Letters

From the December 2001 issue

(Page 3 of 5)

There is a strong case to be made for the argument that America's drug laws were once intended as a means of disenfranchising minorities.

A review of the testimony that led to the passage of early drug laws like the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 reveals a racist intent on the part of many politicians. Keep in mind that Jim Crow was very much alive in the early 20th century. Racial profiling was both expected and encouraged by the white majority.

Granted, modern day drug warriors are (hopefully) not out to incarcerate as many minorities as possible. Nonetheless, the racist intent on the part of early drug warriors is very much relevant to today's outcomes.

The drug war has evolved into an intergenerational culture war. Members of the '60s counterculture are all grown up, and now youth rave culture is the latest target. It's not health outcomes that determine America's Draconian drug laws, but rather cultural norms.

Robert Sharpe
The Lindesmith Center�Drug
Policy Foundation
Washington, DC

"The Roots of Racial Profiling" reminded me of an experience I had in 1994, while in college. As a white man living in Cornhill, a nearly exclusively black, crime-ridden neighborhood in the throes of the crack epidemic, in Utica, N.Y., I was headed out my driveway on a weekend night to my job in a convenience store. A police car's lights flashed as I pulled onto the street.

The officer, who was black, came up and asked me for my license and asked a few questions. The last two stood out. He asked why I looked familiar and I told him it was because I give him coffee, wherein he recognized me from the store where I worked. The second was whether I knew why I had been pulled over, to which I replied I did not. He said, "Well, we don't get too many white boys down here this time of night."

It was a few days before it hit me I had been pulled over because of the color of my skin, and years before I heard the term "racial profiling." But one thing was clear: This officer was completely professional and honest, and he was no racist, the conventional wisdom be damned.

In a neighborhood rife with murder, crack whores, and gunfire, that officer was merely playing the odds that after dark a white person was even money for picking up a hooker, buying drugs, or otherwise breaking the law. I appreciated that he wanted to clean up the area.

And as Cincinnati residents found out, he could have taken a nap instead, rather than take the chance that some self-righteous international studies student would call the American Civil Liberties Union whining about rights.

Greg Smith
Chazy, NY

Drawing Fire

I found it interesting that in "The Great Gun Fight" between Robert Ehrlich and John Lott Jr. (August/September), evidence from other countries was never considered by either side. I understand that the incidence of gun-related crime in countries such as Britain and Canada is a fraction of that in the U.S., presumably due to gun control. Control of hand guns limits the number of guns available to criminals, whether acquired through purchase or theft. And don't most shootings occur between people who know each other? Surely gun control would limit this.

John Lott poses a hypothetical in which a mass murderer starts shooting people at random and several bystanders pull out their guns. In such a scenario, we have to hope three things to be true: (1) the bystanders have enough skill to hit what they aim at; (2) the bystanders can accurately identify the bad guy/girl and not target each other; and (3) the police, when they arrive, know whom to shoot.

Godfried Pimlott
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada

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