2010: The War on Drugs and Its Legacies

2000-2023: A "Color-Blind" Nation
Written By Stephanie Brizee

Big Idea

Despite poor outcomes and strong criticism of drug laws, American law enforcement has changed little in its approach to drug enforcement. This has greatly affected the African American community, which unfairly represents majority of drug-related arrests.

What’s important to know?

  1. 2010 Fair Sentencing Act: The Fair Sentencing Act aimed to reduce the differences in drug sentencing that caused Black offenders to face harsher penalties than White offenders. While the law has helped some Black defendants, research shows that sentencing disparities continue to affect Black defendants negatively.

  2. Missouri and Marijuana: Despite Missouri legalizing recreational marijuana in 2022, many Black men had been incarcerated, disrupting families and communities. The resulting damage is immense.

1: 2010 Fair Sentencing Act

Until the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, the sentencing disparity between crack (a concentrated form of cocaine used more by Black urban populations) and powdered cocaine (used more by suburban white populations) was 100:1. That is, defendants convicted of possessing five grams of crack might receive a minimum five-year mandatory sentence while defendants convicted of possessing five hundred grams of powdered cocaine might face the same sentence. Even with the passing of the Fair Sentencing Act, “there is still significant differential punishment for two types of cocaine use” (Feagin, 2014, p. 159). Feagin notes that

There has been only a little change in harsh mandatory sentencing laws in spite of evidence that they are obviously discriminatory… while illegal drug use is roughly as common among white men as among black men, black men are far more likely than white men to be arrested for illegal drug crimes. This is the reason why there are disproportionately large numbers of black men in prisons. (p. 160)

Figure 1: US Rates of Adult Drug Arrests by Race, 1980-2007

Source: Human Rights Watch

The impact of Nixon’s racist drug war was devastating, especially among Black men. In 2010, the editorial board of The Baltimore Sun (2012) noted, 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services…found that 9.1 percent of whites and 10.7 percent of blacks had used illegal drugs within the previous month. But even though the differences in drug use between the two groups was statistically small, black Baltimore residents were arrested at more than three and a half times the rate of whites for drug offenses, and the disparities continued through their encounters with the criminal justice system.

Even a decade ago, the “war on drugs” was recognized as a disaster. In the article, “War on Drugs is a public policy failure,” Serot and Owsley wrote that “there are three ways to receive a sentence of life without parole in Missouri: rape of a child, deliberate (first degree) murder, and persistent drug convictions” (2011, par. 17).

The Fair Sentencing Act was designed to correct the racial inequities in sentencing. It was also able to be applied retroactively. The Brennan Center ofr Justice reported: “Of the approximately 12,000 current prisoners eligible for sentence reduction come November 1, 2011 (when the retroactivity provision takes effect), 85 percent are African American. Reprieve is not guaranteed for those individuals: each must petition a judge to reduce their sentence, and the judge must consider the public safety implications of releasing each prisoner on an individual basis” (Alarcon, 2011).

Subsequent studies that have analyzed the impact of the law have still found disparities in sentencing for people of color (see, Makeela J. Wells, 2022, “The Effects of the Fair Sentencing Act 2010 on Sentencing Outcomes for Females Convicted of Cocaine Offenses”).

2: Missouri and Marijuana

Even though Missouri legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2022, generations of Black men have been incarcerated, removed from their neighborhoods and their families. The damage this has done to Black families, communities, and economic livelihoods is almost immeasurable.

Historian Michelle Alexander found that,

More African American adults are under correctional control today - in prison or jail, or probation or parole - than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War…the absence of black fathers from families across America is not simply a function of laziness, immaturity, or too much time spent watching Sports Center. Thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by whites (2020, p. 224). 

Read more about the results of the war on drugs in St. Louis and the new marijuana laws in Johnny Prusak’s award-winning essay “Effects of Marijuana Legalization on the St. Louis Community.” Johnny was a student in Dr. Brizee’s English 3859 writing center course, and his essay won Saint Louis University’s 2023 Spaulding Literary Essay Award at the 3000-level.

Your Turn

What is the legacy of the war on drugs? Even with legislative changes to sentencing guidelines, what has the ongoing impact been?

Stephanie Brizee
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2008: “Color-Blind” Nation
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