change your "should" to "would" and you have my accurate opinion. Don't misunderstand: It's not a value judgment, it's a social reality.

This kept popping in my head all through lunch:

Drug Laws: Apply directly to minorities
Drug Laws: Apply directly to minorities
Drug Laws: Apply directly to minorities

liam76: Belltower:
Funny you should link that article:
"Rather than the drug use itself, the greatest social costs of crack are associated with prohibition-related violence."

That is one conclusion which only includes violence after crack has been established in most major cities. I don't agree with it, but the article does show ample proof of the rise in crime, specifically murder that was linked with crack.

If the rise in violent crime was mostly prohibition related why is most crime criminal on criminal, not cop on criminal or vice versa?

During prohibition, most violent crime WAS criminal on criminal, that would be a big part of the definition of prohibition related crime. It isn't only things that wouldn't be crimes if it weren't for the prohibition.

Whoopty Whoo The Precious Bongo Boy: Facts please, not just guilt-tinged conjecture. Thank you.

I'm sure he'll start using facts right after you(read: never).

Whoopty Whoo The Precious Bongo Boy: fireclown: That's my point. That wasn't a death threat. That was crackers being racist jerks. That's it. From there, it was handled badly ant it became a matter of fisticuffs.

I disagree. To those young people, the nooses dangling there represent a very real threat of death and torture.

Of course you would disagree with that. You agree with anything that would piss off some white poeple. You really have no opinion on the subject at hand you just want to piss off some white poeple. Here, let me try.....


White people should give up 20% of their salary for the next 300 years to pay for the injustices of slavery.


That's pretty much what you do. You just pull out some illogical statement with the sole intent to piss off a bunch of white people. You have no facts or evidence to back up your assertions and why would you need them. As soon as someone calls you out on one of these rediculous assertions you either go with a personal attack or a change of subject.

Johnny the Man: for good or for awesome: 100 to 1 difference in jail time.

That's not what the article said.

Yea, I heard that on NPR.
No offense to TFA.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine was visiting me. I live in Unicoi,TN. He left my home one wednesday night and went up the road from where I live to visit this girl he was seeing before he went to work. Earlier that day his sister gave him one of her pain medication pills so he could take it for his knee (he works at a factory where he's on his feet all night and his knee had been giving him trouble).

Right after leaving his girlfriend's place, a car pulled in behind him, and started riding him...he just ignored it. As he got in close to his place of employment, the car behind him flashed it's police lights and my friend knew he had to pull over--problem was cuz of the road they were on that was impossible or else he'd go off the road into a fairly long and wide ditch, so he had to wait till he got to his job's parking lot before he could pull over to a stop, but the whole way he slowed down, like he was supposed to.

He finally pulled over to a stop, he figured he'd run a stop sign, or was going 10 miles over the speed limit. No big deal.

The cop leaves his car with gun drawn, aimed at my friend, tells him to put his hands out of the car, tells him to get out, hands on the car, all that crap, he does all this, exactly as told, everybody going to work no 3rd shift is seeing this as they go into the parking lot. He does everything he's told, then the cop slams him to the pavement. Doesn't ask him to get on the ground, just farking flings him without warning, can't remember if this was before or after he was handcuffed.

In no time flat, while my friend's coworkers are asking what's going on, several K9 units and the sheriff arrive and immediately begin sniffing his car. They find the one pain pill he got from his sister, and he straight up said, I got that from my sister for my knee. The dogs can't find nothing. So they bring some more in saying "Those dogs have been out all day, they're worn out." Still nothing. The dogs key on someone else's car nearby, but not my friend's--they apparently arrested whoever that was later on after they took my friend to jail.

At the jail the sheriff and one his subordinates are there with the officer that made the arrest, grilling him for what he knew about local drug dealers and where to get drugs--mainly prescription pills. He used to do stuff back when he was younger but he straighted up when he got out of highschool, so he's clean, and he's out of the loop so he doesn't know anybody that deals anything nowadays, and he keeps it that way.

