Pubdate: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX) Copyright: 2001 Amarillo Globe-News Contact: http://amarillonet.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/13 Author: Rev. Charles Kiker GUEST COLUMN: WAR ON DRUGS A BATTLE NATION CAN'T AFFORD TO WIN TULIA - In his April 11 guest column, "Ignoring statistics is a crime," Alton McQueen opines that we cannot win the war on drugs because of perfectionist notions of law enforcement. But we are losing the war on drugs for the same reason the war on booze was lost early in the past century. We are losing the war on drugs for the same reason that a war against prostitution can never be finally won. Where there's a demand for a product or service, a supply will be found. The worst thing about the war on drugs is not that we are losing it but what it's doing to our country. In the name of the war on drugs, Jim Crow is being resuscitated. In the name of the war on drugs, the United States is becoming a police state. In the name of the war on drugs, the United States supports right-wing military governments in South America in their wars against their own people. As I write this, the news is fresh: A Peruvian Air Force plane shot down a civilian plane suspected of running drugs. But it turned out the civilian plane was a missionary plane, and a young mother and her infant daughter were killed in the attack. Mr. McQueen implies that I have ignored statistics in the war on drugs. After citing the statistic that 79 percent of those in prison for drug offenses are of ethnic minorities, he says that if I studied the crime statistics, I could answer my question: "How can you rip such a large percentage of the black population out of this town and say it was not racially motivated?" Well, I have studied the statistics. The very statistics that Mr. McQueen cites lend evidence that the war on drugs nationally, not just in Tulia, is racist in its impact if not its intent. Blacks make up about 12 percent of the population. Yet 79 percent of those imprisoned for drug offenses are ethnic minorities, according to the statistics Mr. McQueen cites. Ethnic minorities include Hispanics and minorities other than blacks. The FBI statistics cited do not tell us what portion of this 79-percent figure is black. Justice Department figures show that in 1996, 53 percent of those convicted in state courts were black. Whichever set of statistics we use, blacks are in prison for drug use far disproportionately to their numbers in the population as a whole. So, blacks must be more prone to drug use, right? Wrong! Statistics from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reveal that white high school seniors are seven times more likely than blacks to have used cocaine, eight times more likely to have smoked crack, and seven times more likely to have used heroin. And from the Centers for Disease Control we hear that between the ages of 12 and 17, whites are more likely to sell drugs than blacks. Police stop-and-search tactics on the New Jersey Turnpike lend credence to these statistics. Police stopped a higher percentage of black motorists but found drugs in a higher percentage of white motorist stops than of black. Statistics absolve neither the war on drugs at large, nor the Tulia drug sting, of the charge of racism. Rather, they suggest that the war on drugs nationally, and in Tulia, targets those easiest to catch and easiest to convict. That means poor people, and disproportionately, that means black people. But at least as disturbing as the systemic racism of the war on drugs is its attack on constitutional liberties. When, in the name of the war on drugs, schoolchildren are subjected to random and suspicionless drug testing, the Fourth Amendment rights of these children are violated. The Sixth Amendment is under attack when, in the name of the war on drugs, the uncorroborated testimony of a single witness is deemed sufficient to deny a person's liberty, even when the credibility of that witness is questionable at best. Apparently the pace of the destruction of our civil liberties is too slow for Mr. McQueen. He seems to decry the time-honored tenet that a defendant is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. With what should we replace that tenet? Should the accusation of a crime become tantamount to guilt? The war on drugs is too expensive - too expensive in terms of human life, human liberties and constitutional principles. The Rev. Charles Kiker of Tulia is a retired clergyman. - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew