Politics and the war on drugs
Today’s Los Angeles Times has this strong op-ed by Arianna Huffington entitled “The war on drugs’ war on minorities: Democratic presidential candidates crave the Latino and black vote, but ignore the Drug War’s unfair toll on people of color.” Here are some snippets:
There is a subject being forgotten in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House. While all the major candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed “war on drugs” — a war that has morphed into a war on people of color….
[A] quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls’ websites reveals that not one of them — not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson — even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions. The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening….
Because of disenfranchisement statutes, large numbers of black men who were convicted of drug crimes are ineligible to vote, even those who have fully paid their debt to society.
A 2000 study found that 1.4 million African American men — 13% of the total black male population — were unable to vote in the 2000 election because of state laws barring felons access to the polls. In Florida, one in three black men is permanently disqualified from voting. Think that might have made a difference in the 2000 race?
Our shortsighted drug laws have become the 21st century manifestation of Jim Crow. Shouldn’t this be an issue Democratic presidential candidates deem worthy of their attention?
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