Latest news with #Anti-DrugAbuseAct
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How Charlie Rangel Changed His Mind About the War on Drugs
It "seemed like a good idea at the time," Charlie Rangel remarked in 2021, referring to the draconian drug penalties he supported as a New York congressman in the 1980s. "Clearly, it was overkill." Rangel, who died on Monday at the age of 94, came to that conclusion after enthusiastically supporting the war on drugs for decades, going so far as to criticize Republicans as soft on the issue. His transformation from a zealous prohibitionist into a drug policy reformer reflected his recognition of the human costs inflicted by heavy-handed criminalization. A former federal prosecutor who was first elected to Congress in 1970, Rangel was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus who represented Harlem in the House until 2017. He played a leading role in drug policy as a member of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, which he chaired from 1983 to 1993. "Even though the administration claims to have declared a war on drugs, the only evidence we find of this war [is] the casualties," Rangel complained in June 1986, a week after the cocaine-related death of Len Bias, a star University of Maryland basketball player who had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics. "If indeed a war has been declared, I asked the question, 'When was the last time we heard a statement in support of this war from our commander in chief?'" A few months after Rangel demanded action, Congress approved the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which established mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses, including a sentencing scheme that treated smoked cocaine as if it were 100 times worse than the snorted kind. Two years later, another Anti-Drug Abuse Act made crack penalties even more severe, prescribing a minimum five-year sentence for simple possession of more than five grams—less than the weight of two sugar packets. In a 1989 Ebony profile that dubbed him "The Front-Line General in the War on Drugs," Rangel explained the rationale for such legislation. "We need outrage!" he said. "I don't know what is behind the lackadaisical attitudes towards drugs, but I do know that the American people have made it abundantly clear: They are outraged by the indifference of the U.S. government to this problem." Four years later, when Rangel introduced a bill that would have eliminated three crack-specific mandatory minimums, he was already having second thoughts about this get-tough approach. By that point, the senseless penal distinction between crack and cocaine powder had led to stark racial disparities and prompted objections from federal judges, whose criticism would soon be amplified by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. "In response to the onslaught of cocaine abuse in the 1980s," Rangel explained in 2007, "the nation crafted a drug policy totally lacking in compassion, and worse, that was totally unfair to the weakest, and most disadvantaged, in society." By his telling, "the sudden, frightening epidemic of a new street drug…impelled besieged lawmakers to enact stiff punishments for crack cocaine offenses." Rather than "reducing drug addiction and crime," Rangel said, those laws "swelled prison populations, created a sentencing divide that victimized young Black men, left a generation of children fatherless, and drove up the costs of a justice system focused more on harsh punishment than rehabilitation." In other words, the "stiff punishments" that Rangel thought would help his community had the opposite effect. Rangel's evolution extended beyond crack penalties. By 2011, the same congressman who in 1991 had defended the war on drugs in a debate with National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. was co-sponsoring a bill aimed at ending federal marijuana prohibition. "It simply doesn't make sense to waste billions of dollars putting hundreds of thousands of Americans in prison for non-violent offenses," Rangel declared in 2012. His change of heart, which began earlier and went further than a similar shift by Joe Biden, provided hope that even the most gung-ho drug warrior can learn from experience. © Copyright 2025 by Creators Syndicate Inc. The post How Charlie Rangel Changed His Mind About the War on Drugs appeared first on
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - A presidential grant of clemency worthy of praise
A few days before he left office, President Biden commuted the sentences of about 2,500 drug offenders. The grant of clemency, Biden explained, 'provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.' Those distinctions in turn created disparities between African Americans and whites throughout the criminal justice system. A striking contrast to controversial, cringeworthy and contemptible presidential pardons and commutations recently granted to family members, donors, celebrities, political allies and supporters, Biden's action addressed misguided government policies that have persisted for decades. It also highlighted the damage politicians do when they feed and fuel voters' fears of violent crime waves in their communities. As Biden no doubt recalls, he once boasted that every crime bill passed by Congress since 1976 'has had the name of the Democratic senator from the state of Delaware' on it. He supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986), which imposed a minimum five-year sentence for possession of five grams of crack cocaine and 500 grams of powder cocaine, the so-called 100-1 sentencing disparity that led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of Black people. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden drafted the Senate version of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), which included mandatory minimum sentences and a 'three-strike rule' requiring life imprisonment following the third conviction for a drug related crime. 'Lock the SOBs up,' Biden declared at the time. 