Essay On Community Drug Policy

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Recommended: Evolution of America's drug laws

The community within which I live is extremely affected by the drug policy of United States, specifically the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. The people in my community are facing a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five to ten years without parole for the possession of five grams of crack cocaine while people who are sentenced for five hundred grams of powder cocaine. Later the one-hundred to one disparity was reduced to eighteen to one by the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. The act reduced the amount of crack cocaine possessed from five grams to one ounce (28 grams). These two acts are said to be forms of institutionalized racism because African Americans, especially males, face higher arrest and incarceration rates for the possession of drugs than Caucasian males. The reason that African Americans face a higher arrest rate is because of law enforcement primarily focusing on low-income, impoverished, urban areas where many African Americans live and where crack cocaine thrives. According to research, African Americans composed of more than eighty percent of the population that are imprisoned under the federal crack cocaine laws. The impact of these federal policies …show more content…

The reason why for this is because many argue that crack cocaine is more potent than its pure powder from and that should not be the case because both are highly addictive, employs self-destruction and are derived from the coca leaf. Within the act, I will motion for persons that were over-sentenced by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act to be released from prison and that their charges be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor. So that upon the release from prison they are able to find jobs and to carry out their civil rights, such as the right to

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