The officer that made the arrest keeps insisting "You know the dogs got a whiff of something in your car (a lie), I think you deal this, I think you know such and such is dealing this."

They ask him about various places in town that he's familiar with. They ask him about a guy, a fellow, that immediately gets his attention. You see, this chick he's been seeing, she's still married, but seperated from her douchebag, domineering husband. That week he was supposed to go to court over several charges of some sort, and had indirectly threatened my friend with violence to himself, and his vehicle. The charges were mysteriously dropped that week and he didn't have to go to trial.

What my friend thinks happened, is that this guy saw an opportunity to screw him over without having to get his hands dirty. He apparently told the police that my friend sold drugs, carried guns everywhere with him, was a big time dealer, etc. etc.

What makes it worse, they're making charges of not only possession (for the one pill), but also evading and resisting arrest. Let me explain this: my friend slowed down and did everything he was supposed to when the cop flashed his lights, but he couldn't immediately pull over because there was no road for him to stop on till he got to his job. Several of his coworkers were in front and behind him with this happened and they can attest that my friend did nothing wrong. Nor did he resist when he was instructed out of his car, and he did everything to the letter, and still the officer slammed him to the ground.

In front of everybody in that works at the factory. Who saw this and say my friend did not resist arrest or try to evade arrest. Yet they're still making these charges. They took his car, and had it impounded, but on instructions of the sheriff made sure to have taken care of when they seemed to realize they'd made a terrible mistake.

But now my friend has to sweat bullets waiting to go to trial for something he didn't do, a good and decent person (he is, I wouldn't be typing all this if he wasn't), and yet he is on the hotseat cuz he had a pain pill for his leg, otherwise he did nothing wrong and has false accusations made by the arresting officer.

I know this has been long, but this just illustrates my problem with "The War on Drugs": When I think of it these days, I think of the Salem Which Trials, and McCarthyism. It's an excuse to fark people over by overzealous self-righteous individuals trying to legislate morality for their own selfish views on society and morality--or outright just abusing it for their own gain--and using it as an excuse to take what people own to sell off for their profit. It's like screaming "fire" in a crowned theater or concert, but nobody stops to actually make sure, everybody just automatically assumes there's a fire, and just stampedes out of the vicinity, and god helps whoever's in the way.

To me, this "Drug Prohibition", and let's be honest, because that's what it is, is nothing more than an excuse to fark people over and try to tell people how to live their lives. Whether the authority that executes these policies are aware of it or not, that's what's going on.

Look at our situation today, and look at it back in the 1920s/30s during Prohibition: Organized crime, crooked cops, continued underground distribution and use of illegal substances despite their being illegal, and finally out and out violence because of warfare due to parties trying to monopolize control over the substances for themselves.

It's the same god damn thing now that it was back then, only with Glocks, Techs, and MP5s instead of Thompsons, Shotguns, and Derringers.

So while you people argue "ethics", my friend is sitting, worrying about his future, which should be his own to make, taken out of his hands because some motherfarker just has to say "drugs" and my friend's livelyhood can be obliterated just like that, in a society that's quick to point fingers at everybody else but themselves.

So, if you wanna know how I feel about drug prohibition, there ya go.

Squidgilum: As a totally sober individual, I just don't get it. You all mock people with "great sky wizard" religions because they can't handle reality... then you get high. Whether you do it with a book, a prayer rug, a gold statue of a cow, or a chemical, hiding from reality is hiding from reality.

THIS

So is this Whoopty Whoo the troll of the month? Y'all sure feed him well.

Death_Poot,

Watch much TV?

Or drink?

misanthropic1: Watch much TV?

No, I normally dont, why?

And no, I don't drink

Either way, that's still an irrelevant non-sequiter.

