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>Contrast to the crack cocaine epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. That's overly reductive to the point of being wrong. There was never a

>Contrast to the crack cocaine epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. That's overly reductive to the point of being wrong. There was never a particularly strong feeling that crack addicts should be thrown in prison any more than other types of addicts. People were strongly in favor of throwing crack dealers in prison because they were turning neighborhoods into war zones as they fought for lucrative turf. And it wasn't just white people, either. The strongest advocates you'll find of drug criminalization are black people who lived through the crack epidemic in the '80s.

liveoneggs 9y ago
crack vs cocaine sentencing doesn't agree with you. It was clearly making the "black" crime of crack possession worse than the "white" crime of coke possession. Obama got a whole law passed in 2010 to address it!
- dogruck 9y ago
  Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities. Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2016/02/why_many_black_politicians_backed_the_1994_crime_bill_championed_by_the.html https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...
  - glibgil 9y ago
    Have you heard the theory that racism might be institutionalized?
    - kchoudhu 9y ago
      Now that's just crazy talk.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      Have you studied the crack epidemic or have you simply slurped up some recent liberal political journalism?
      - glibgil 9y ago
        > studied the crack epidemic Your bias is showing. Crack arrest spree is more accurate. I was politically active while it was happening, so no, this isn't a recent observation. Can I just add how incredibly rude "slurped up some recent liberal political journalism" is? You should be ashamed of the way you talk to strangers on the Internet.
    - sremani 9y ago
      I do not recollect with precision, but there is an article posted on HN few years ago, showing the 80s archives of New York Times, in it NYT was squarely arguing for harsher sentencing and so were African American civic leaders. May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy. We will be failing ourselves if we cannot examine that fact and simply hitch and re-assign every "fucked up" decision to racism.
      - glibgil 9y ago
        > May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy I didn't. I thought it was racist back then. Many black leaders thought it was racist back then too
      - rexpop 9y ago
        > May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy. That's exactly the irony of institutional racism: it's so rarely _consciously_ racist. It is often "colorblind".
    - gozur88 9y ago
      So what you're saying is that black people can't be trusted to have their own opinions because of institutional racism? Words fail.
      - glibgil 9y ago
        > So what you're saying is that black people can't be trusted to have their own opinions because of institutional racism? Words fail No, I'm saying that you cannot make an appeal to authority. It is a logical fallacy. Just because some blacks were in favor does not mean it was not racist
        trentnix 9y ago
        And thus that's the trap that has been set: if you don't follow the recommendations of black leaders, you're a racist. If you follow the recommendations of black leaders, you're a racist. Even a poorly powered AI in 1983 figured out the only way to win is to not play the game.
        gozur88 9y ago
        If this were a group of white politicians and community leaders seeking tougher sentences for crimes occurring in their neighborhoods, I'm pretty sure we'd be hearing a debate on the merits of the proposal. But because black politicians and community leaders came to the conclusion that tougher sentences for crack dealers are warranted based on their experience it must be because of institutional racism. It's like they've come to a conclusion you don't agree with so you feel free to dismiss their agency. Help me out here, because it's the only way I can read this.
        tptacek 9y ago
        You keep repeating this argument. Its premise is invalid. It was not in fact black politicians that raised the sentences for crack cocaine in relation to powder cocaine; it was the overwhelmingly white US federal legislature.
        9y ago
    - deleted 9y ago
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    - deleted 9y ago
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  - tptacek 9y ago
    That's a non-sequitur answer that also manages to concede the point of the comment upthread, which is that there has in fact been a retributive cast to drug policy for black people.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      You make a good point.
  - wjn0 9y ago