'It doesn't matter whether or not they're the victims of society. I don't want to ask, 'What made them do this?' They must be taken off the streets.' Federal drugs laws, which most states also adopted, accelerated mass incarceration. Between 1980 and 2018, the number of individuals in state and federal prisons for violating drug laws skyrocketed, from 25,000 to 300,000. Between 1988 and 2012, the length of prison terms for drug offenders increased by 153 percent. By 1992, 91.4 percent of drug offenders in federal prison were African American. By 1995, 32 percent of all young Black men in the U.S. were on probation, in jail or prison. In 2024, African Americans, who make up about 11 percent of the population, constituted 38.9 percent of federal prison inmates. Between 1980 and 2013, spending on federal prisons shot up by almost 600 percent. All this, even though the rate of violent crime peaked in 1991, crack cocaine use continued to decline and scientists concluded that, contrary to conventional wisdom, crack was not more potent than powder. Researchers found that most cocaine offenses do not involve weapons or bodily injury; the vast majority of those in prison are not drug kingpins, but street dealers and couriers who are rapidly replaced; there is no correlation between drug imprisonment rates in a particular state and rates of drug use; and mandatory minimum sentences are not a deterrent. In response to these developments, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the 100-1 crack-to-powder ratio to 18-1 and ended mandatory minimum sentencing for simple possession of cocaine. The First Step Act, signed by Trump in 2018, increased opportunities for inmates to earn credit toward early release or pre-release custody in home confinement or a residential reentry center. And the legislation allowed judges to sentence low-level, non-violent offenders with minor criminal records to less than the required mandatory minimum. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland, noting that still-existing differences in sentencing have 'no basis in science, further no law enforcement purposes and drive unwanted disparities in our criminal justice system,' in 2022 directed prosecutors 'to promote the equivalent treatment in crack and powder cocaine offenses.' Biden's commutation takes a fully justified next step. He has also announced his opposition to mandatory minimum sentences, private prisons and cash bail requirements, and support for expunging convictions for marijuana offenses. Perhaps surprisingly, since worries persist about crime even though it has declined significantly over the last couple of years, a substantial majority of Americans favor ending mandatory minimum sentences and investing in probation, parole and substance abuse treatment. What will President Trump, a tough-on-crime politician if ever there was one, do? Here's a guess: The First Step Act is not likely to be followed by a second step anytime soon. Maybe Trump would consider it in a third term? Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
26-01-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
A presidential grant of clemency worthy of praise
A few days before he left office, President Biden commuted the sentences of about 2,500 drug offenders. The grant of clemency, Biden explained, 'provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.' Those distinctions in turn created disparities between African Americans and whites throughout the criminal justice system. A striking contrast to controversial, cringeworthy and contemptible presidential pardons and commutations recently granted to family members, donors, celebrities, political allies and supporters, Biden's action addressed misguided government policies that have persisted for decades. It also highlighted the damage politicians do when they feed and fuel voters' fears of violent crime waves in their communities. As Biden no doubt recalls, he once boasted that every crime bill passed by Congress since 1976 'has had the name of the Democratic senator from the state of Delaware' on it. He supported the Anti-Drug Abuse Act (1986), which imposed a minimum five-year sentence for possession of five grams of crack cocaine and 500 grams of powder cocaine, the so-called 100-1 sentencing disparity that led to the incarceration of tens of thousands of Black people. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden drafted the Senate version of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994), which included mandatory minimum sentences and a 'three-strike rule' requiring life imprisonment following the third conviction for a drug related crime. 'Lock the SOBs up,' Biden declared at the time. 'It doesn't matter whether or not they're the victims of society. I don't want to ask, 'What made them do this?' They must be taken off the streets.' Federal drugs laws, which most states also adopted, accelerated mass incarceration. Between 1980 and 2018, the number of individuals in state and federal prisons for violating drug laws skyrocketed, from 25,000 to 300,000. Between 1988 and 2012, the length of prison terms for drug offenders increased by 153 percent. By 1992, 91.4 percent of drug offenders in federal prison were African American. By 1995, 32 percent of all young Black men in the U.S. were on probation, in jail or prison. In 2024, African Americans, who make up about 11 percent of the population, constituted 38.9 percent of federal prison inmates. Between 1980 and 2013, spending on federal prisons shot up by almost 600 percent. All this, even though the rate of violent crime peaked in 1991, crack cocaine use continued to decline and scientists concluded that, contrary to conventional wisdom, crack was not more potent than powder. Researchers found that most cocaine offenses do not involve weapons or bodily injury; the vast majority of those in prison are not drug kingpins, but street dealers and couriers who are rapidly replaced; there is no correlation between drug imprisonment rates in a particular state and rates of drug use; and mandatory minimum sentences are not a deterrent. In response to these developments, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the 100-1 crack-to-powder ratio to 18-1 and ended mandatory minimum sentencing for simple possession of cocaine. The First Step Act, signed by Trump in 2018, increased opportunities for inmates to earn credit toward early release or pre-release custody in home confinement or a residential reentry center. And the legislation allowed judges to sentence low-level, non-violent offenders with minor criminal records to less than the required mandatory minimum. Former Attorney General Merrick Garland, noting that still-existing differences in sentencing have 'no basis in science, further no law enforcement purposes and drive unwanted disparities in our criminal justice system,' in 2022 directed prosecutors 'to promote the equivalent treatment in crack and powder cocaine offenses.' Biden's commutation takes a fully justified next step. He has also announced his opposition to mandatory minimum sentences, private prisons and cash bail requirements, and support for expunging convictions for marijuana offenses. Perhaps surprisingly, since worries persist about crime even though it has declined significantly over the last couple of years, a substantial majority of Americans favor ending mandatory minimum sentences and investing in probation, parole and substance abuse treatment. What will President Trump, a tough-on-crime politician if ever there was one, do? Here's a guess: The First Step Act is not likely to be followed by a second step anytime soon. Maybe Trump would consider it in a third term?