It could be argued that everyone, to a greater or lesser extent escapes from reality at times, be it runner's high, listening to music, drinking, meditating, or having sex. All of which can be done to excess. I don't see the relation to a person's lesire time and their ability to comprehend and "deal" with reality, it reads like anti-drug rhetoric from a source that has little to no first hand experience to draw upon.

/could be wrong...

*everyone escapes from

/at work

spacechicken170am: Where is the massive amounts of crime attributed to powder cocaine?

feeble: All the rappers, the degrading talk about women, the exhaltation of drug dealers and pimps are all in my head too I guess...

Again, yes. That's not real life, that's media world. You keep making my point for me.

Rik01: When one lives in a local society where a criminal record is approved of and considered a sign of manhood, one has to expect to find a much higher instance of people from that society being tossed in jail.

The reality is that it isn't considered a sign of manhood, it's considered inevitable. The result is a self imposed expectation molded by reality.

"At current levels of incarceration newborn black males in this country have a greater than a 1 in 4 chance of going to prison during their lifetimes, while Hispanic males have a 1 in 6 chance, and white males have a 1 in 23 chance of serving time." (US DoJ 2004)

"Should any particular race find it socially acceptable to deal and use the stuff, then they have to face the consequences."

Yeah, because that whole "war on drugs" thing has been going swimmingly thus far...

And yet, no comments about the link in the upper right hand box.

/Sigh.

Whoopty Whoo The Precious Bongo Boy: HippieKiller666: Sooooo..... meth? What is the motivation for enforcing these cases with such enthusiasm?

What enthusiasm do you speak of? Facts please, not just guilt-tinged conjecture. Thank you.


From the king of fact-dodging this sounds very cute.

There are task forces all over the south and midwest, in urban and rural areas, designated to find and prosecute meth manufacturers and traffickers. Do you live in America or what? These guys are routinely put away with life sentences.

The war on drugs in Incredibly racist.

Thank you poster, for showing some people the light.

//end drug war

If you're a black man who dislikes the fact that crack use is punished so harshly...wait for it...wait....don't use crack.

I think murder laws are a bit tough, so I decided to limit myself to just 3 a month.Haven't limited my coke habit though..the punishment for that stuff is a joke.

Heelzfan: The majority of the black population resides in large metro areas where they have easier access to the harder drugs than if you lived in a rural area. Of course, they probably 'know a guy who knows a guy who has access to crack'. After a hit or two, they get hooked to a substance which creates a better/greater high than any alcohol could deliver.

You seemed to have skipped over the part about humans having free will.

incrdbil: What bullshiat. the laws have no racially targeted language. they were clearly written,and the judges waving the race card are farking idiots. current usage statistics didnt factor into the laws: the distribution, availability, and criminal effects of the particualr form were taken into consoideration.

Maybe soeone should suggets that the problem lies with using the drug, not the law.

Yep, you have to give credit to those brilliant legislators for not putting any racially targeted language in there when they wrote the law. Had they included racially targeted language their motives would have been crystal clear and they might not have been able to get law passed in the first place.

This is a trafficking law not a possession law. Typically 5 grams of powder cocaine yields 25 to 50 individual doses and 500 grams of powder cocaine about 2,500 to 5,000 individual doses, while 5 grams of crack cocaine generates about 10 to 50 individual doses (or enough for a heavy user to consume in one weekend) and 500 grams of crack cocaine generally equals 100 to 500 individual doses.

Adding baking soda and water to 5 grams of powdered cocaine generates more crack than simply having 5 grams of crack. To any rational thinking individual, it would seem logical that, arrests for powdered cocaine would have more strict sentencing than possession of crack.

All crack starts out as powdered cocaine. Without powdered cocaine, crack cocaine would not be in existence. Regardless of whether racial motivations or not, the law does not permit equal justice under the law and needs to be corrected to do so.