    That article doesn't support your point. The law being referenced here is the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, signed into law 8 years earlier by Reagan [1]. You are correct, though. The Black Congressional Congress and the majority of black congressmen at the time supported the ADAA, even helping draft it. But, I still think that it would be wrong to assume that there was universal (or even majority) support among the black community. One confounder would be the media; studies have shown that public opinion about drug use and drug crime were/are directly related to media coverage [2]. With Reagan publicly saying drugs "are as much a threat to the United States as enemy planes and missiles", I think it's difficult to disentangle anyone's true personal feelings about the law from the sociopolitical influences that were present at the time. The view of policing at the time was simply different. Some might have viewed the ADAA as a much more honest form of policing black communities, as opposed to the efforts undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s: stifling civil rights-related protests and other actions, along with actions by high-powered militarized SWAT teams being concentrated in poor black communities [3]. Even in retrospect, the issues are complex and unclear. Is it really difficult to believe that most people at the time, policymakers or not, were simply incapable of fathoming the results of the ADAA? It's clear that the imbalance in policing, partially as a result of the ADAA, has decimated the black community. Most of the damage, I would argue, is due to an ugly amalgamation of the rise of the prison industrial complex and the transparent willingness of policymakers to look past the needs of poor and minority communities in writing criminal law over the last 30 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986 [2] https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/41/3/425/1671880/Setting-the-Public-Agenda-Street-Crime-and-Drug https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/41/3/425/1671880/Set... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/02/americas-tough-approach-to-policing-black-communities-began-as-a-liberal-idea https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/02/ameri...
    - tptacek 9y ago
      It's useful to remember the ADAA in the broader context of the 1980s push towards harsher federal sentencing across the board. It's not a coincidence that federal sentences were revised and federal parole abolished just a few years prior, or that the Willie Horton ad would run in the next Presidential election. It's true that there was mainstream black support for anti-crime legislation, but that support wasn't distinctive. Blacks weren't leading the charge; they were just another part of it.
- gozur88 9y ago
  Crack vs powder sentencing isn't relevant. The violence was all on the crack side, which is what prompted the harsher sentences. And yes, Obama got a law passed based on a lie. That happens all the time. EDIT: Most people really don't care what you put into your body until you make them care, and that's what happened. You'd open up the paper and see another eight-year-old on the way to school got shot in the head because crack dealers were spraying bullets at each other again. That happens often enough and the public decides Something Must Be Done. Personally, I thought a better solution would be to teach the crack dealers how to shoot, but nobody liked my idea.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    No, the violence was not "all on the crack side": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4533860/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4533860/
    - gozur88 9y ago
      Oh, yes, I see they've referenced a study that admits the violence was greater for crack but not if you "controlled" out the relevant variables.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        Stupid statisticians with their stupid "controls". I'll take this opportunity to point out that, right or wrong (obviously: I think you're wrong), you've contradicted your comment rooting this subthread. You began by saying there was never strong feeling that black crack users should be imprisoned, and find yourself here arguing that imprisoned black crack users somehow deserved it.
        gozur88 9y ago
        >Stupid statisticians with their stupid "controls". I don't have access to the actual study, but the abstract very much reads like a study that came to the conclusion the authors wanted. >You began by saying there was never strong feeling that black crack users should be imprisoned, and find yourself here arguing that imprisoned black crack users somehow deserved it. Eh... no, I never said that second part. You might want to read through the thread again.
- refurb 9y ago
  If you were around back in the 1980's, you'd realize it was because crack was labelled an "epidemic" and ended up on the nightly news often. "Something had to be done" That wasn't happening with powdered cocaine.
  - azernik 9y ago
    That is the mechanism by which race-biased views of different drugs and crimes and other social problems operate.
- arprocter 9y ago
  Carl Hart has researched this[0] I found his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast (most recently #698) compelling [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hart#Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hart#Research
amigoingtodie 9y ago
I would downvote you if I could.
- gozur88 9y ago
  I would laugh at you if I could. Oh, wait. I can.
  - amigoingtodie 9y ago
    I will eat your billygoat.
deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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liveoneggs 9y ago

