3 ms·
the federal penalties for crack were indeed more severe than ordinary cocaine, and black legislators championed the laws that made it so: https://slate.com/new
by nyolfen 8y ago
the federal penalties for crack were indeed more severe than ordinary cocaine, and black legislators championed the laws that made it so:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/02/why-many-black-politicians-backed-the-1994-crime-bill-championed-by-the-clintons.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/02/why-many-black-p...
crack cocaine did incredible damage to urban black communities, and the laws were a reflection of that. obviously the laws went on to do incredible damage in their own right as well.
- cromwellian 8y agoCrack didn't do the damage, the illegal black market for crack did most of the damage. Black people, heavily suffering from violence associated with illegal black markets, mistakenly backed mandatory harsh sentencing which devastated their communities even more. Dealing with crack usage as a public health problem would have been far superior. The harshest of the drug war existed prior to the 1994 crime bill as well.
- nyolfen 8y agohaven’t encountered many crackheads, eh? crack did plenty of damage itself
- cromwellian 8y agoI lived sandwiched in between two crackhouses for years, and my own sister and brother smoked crack (later my sister died ultimately from heroin). And? My father was an alcoholic and alcoholics have been destroying families for years. Locking up 1 out of 4 African American males for drug possession or addict isn't going to fix the problem, it only makes it worse.
- nyolfen 8y agomy friend, i don't disagree with you