Did anyone stop to think that maybe crack is the drug of choice for black people. Much like weed and Newports. Ever seen a black person smoke Malboro Red's? I've sold a pack of Red's to a black guy once this year. Newports....hundred's.

So maybe because the white man smokes cocaine, the black man smokes the alternative so that way he's not being white. Exactly like not talking white.

As for crack and cocaine being the same. Holy shiate there are some delusional people in here. Crack is way worse than cocaine because it is a much more powerful, intense, and shorter high. This creates a greater addiction to the drug which causes more violent and more frequent crimes once addicts run out of their own funds.

No one is forcing crack on anyone. No drug is forced on anyone. So what if whitey introduced crack into the inner city (which he didn't)? Is he still there, lurking in all the shadows, forcing crack down everyone's throat? Hell no. Crack is a problem because people do crack, not because whitey supposedly put it there.

there's a strong correlation between poverty and drug use.

In the US, many black people migrated to non-Southern inner-cities to escape Jim Crow and find manufacturing jobs after the Civil War. Hence the large inner-city black populations.

the manufacturing collapse of recent decades has impoverished working-class black people more than it has affected any other group.

drug use is higher when there is poverty.

cops are racist.

I'm not sure why crack specifically is more widely used by black people.

Probably the CIA.

lindseyp: Congressional opponents of the laws establishing more severe sentencing for crack cocaine than powdered cocaine are racially discriminatory because they hit more directly at the black community, where this form of drug abuse is more commonplace.

WTF?

Might as well be written:

Congressional opponents of the laws establishing more severe sentencing for crystal meth than Nitrous Oxide are racially discriminatory because they hit more directly at the black community, where this form of drug abuse is more commonplace.

/Yes, b/c any smart person knows that laughing gas is simply crystal meth in a different form.
//Not to mention, crack cocaine and crystal meth are horrible drugs that poor people do, whereas cocaine and NO₂ are drugs that dentists use; along with their attorneys, bankers and stock brokers.
///Oh yeah, and dentists also use them in their practice to treat their patients.

UnkleKrakker: Isuldirs: DROxINxTHExWIND: The threat of black men raping white women was the original justification for making cocaine illegal.

I can find nothing to substantiate that claim. Source?

Look further back at my post, or just look in Wiki, some interesting stuff about US anti drug laws

History Channel covered this in the history of durgs in the US.

Racist - noun
1. a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others

So.. since a race has developed a reputation for favoring a life-threatening activity, any attempt to curtail this activity is a racist event?

I could understand the racism claim if it were something less dangerous, and more stereotypical, like making watermelon/ fried chicken illegal/taxed/ etc. Hey.. do more whites smoke than blacks? maybe we should throw the racism card at the folks trying to stop whites from smoking in public places.

If anything, it's a stab at the lower class, not a race itself. There are whites using crack right alongside the black, but they all tend to be poor, (and quickly become poorer still).

The guy who complained that his friend was charged with resisting arrest and carrying a pain pill for his knee?

You live in denial. Your buddy should have had his own prescription, or done without. End of story. Prescription pain pills are prescription for a reason.

Your friend had a background of using prescription pills, a fact that the arresting officers were aware of as soon as they ran his license plate. This suggests that HE was aware that the pain pill was illegal and he shouldn't have it.

Also, if a cop is trying to pull you over, and you're just cruising along apparently ignoring them, they are required to call for backup.
If nothing else, stop immediately, and tuck against the side of the road. If it isn't good enough, they'll direct you elsewhere.
Just eventually stopping WAY down the road means that even though you have no respect for the authority that's been trying to pull you over, you're going to confront them anyways.

Those that joked about the "crack = new drug / Cocaine = old drug" missed the point. Crack was beleived to be a more lethal form of cocaine that was much easier to come by (which was at least partially confirmed over time, BTW...) It's easier to get harder on new substances than it is to change the sentencing guidelines for existing substances.

