Crack Cocaine Research Paper

The United States has historically had its fair share of race-related issues throughout its short existence, with slavery being the first issue that jumps to everyone’s minds when the topic is broached, but another lesser known area that deserves light shed on it are the drug and alcohol laws that have been passed specifically targeting every race except white Americans.

Historically, many of these laws have targeted specific groups of individuals that were closely associated with a specific type of drug, such as the Chinese Americans and opium, African Americans with crack cocaine, and Mexican Americans with marijuana. The laws targeting these groups of minorities in America tended to have disproportionate prison sentences attached to them

The Harrison Act already outlawed cocaine, with the punishment for possessing crack cocaine being much more severe than the punishment for possessing cocaine in powdered form. There were many similarities between African Americans and Chinese Americans as “cocaine use was associated with blacks just as opium use was associated with the Chinese”(Qk3). There were many newspaper articles around this time that tried to tie-together any crime committed by an African American to the use of crack cocaine. Early in the 1900’s, as well as close to the 20th century, “federal penalties for crack were 100 times harsher than those for powder cocaine, with African Americans disproportionately sentenced to much lengthier terms” (Qk2). In just looking at the difference in penalties based on which form of drug was in possession at the time, it is easy to see that drug laws favored whites as opposed to African Americans in the past. The increased interest on drug policy by the United States government took a heavy toll on African Americans, as “black Americans then constituted approximately 12 percent of our country's population and 13 percent of drug users. Nevertheless, they accounted for 33 percent of all drug-related arrests, 62 percent of drug-related convictions and 70 percent of drug-related incarcerations” (Qk3). African Americans were heavily targeted during these times of increased vigilance in the past with increased focus on drug policies, as it was easier with the active laws to focus attention on African Americans because of the difference in severity of sentence length depending on the type of drug in possession. Since crack cocaine was more common among African Americans the penalty for being caught with crack cocaine was much more severe than that of the penalty for powder cocaine, which was a staple among the