Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste” has been making the rounds of late. In the essay, based on her book of the same name, Alexander makes two key posits: that the United States has “a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have ‘moved beyond’ race” and, indirectly, that drug legalization may address criminal justice inequalities people of color experience.
Predictably, drug legalization advocates back assertions of racism and the drug war. Over-the-top, hyper-violent police conduct related to drug arrests and MTV covering Tupac Shakur’s mother Afeni Shakur’s recent drug arrest are just two recent though disparate examples that cast further aspersions on drug prohibition. But is the drug legalization movement really a solution to a problem that is at the root of such examples, namely ongoing racism, which is seldom addressed?
Though Alexander is most certainly right the United States promotes post-racialism when racial justice clashes remain prominent in the news and elsewhere, the crimes committed upon communities of color do not necessarily reach a legalization conclusion. Drug laws may be draconian, but to use examples of abuse is rather easy. The animal rights movement, for instance, uses horrible images of mistreatment to advocate for equality between humans and other creatures. Such is old rhetorical sleight of hand, yet it’s still just that — sleight of hand.
There are three good reasons for people of color to question the drug legalization movement.
1.) Drug legalization does not change the nature of policing.
As tomdispatch and many others acknowledge, there are problems with budgets and prisons. No one disputes this issue. A pathological obsession with mandating long sentences and death penalties in the U.S. has reached unmanageable proportions. Everything from the law of parties to legalized brutality such as castration shore up the public’s basest desires for justice at any cost. For people of color, however, the issue is not merely out-of-control drug policy, but a racist criminal justice system few are simply willing to say is racist and needs immediate redress.
The drug legalization movement, for people of color, represents a classic quandary as far as longterm political strategy: focusing on dealing with symptoms of a problem rather than taking on the problem (in this case, white racism and, more broadly, white supremacy and neocolonialism) directly. Most of these good, sincere efforts are not grounded in history, or recognize people of color faced mass criminalization before prohibition.
Of policing, Kristan Williams, author of Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, says:
Sovereignty, and even states, are older than the police. “European kingdoms in the Middle Ages became ‘law states’ before they became ‘police states,’” meaning that they made laws and adjudicated claims before they established an independent mechanism for enforcing them. Organized police forces arose specifically when traditional, informal, or community-maintained means of social control broke down. This breakdown was always prompted by a larger social change, often by a change which some part of the community resisted with violence, such as the creation of a state, colonization, or the enslavement of a subject people. In other words, it was at the point where authority was met with resistance that the organized application of force became necessary.
The aims and means of social control always approximately reflect the anxieties of elites. In times of crisis or pronounced social change, as the concerns of elites shift, the mechanisms of social control are adapted accordingly. So, in the South, following real or rumored slave revolts, the institution of the slave patrol emerged. White men were required to take shifts riding between plantations, apprehending runaways and breaking up slave gatherings.
Later, complex factors conspired to produce the modern police force. Industrialization changed the system of social stratification and added a new set of threats, subsumed under the title of the “dangerous classes.” Moreover, while serious crime was on the decline, the demand for order was on the rise owing to the needs of the new economic regime and the ideology that supported it. In response to these conditions, American cities created a distinctive brand of police. They borrowed heavily from the English model already in place, but also took ideas from the office of the constable, the militia, and the semi-professional, part-time enforcement bodies like the night watch and the slave patrols.
Every drug legalization advocacy argument implies by omission that liberalizing drug laws to the nth degree tomorrow will free people of color from overpolicing, racial profiling and institutional violence. Law enforcement has been guilty of atrocious behavior during the drug war. Yet is anyone in a community of color sincerely of the belief police will not abuse people of color, railroad us or continue to treat people of color like criminals because someone can smoke pot or shoot heroin up without legal sanction?
Drug legalization advocates, by failing to address the epidemic of police violence as a whole visited on communities of color, live in an illusion if they believe other justifications won’t be created. Consider some of the more famous police brutality cases outside of Rodney King — Abner Louima, Sean Bell, Ida Lee Delaney… the list goes on.
2.) Drug legalization movements avoid larger problems faced by people of color.
The drug-law process is broken, but, as profound as the criminalization may be, people of color face institutional problems far more deep, including the criminal justice system itself.