Rik01,

I was with you up to the whole death-to-dealers thing, just end the whole charade of morality and leagalize it all, I seriously doubt anyone will smoke crack that wouldn't otherwise.

/I've met a lot of middle and upper class drug users, btw

Dead-Guy -

Yeah, the War on Drugs is a Rasist campaign.

Did you hear me? Are you that thick?

RASIST CAMPAIGN!

That is all.

Losers.

Power flexing LOSERS, the whole lot of you.

WTF do you care if someone uses crack...punishment? U want to punish them now? you certainly have lots of room to judge people with then.

Wake up. Follow the Money. The wrong people are getting rich of this drug war.

Harm Reduction. We could talk about that. Does criminalizing drugs reduce harm? NO!

I am right.

//in the right.

walnuts55: UnkleKrakker: Isuldirs: DROxINxTHExWIND: The threat of black men raping white women was the original justification for making cocaine illegal.

I can find nothing to substantiate that claim. Source?

Look further back at my post, or just look in Wiki, some interesting stuff about US anti drug laws

History Channel covered this in the history of durgs in the US.

That was a good documentary too.

It's not whitey's fault that a huge percentage of young black men happen to be either drug users or drug dealers. It's the fault of the young black men and their supposed families and friends. Sure, penalties should be fair across the board, but even the harshest penalty these days is getting off easy imho.

Darkenergy--Crack cocaine is every bit as bad as its reputation suggests. It hooks people faster than any drug. Some people call it "sucking the devil's D-word" and that sums it up. People can and do become addicted after one exposure.

The reason crack cocaine exploded amongst ghetto blacks is two-fold: Up until the 80's, cocaine was a rich man's drug. It was at least $100 per gram, and frankly, most blacks (most people for that matter) couldn't afford to get hooked on it. Crack cocaine comes along and for $5 to $20 dollars you could get the greatest high ever, extremely quickly too.

Reason number too is much less known. In the beginning, crack was made with baking soda as a major ingredient. When busts were made in the first year of the crack epidemic, the drug testing methods of the time reacted to the baking soda, so the samples they tested read as baking soda. Law Enforcement didn't catch on to this trick for over a year, so crack dealers were able to operate without fear of getting busted for a long time. This, according to LE and dealers from that time, was what allowed crack cocaine to spread like "wildfire."

BobC: Trut--black people have the same options you and I do. Faison says that he could have gone that route but chose not to.My dad never made more than 16k, which is almost exactly what Faison's dad made, but for some reason blacks are perceived differently. I think we need to stop telling blacks that they can't succeed--that, to me, is 50% of the problem.

part of the problem is that many minorities, especially black and native american, have a major distrust of the white mans policy. Take a look at history and see if their anger and mistrust is not justified, or at the very least understood. This country was based on decimation and oppression of any culture that was/is non-anglo.

Uhhh now is a good time to say my grandmother on my Father's side was "Native American." It was something I never even "knew" until I was like 18--she was just my grandmother. I never thought about it until other people made me feel uncomfortable about it later in life.

Anyway--yeah you are right that a lot of "non-whites" have that mistrust but a lot of whites want to believe that the system is horrible and unworthy of trust. In fact, now that I am 40 YO I would say that the number of whites mistrusting our government outnumbers the minorities. I think we are a nation of spoiled brats who don't know how good we have it compared to other areas of the world. At some point we will all be made painfully aware of how good we used to have it

Is this the thread where people with no experience or access to black culture, cocaine or the justice system pontificate on things they know nothing about or am I too late to join in the fun?

JUST MAKE IT SO ANYTHING THAT ANYONE SAYS IS RACIST.....

Problem solved, everyone is then equal

This whole thing is ridiculous. Laws shouldn't be created to give certain ethnic or racial groups different treatment. Laws should be colorblind, end of story.

Maybe the perp should've thought about the possible prison time before he got involved with drugs.

//Not naive, just thinks hard drugs are stupid.

////mm slashy