The War on Drugs and Its Impact on African Americans During the 1980’s

By: Niko Tejada

Class: AMCS-273

War on Drugs Legislation Origins - President Nixon, in 1971, first declared this war

as a way to fight back against the rising

popularity of hallucinogenic drugs

- Nixon’s hopes for the War on Drugs was too

discreetly weaken the anti-war left and Black

communities

- From the beginning, the title of the War on

Drugs has been used as a shield of sorts, that

administrations hide behind when putting into

place obvious racially biased laws and policies.

- The Reagan administration would then only add

on to and intensify the War on Drugs

Crack On The Rise- In the 1980’s Crack was on the rise, and reeking havoc on communities all

across America

- Members of inner cities, which were mainly African American, took the new

Crack epidemic and turned it into a thriving business, since they felt it was

their best way to make a living

- Members of the inner cities who were not taking part in the Crack world, but

still suffering from the effects, took to protesting and demanding something be

done

Response- One of the earlier responses to the epidemic by the Reagan administration was the “Just Say No” campaign,

ran by Nancy Reagan, wife of President Reagan

- This campaign had a hard time realistically reaching/impacting those who were already caught up in the

Crack world, which lead to the protests I mentioned earlier

- Finally in 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was passed encouraging more policing and incarcerations for drug

related crimes.

- However, this is where it goes south, the ratio incorporated in this act was heavily focused on incarcerations

for Crack compared to its counterpart, Cocaine

- The ratio was 1:100, meaning that 1 gram of Crack would get you just as much jail time as 100 grams of cocaine

1:100- With such an obviously racially targeting act passed, African American communities suffered big

time, and left a legacy that is still noticeable today

- Even though white people were just as commonly using Crack, it was the inner cities and

African Americans that were unfairly targeted, leading to high incarceration rates of African

Americans and other minority groups

- Young African American men started to come to terms with the facts that “once the cuffs were

on they were going to jail”, as stated from a former Crack dealer in the documentary Crack

Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy

In these two graphs we can see that around 1986, the same year the Anti-Drug Abuse

Act was passed, the number of drug related incarcerations skyrocket, as well as the

ratio disparity of incarcerations for drug crimes between nonwhite and white people,

in both juveniles and adults

Making Matters Worse

- In 1988 officer Eddie Byrne was shot and

killed in his police car by a Crack dealer,

inspiring new motivation for officers to

strike down harder on drugs

- “Buy and Busts” started happening all over,

in attempts to lock up more dealers

- However, since African Americans were

stereotypically connected to crime and

drugs, policing was very racially biased and

focused mainly on the African American

communities.

Legacy- The legacy of being tough on crime continued to get more intense with each new

president, as it was an easy way to gain popularity and an almost mandatory way to exhibit strong leadership

- It was not until 2005, in the United States vs. Booker case, that the structural racism ingrained in the War on Drugs was finally ended

- This case held that the sentencing guidelines for drug arrests, which to that point had been mandatory, should instead be advisory and that the courts needed to look at the history and characteristics of defendants when deciding sentence lengths

The legacy that was formulated in 1971 and grew to obscene levels in the 1980’s has left an

unfortunate reality that African Americans and Latinos are far more likely to face imprisonment in

their lives than their white counterparts. This reality is expressed in the chart above, which was

obtained from the Georgetown Law website

Luckily, there are organizations out there, like Black Live Matter, that bring awareness to the

problems embedded in our justice systems, for this is the first step to making a difference for the

African American community and minority groups.

Thank You

ReferencesAnon. 2021. "Nixon Advisor Admits War On Drugs Was Designed To Criminalize Black

People." Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved February 26, 2021

(https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/).

Blumstein, Alfred. 2003. "The Notorious 100:1 Crack: Powder Disparity--The Data Tell Us That It Is Time To Restore The

Balance." Federal Sentencing Reporter 16(1):87-92.

Bradford, James Tharin. 2019. Poppies, Politics, And Power: Afghanistan And The Global

History Of Drugs And Diplomacy. Cornell University Press.

Kerr, J. and Jackson, T., 2016. Stigma, sexual risks, and the war on drugs: Examining drug policy

and HIV/AIDS inequities among African Americans using the Drug War HIV/AIDS

Inequities Model. International Journal of Drug Policy, [online] 37, pp.31-41. Available

at:<https://www-sciencedirect-com.sonoma.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S0955395916302584>

ReferencesNelson, Stanley. 2021. Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy. Netflix: Netflix.

Press, Associated. 2021. "Guides: A Brief History Of Civil Rights In The United States: The War On Drugs And Mass Incarceration."

Guides.ll.georgetown.edu. Retrieved March 27, 2021 (https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4172706).

Staff. 2021. "What Is Crack Cocaine?: Differences Between Crack And Cocaine." American

Addiction Centers. Retrieved April 26, 2021

(https://americanaddictioncenters.org/cocaine-treatment/differences-with-crack).