Disenfranchisement of people of color is on display in many instances. Issues such as economics are creating an “ethnic recession” for people of color, while health care, legislation or not, is a crisis for people of color. Globalization is decimating the Third World, and what U.S. companies and comprador elements have wrought there — lack of opportunities and transnational migration as a result — is now appearing in immigration fights. The Black is Back Coalition frames the political terrain this way:
Unemployment and an imposed drug economy, the ongoing theft of value through home foreclosure and other means, reveal the use of our people as a reserve labor force as well as a reserve source of capital accumulation. The police murder of our young men and the denial of any meaningful health care – all of these factors contribute to our ability to characterize our status in the U.S. as subjects rather than citizens.
Drug legalization movements seek to involve people of color by citing criminal justice statistics, but such movements do not genuinely address institutional racism that is at hand. In that sense, groups like the Drug Policy Foundation of Texas are not uncommon. Money is spent on outreach, but little seems to be invested in the communities of color affected by these issues.
When was the last time, if ever, you saw a drug-law group unite with communities of color around education, housing, employment discrimination or any of a number of issues people of color deal with day-to-day? Virtually all drug legalization advocacy groups post on their websites how felony drug laws disenfranchise Black men. How many of them are in the communities providing jobs for these men, or helping families fighting to meet basic needs when these men face employment discrimination, can’t find jobs, etc.?
The problem with drug legalization for people of color is such a movement is a single-issue matter and, like most single-issue stuff, is intended to get a large number of people to stand with its cause, without much consideration to the realities potential supporters face. Such an observation is not solely one of drug legalization groups, but needs discussion.
3.) The potential impact of drug legalization on poor communities of color needs to be openly debated.
Carefully chosen language (“drug policy reform,” “opposed to the drug war”) by drug legalization groups should not mask the endgame for many organizations of legalization of marijuana and, in some cases, all drugs. Many sell a libertarian-capitalist’s wet dream, in which government can regulate and tax narcotics like alcohol and cigarettes and underground businesses can be legitimized. Mom and pop dope dealers get to set up shop and everyone gets to be an entrepreneur. And the forest animals even come out for a big singing number at the end.
Does anyone really believe that ideal?
I make no bones about my dog in this fight: I have no interest backing anyone’s profit-making pangs coming at the expense of poor people. One need only walk through a community of color to see the spoils of vulture capitalism: large corporations who do nothing for the Black and Brown community heavily marketing alcohol, cigarettes and various medications to communities of color all over the United States. If you live in or have lived in a community of color, you know what it is like to live in the nursery of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand’s love child: profiteering gone amok, unchecked and with tacit support of the majority population who believe it is okay for the poor to have crap they don’t need piled into their communities, that people wanting to make a buck off them can do what they please so long as they don’t promise to cure anything or give them something that makes an arm fall off, and everyone else pretends like this is the way it is supposed to be.
In a capitalist framework, those with the money and resources — in the case of drug legalization, most assuredly Big Pharma or whatever industry moves first — can swing the campaign donations, lobbyists, advertising and favorable regulations to ensure they and they alone maintain hegemony over an industry while those without the resources can be criminalized and swept aside. We see this today in every market, from alcohol to medicinal treatments, and it is naive to think legalized marijuana and other drugs would be any different. That means economically disadvantaged people of color will remain an incarcerated underclass and those with power, generally white, will not face the same sanction, while the streets of communities of color face another flood of marketing and unnecessary products.
More importantly, drug legalization speaks to larger questions of political objectives. The Black Panther Party, in pamphlets like Capitalism Plus Dope Equals Genocide [PDF], called the drug culture a result of social pressures on people of color to seek escapes from the racism and discrimination faced.
A characteristic feature of class and racial oppression is the ruling class policy of brainwashing the oppressed into accepting their oppression. Initially, this program is carried out by viciously implanting fear into the minds and sowing the seeds of inferiority in the souls of the oppressed. But as the objective conditions and the balance of forces become more favorable for the oppressed and more adverse to the oppressor, it becomes necessary for the oppressor to modify his program and adopt more subtle and devious methods to maintain his rule. The oppressor attempts to throw the oppressed psychologically off-balance by combining a policy of vicious repression with spectacular gestures of good-will and service.