crack vs cocaine sentencing doesn't agree with you. It was clearly making the "black" crime of crack possession worse than the "white" crime of coke possession. Obama got a whole law passed in 2010 to address it!

dogruck 9y ago
Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities. Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2016/02/why_many_black_politicians_backed_the_1994_crime_bill_championed_by_the.html https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...
- glibgil 9y ago
  Have you heard the theory that racism might be institutionalized?
  - kchoudhu 9y ago
    Now that's just crazy talk.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Have you studied the crack epidemic or have you simply slurped up some recent liberal political journalism?
    - glibgil 9y ago
      > studied the crack epidemic Your bias is showing. Crack arrest spree is more accurate. I was politically active while it was happening, so no, this isn't a recent observation. Can I just add how incredibly rude "slurped up some recent liberal political journalism" is? You should be ashamed of the way you talk to strangers on the Internet.
  - sremani 9y ago
    I do not recollect with precision, but there is an article posted on HN few years ago, showing the 80s archives of New York Times, in it NYT was squarely arguing for harsher sentencing and so were African American civic leaders. May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy. We will be failing ourselves if we cannot examine that fact and simply hitch and re-assign every "fucked up" decision to racism.
    - glibgil 9y ago
      > May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy I didn't. I thought it was racist back then. Many black leaders thought it was racist back then too
    - rexpop 9y ago
      > May be there is racism that is institutional, but the point is most people even those who are against harsher sentences today thought it was a remedy. That's exactly the irony of institutional racism: it's so rarely _consciously_ racist. It is often "colorblind".
  - gozur88 9y ago
    So what you're saying is that black people can't be trusted to have their own opinions because of institutional racism? Words fail.
    - glibgil 9y ago
      > So what you're saying is that black people can't be trusted to have their own opinions because of institutional racism? Words fail No, I'm saying that you cannot make an appeal to authority. It is a logical fallacy. Just because some blacks were in favor does not mean it was not racist
      - trentnix 9y ago
        And thus that's the trap that has been set: if you don't follow the recommendations of black leaders, you're a racist. If you follow the recommendations of black leaders, you're a racist. Even a poorly powered AI in 1983 figured out the only way to win is to not play the game.
      - gozur88 9y ago
        If this were a group of white politicians and community leaders seeking tougher sentences for crimes occurring in their neighborhoods, I'm pretty sure we'd be hearing a debate on the merits of the proposal. But because black politicians and community leaders came to the conclusion that tougher sentences for crack dealers are warranted based on their experience it must be because of institutional racism. It's like they've come to a conclusion you don't agree with so you feel free to dismiss their agency. Help me out here, because it's the only way I can read this.
        tptacek 9y ago
        You keep repeating this argument. Its premise is invalid. It was not in fact black politicians that raised the sentences for crack cocaine in relation to powder cocaine; it was the overwhelmingly white US federal legislature.
        9y ago
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- tptacek 9y ago
  That's a non-sequitur answer that also manages to concede the point of the comment upthread, which is that there has in fact been a retributive cast to drug policy for black people.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    You make a good point.
- wjn0 9y ago
  That article doesn't support your point. The law being referenced here is the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, signed into law 8 years earlier by Reagan [1]. You are correct, though. The Black Congressional Congress and the majority of black congressmen at the time supported the ADAA, even helping draft it. But, I still think that it would be wrong to assume that there was universal (or even majority) support among the black community. One confounder would be the media; studies have shown that public opinion about drug use and drug crime were/are directly related to media coverage [2]. With Reagan publicly saying drugs "are as much a threat to the United States as enemy planes and missiles", I think it's difficult to disentangle anyone's true personal feelings about the law from the sociopolitical influences that were present at the time. The view of policing at the time was simply different. Some might have viewed the ADAA as a much more honest form of policing black communities, as opposed to the efforts undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s: stifling civil rights-related protests and other actions, along with actions by high-powered militarized SWAT teams being concentrated in poor black communities [3]. Even in retrospect, the issues are complex and unclear. Is it really difficult to believe that most people at the time, policymakers or not, were simply incapable of fathoming the results of the ADAA? It's clear that the imbalance in policing, partially as a result of the ADAA, has decimated the black community. Most of the damage, I would argue, is due to an ugly amalgamation of the rise of the prison industrial complex and the transparent willingness of policymakers to look past the needs of poor and minority communities in writing criminal law over the last 30 years. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Drug_Abuse_Act_of_1986 [2] https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/41/3/425/1671880/Setting-the-Public-Agenda-Street-Crime-and-Drug https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/41/3/425/1671880/Set... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/02/americas-tough-approach-to-policing-black-communities-began-as-a-liberal-idea https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/02/ameri...
  - tptacek 9y ago
    It's useful to remember the ADAA in the broader context of the 1980s push towards harsher federal sentencing across the board. It's not a coincidence that federal sentences were revised and federal parole abolished just a few years prior, or that the Willie Horton ad would run in the next Presidential election. It's true that there was mainstream black support for anti-crime legislation, but that support wasn't distinctive. Blacks weren't leading the charge; they were just another part of it.
gozur88 9y ago
Crack vs powder sentencing isn't relevant. The violence was all on the crack side, which is what prompted the harsher sentences. And yes, Obama got a law passed based on a lie. That happens all the time. EDIT: Most people really don't care what you put into your body until you make them care, and that's what happened. You'd open up the paper and see another eight-year-old on the way to school got shot in the head because crack dealers were spraying bullets at each other again. That happens often enough and the public decides Something Must Be Done. Personally, I thought a better solution would be to teach the crack dealers how to shoot, but nobody liked my idea.
- tptacek 9y ago
  No, the violence was not "all on the crack side": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4533860/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4533860/
  - gozur88 9y ago
    Oh, yes, I see they've referenced a study that admits the violence was greater for crack but not if you "controlled" out the relevant variables.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      Stupid statisticians with their stupid "controls". I'll take this opportunity to point out that, right or wrong (obviously: I think you're wrong), you've contradicted your comment rooting this subthread. You began by saying there was never strong feeling that black crack users should be imprisoned, and find yourself here arguing that imprisoned black crack users somehow deserved it.
      - gozur88 9y ago
        >Stupid statisticians with their stupid "controls". I don't have access to the actual study, but the abstract very much reads like a study that came to the conclusion the authors wanted. >You began by saying there was never strong feeling that black crack users should be imprisoned, and find yourself here arguing that imprisoned black crack users somehow deserved it. Eh... no, I never said that second part. You might want to read through the thread again.
refurb 9y ago
If you were around back in the 1980's, you'd realize it was because crack was labelled an "epidemic" and ended up on the nightly news often. "Something had to be done" That wasn't happening with powdered cocaine.
- azernik 9y ago
  That is the mechanism by which race-biased views of different drugs and crimes and other social problems operate.
arprocter 9y ago
Carl Hart has researched this[0] I found his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast (most recently #698) compelling [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hart#Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hart#Research

amigoingtodie 9y ago

I would downvote you if I could.

gozur88 9y ago
I would laugh at you if I could. Oh, wait. I can.
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  I will eat your billygoat.

deleted 9y ago

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deleted 9y ago

[deleted]