Moreover, the Party pointed out drug use was provided as an option to people of color as a means of numbing them to the hardships they faced, and to keep them distracted from fighting against their own oppression. In speaking about Timothy Leary, Eldridge Cleaver acknowledged occasional marijuana use by Panthers, but called the drug culture a counterrevolutionary betrayal of the goals of Black liberation. The concept of the period was that drug use had a tendency to weaken users and made them less intellectually and physically capable of defending themselves and their communities.
Do drug legalization movements offer anything to people of color? It’s positive to have the public talking about policing. It is also good to see a larger dialog about criminal justice. However, drug legalization movements must consider the bigger picture for communities of color to be truly relevant.
What is needed is a more clear movement — one that isn’t positioned, as so many tragically are, on the presumption that one’s freedom is predicated on legal sanctions and tax breaks for small businesspeople. We also must be honest that a mass anti-racist movement will mean an end to abuses against people of color more than a drug legalization movement ever will.
People of color need to look critically at these movements. What are they practically doing for the community? What will such advocacy, if it comes to pass, mean for communities of color under the current system of law and politics? Pressing ourselves with harder questions, rather than passively supporting relaxed drug laws without considering who profits, is a good start.
Similar Posts:
- Call Out to People of Color From the #OccupyWallStreet People of Color Working Group
- Environmental Justice Principles & People of Color
- Circular Firing Squads: Conflating Movements with Communities
- Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice [review]
- The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered A Black Panther [review]
I support the use of coca leaves as relaxant and the elimination of laboratory drugs to free the drug addiction of the masses in the in tire United states.
Many of our people end up in alcohol rehab centers due to the stress. I believe it all starts from childhood. We need to educate the parents.
I am a strong advocate for decriminalisation/prescribed legalisation and believe that we need to rethink our stance on this subject by discussing it rationally, without the false morality that has been placed on addicts/addiction. Unfortunately it’s not easy to have a dispassionate conversation when it comes to such a hot-button topic, but it’s worth the effort if it helps clear up some of the misconceptions surrounding the issue.
Firstly, it’s fairly common for prohibitionists to claim that decriminalisation (or limited legalisation) will result in a drug free-for-all, with unhindered availability open to anyone who wants to experiment. However, the idea that the corner store will suddenly be selling pot and smack is simply a straw man used to elicit a strong, knee jerk reaction of outrage. This outrage amongst the general population, who tend to have a very limited understanding of addiction, effectively helps keep “the war on drugs” alive through fear and misinformation- as far as I know no one is seriously calling for heroin to be made available en masse at your local 7/11.
In fact, the general aim of decriminalisation/legalisation is to allow addicts to access the most appropriate treatment for them, whether it be methadone, slow release morphine, prescribed heroin, cocaine or marijuana. They are not given a dose high enough for them to be “wasted”, rather it brings them up to the baseline for standard functioning (ie, enough to feel “normal”).
These programmes allow the addict to access a prescribed dosage in a controlled, supervised environment. The dose is safe and legal, without the risk of contaminates, overdose, arrest, and is usually accompanied by a reduced street presence with regards to dealing/scoring and associated anti-social &/or criminal behaviour.
Most importantly it allows the addict to be free from the constant preoccupation with their addiction- dealing with a habit means that almost all your time and effort is spent trying to ensure that you don’t go into withdrawal. When you know that that is no longer an issue and a trip to the pharmacy/dispensary is all you need to organise, you have time to address the underlying issues that resulted in dependency in the first place.
When your time and mind are freed from the constant need to manage your habit you are also free to do those things that most people take for granted, like getting and keeping a job or going back to school or just acquiring some level of financial stability.
It also allows you to break away from engaging in crime and associating with criminal elements. There’s no need to come up with large amounts of money for your drugs (which usually means committing some sort of crime) and you’re no longer supporting the cartels and corrupt cops who make their money exploiting addicts.
Of course, in an ideal world there wouldn’t be any addicts, or at least the threat of incarceration would be enough to “scare them straight”. But that isn’t how addiction works, it’s not as simple as “punish them enough and they’ll stop”. If it were parents wouldn’t be losing custody of their kids, people wouldn’t be facing repeated stints in jail and recurring homelessness and methadone or rehab would be enough to stop someone from using. But these “deterrents” don’t stop the majority of chronic, long term addicts from relapsing- our over crowded prison systems are testament to that.
People need to realise that addiction is a complex psychological, biological and physical issue, one that needs to be treated as a health issue, not a criminal one. It is not about ~will power~ or lack thereof, and it is not about some sort of failing in the character of the addict. Quite simply, for there to be any advance in treatment we need to shift our focus from law and order to a health-care based approach.
Interestingly, countries that have started to tackle this subject from a medical standpoint have had very promising results. Studies in Spain have actually shown a significant reduction in drug use (and the crimes associated with use/abuse) since they enacted decriminalisation, even though prohibition supporters were making dire predictions of a drug use boom.
These positive results have been seen across the board- the heroin trials in countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands have shown remarkable benefits for both the addict and the community in general.
Reductions in criminal activity, homelessness, health problems, unemployment and so on not only reduce the cost to the state but allow addicts to reconnect with the community because they are no longer criminalised for simply being an addict. Indeed, many participants have gone on to find long term employment, contributing to their community through both the payment of taxes and by spending their money on goods and services rather than drugs.
We need to wake up to the reality that the so called “war on drugs” is doomed to fail- prohibition didn’t work for alcohol and it doesn’t work for drugs. All we have managed to do is criminalise the vulnerable and line the pockets of the corrupt, whilst establishing extremely powerful criminal organizations who are fighting tooth and nail to keep their gravy train running.
And as the corrupt individuals in politics and law enforcement keep this war going by appealing to the far right and by playing on the fears of a public indoctrinated by naive, DARE-like rhetoric, more and more people are being locked away.
Of course, decriminalisation/legalisation alone is not enough, we need to invest in programmes that address why an individual feels the need to use. We need decent mental health care available to all, effective support for the vulnerable, readily available detox and rehabilitation regardless of income, stable housing, counseling… the list goes on and on. But if we stop pouring billions of dollars into this futile war and start using that money to fund these programmes just imagine the changes we could bring about.
I understand that ending the “war on drugs” isn’t going to magically make the issues of state sanctioned racism go away, it’s like a hydra, you cut off one head and another grows in it’s place. And it won’t stop all crime or stop all illicit drug use or get rid of every dealer- there will always be a black market for these things. But it will take so much power away from those who benefit most from keeping addicts criminalised, it will help to reduce drug associated crime, dealing, incarceration, recidivism, homelessness, unemployment, drug abuse, poverty, lack of education and many other areas that are often terribly impacted when one is an addict.
For what it’s worth, I have faced many of the consequences of addiction- I have been to prison, I lost my partner to suicide (he was about to go back to prison for failing a drug test and he felt there was no hope), I dropped out of university and lost many, many years to my habit.
I am almost 40 now and have spent nearly two decades struggling with my addiction, including being on methadone for over 10 years (which did nothing to stop me using). Who knows? maybe if some of the programmes I’ve mentioned here had been available to me, and those I’ve lost, much of this might have been avoided and I wouldn’t be trying to start my life so late in the game.
I don’t want to see another generation being punished for having an illness, too many people have lost so much as it is.
Anyway, sorry for such a long comment, but I believe “the war on drugs” needs to be acknowledged as a serious issue of injustice that we have the power to change, and that won’t happen without awareness, discussion and debate.
BTW, if anyone is interested in more information about the anti drug war movement check out The Vienna Declaration, LEAP (law enforcement against prohibition) and the Drug Policy Alliance.
I had so many different responses to offer, yet the crux of so many of my critiques with the (mostly white) legalization movement was tidily summed up in one comment.
“I understand that ending the ‘war on drugs’ isn’t going to magically make the issues of state sanctioned racism go away, it’s like a hydra, you cut off one head and another grows in it’s place. And it won’t stop all crime or stop all illicit drug use or get rid of every dealer- there will always be a black market for these things. But… ”
There’s always a but. To racism. To power. X won’t address it, but…
People of color need to be smarter in addressing these matters because our communities are not intellectualizing these conflicts. If something doesn’t address power in this society, it has to be followed by a period, not a but. This was my objective — to raise this question higher.
I feel that managing to “cut off one of the hydra’s heads” is still a victory, even if it’s not a total victory. It weakens the system, and that makes it easier to affect further change with each successful challenge, which in turn reduces power of the system even more.
Yes, it would be wonderful if there was a definitive solution to eradicate all of the “isms” entrenched in our society, a collection of world changing answers that I could utilise instead of feeling full of rage at how powerless we are when pitted against The Law (and those men who keep the system skewed in their favour). Because as things stand people are being destroyed by a system that is only interested in punitive retribution.
Admittedly I am not American, and even though we have a similar legal stance over here in terms of drug policy, I know my experiences are going to be quite different than yours and we probably have different goals because of this. For example, we don’t have a powerful gun lobby or a massive prison-based industry that relies on high rates of incarceration for profit. Nor do we have a situation where policies are intentionally used as a way of sabotaging movements by, and for, POC to the extent that you do.
On the other hand, as a woman who has listened to police bash my partner while a detective smashed my head into the wall as he called me a dumb junkie whore, seeing girlfriends literally stomped on by cops, knowing that my friends who worked on the street were routinely raped by police in order to avoid being locked up, seeing mothers separated from their children while I was incarcerated… these experiences have shown me that our current drug policies punish people for being women, LGBT, poor, poc, mentally ill and so on, and this “war” is supported by a society that has conflated addiction with morality.
We are imprisoning people, killing people, separating families and dividing communities because of an illness even though these methods have been shown time and again to be ineffective, yet we refuse to consider any alternative.
Just imagine what could be achieved if we put those billions of dollars wasted on the drug war back into the community. And then there’s the sheer number of people who are written off by society because of their addiction, people who could be exploring their potential rather than sitting in prison where there is little to no effort to rehabilitate, educate or address the issues resulting in said incarceration.
I’m one of the lucky ones as I managed to make it through 20 years of addiction, but I still experienced things that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. At the end of the day exploitation and abuse of power needs to be stopped, regardless of the form it takes.
@skram – All that you state is correct and we the people must insist that it is brought to a vote by placing the question on the ballot in the upcoming election.
@Gloria V.Jara –
Coca is actually safer than Coffee, let along Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco, and the drug statutes were initiated via the USDA Department of Agriculture assigned to protect US agricultural commodities:
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/03/drug-war-tobacco-pharma-agricultural.html
And as can be expected, the ‘mainstream’ drug policy ‘reform’ organizations do NOT want to address this, instead working at a snails paced agenda to protect markets as long as possible, which is why we hear more about sanitary ways of doing overly concentrated drugs, rather than how such drugs and their use was perverted- think about snorting or smoking NoDoz rather than drink coffee:
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/ignore-harm-reduction-of-highlighting.html
As an addictions professional of color, as well as a cultural nationalist, the legalization movement doesn’t really address certain issues. Addiction is Slavery. Like slavery, addiction is supported by law, custom, and is a major part of American GDP. Of course I am not excluding illegal substances, as these are also part of the GDP. Native elders who resisted alcohol chemical warfare by the US government, were imprisoned or murdered. Black slaves were given cocaine as an inducement to work. By characterizing addiction as a personal choice issue,when no one is taught to resist commercials, or underground economy brand loyalty mythology, one ignores the fact, that culture itself plays a part in the spread of addiction. Some of us didn’t have addiction problems before America. While drug enforcement occurs according to skin privilege, thus reinforces who is allowed to have “choice”, and who does not. An addicted population is a controlled population. It doesn’t matter whether the addictive substance is a legal drug or an illegal drug. In the years since 2000, legal drugs have killed more people every day, than died at 9/11. A prime component in the conditions leading to the LA Rebellion in ’92 was that there were 3 times the legal limit of liquor stores in South Central. At a time when even the FBI acknowledged that alcohol fueled crime, the more alcohol outlets, the higher the crime. The alcohol outlets in question were also magnets for other crimes, including supplying crack pipes, facilitating sex industry traffic, etc…
If an addicted population is a controlled population, then one has to see how addiction is spread, promoted as normal, and develop cultures of resistance, or I should say continue to build cultures of resistance.