This morning on NPR I heard a brief news story which repeated a, by now, firmly embedded meme of the liberal, PC elites. I thought it would be useful to take a closer look at the ideas expressed and point out the way in which PC-thought has interfered with the straight-forward analysis of a societal problem.
The news item had to do with the differing manner in the way the law treats Cocaine in powdered form versus in Crystallized form (Crack.) Usually, as in this article, this is depicted through a racial lens with an emphasis on the way in which minority Americans end up being treated much more harshly than Caucasians; the not so subtle implication is that Crack, a drug used predominantly by poor, minority users, is treated more harshly precisely because it is directed against the designated victim class.
One peculiarity of PC-thought is that it seems to consistently find a way to come down on the side of thugs and bullies while professing its concern for its victims. In this story, their consistency is on display.
What follows is a long post which addresses one particular intersection of race, PC-thought, and public policy.
PBS has a Frontline story about drug sentencing guidelines and their effects on race; it is available on-line. Included in the story was an interview with Michael S. Gelacek, who is described thusly:
Gelacek served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1990 until 1998, and served as its Vice Chair from 1994-98. Currently, he is practicing law in Washington, D.C. During his tenure, the Sentencing Commission issued a recommendation that penalties for crack and powder cocaine be equalized to remedy what many saw as an unfair disparity in sentencing. Congress rejected this recommendation.
In the interview Gelacek makes several statements that go unchallenged and are clearly worth examining. He minimizes the damage Crack caused in the inner cities:
There was a lot of association of crack to violence. But when we looked at it, what we found is what's true with any new drug that comes on the market. The violence that's associated with the drug is not people who use the drug going out and committing crimes on innocent bystanders, although some of that occurs. Most of the violent crimes associated with crack cocaine had to do with setting down trafficking patterns, and who was going to stand on what street corner. Once that settled out, the violence died down.
Once stable, mature markets have been established, everything should work out just fine. Gelacek imagines that the worst aspect of the whole situation is that some relatively innocent by-standers and small time dealers have been sentenced to long terms in captivity for crimes which were really not so significant. He tells the sad story of an intellectually challenged young man who got caught up in dealing Crack and ended up with a 25 year term. It is notable that no where else in the interview does he mention any of the other problems that Crack caused. In true liberal fashion, he offers his prescription or the drug problem:
The prison population is out of control. We can't build jails fast enough. The cost is astronomical. What's scary about the prison problem in this country is that it's becoming a business. We're putting prisons online every month in this country. Sooner or later, the public is going to understand that it costs a tremendous amount of money to keep these people in jail for long periods of time. . . . Law enforcement does not focus on people who traffic in powder cocaine. They're still not going to be out chasing around the suburbs or the boardrooms of corporate America or anyplace else. . . .
The other thing we know is that treatment works in the drug area. But our response is, "Lock 'em up." Our response to everything is, "Put somebody in jail." There are better ways to go about it, and there are cheaper ways to do it. There are alternatives to incarceration that we ought to try. . . .
Mr. Gelacek is a lawyer, he has no experience with drug treatment as far as I can determine, and his facts are simply wrong in this case. I spent almost 15 years working as a Psychiatric consultant to 2 different, well known, drug treatment facilities and the fact is that drug treatment now and then is, at best, barely effective. Alcoholics have an approximately 50% relapse rate, and that is using AA and Psychiatric support, when indicated, and is the best we can do. When it comes to "hard drugs" the picture is quite bleak. IV Heroin users have close to a 90% relapse rate and Crack addicts, on the rare occasions they can make their way into treatment, almost invariably relapse.
Gelacek brings in the racial angle and as happens so often mistakes correlation with causation:
The commission issued a report that said that there was no intent to create a racial impact. There is a racial impact. It is discriminatory. Ninety-five percent of the people that go to jail for trafficking in crack cocaine are either black or Hispanic. The majority of them are black, probably ninety percent of them. And there's another five percent that are Hispanic. And I want to tell you, if it were the other way around, if ninety-five percent of the people doing five years or more in jail for trafficking in crack cocaine were Caucasian, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about it, because the law would have never passed in the first place or it would have been gone a long time ago. . . . You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there is a racial overtone. And we haven't done anything to change that. I don't think Congress sat down and said, "This'll really impact on the black and Hispanic community." But the fact remains that it does.
Finally, the sentencing board suggested changes in the guidelines, which Gelacek endorses:
The commission recommended that we equalize penalties for crack and powder cocaine. That would have meant that if you trafficked in 500 grams of powder, you get five years. If you trafficked in 500 grams of crack you get five years. Same ratio.
I don't want it to seem that I am picking on Mr. Gelacek, but he is just wrong about too many things, and this was the man chosen to be vice-chair of the committee; sadly, he is also a representative of the level of discourse one sees when bright people have been infected with PC-thought.
His first mistake is to imagine that Crack and Powdered Cocaine are the same drug. They are not even in the same class. A drug's effect on a person's psyche is determined by the chemical composition of the drug, along with the person's expectation and setting, in conjunction with the route of administration which determines the speed of entry into the brain. Heroin is much more addictive if used intravenously because the spike in blood levels create an intense feeling of euphoria, followed by a peaceful, dream like state. The sedation of the dream like state without the euphoria is much less of a motivator for repetition. In the same way, Cocaine powder sniffed, while replete with dangers, does not cause the intense euphoric state that Crack does. The Crack smoker experiences the most intense euphoria of their life the first time they smoke the "rock". Experienced drug users who have tried every drug known to man will tell you that there is no comparison to the feeling they had the first time they smoked Crack. Furthermore, in all my years interviewing Drug addicts in recovery, I can recall only a handful of patients who tried Crack, didn't particularly like it, and didn't become addicted. Most Crack users report being addicted when they take their first "hit!" There are many people who can take powdered Cocaine recreationally and it can be months to years before they discover they have a major drug problem; Crack users know they are hooked instantly. The idea that Crack and powdered Cocaine are equivalent is nonsense and anyone in the field will confirm that.
On the second issue of the racial disparity, there is a grain of truth to the comments, but they are inverted. Powdered Cocaine was an expensive luxury drug not available to most poor, inner city dwellers; Crack was cheap and readily available. However, Cocaine did not ravage communities, Crack did. Too many black women, mothers, became addicted to Crack. In a community which was already stressed by the paucity of intact two parent families, this was a disaster. Babies born with Cocaine in their systems were typically hyper-reactive, often later found to have hyper activity (researchers have not been able to differentiate the effects of intrauterine Cocaine form the effects pf early deprivation and neglect, but that hardly seems like an argument to treat Crack more leniently.) Locking up dealers, along with a generation seeing first hand the devastation caused by the plague of Crack, has been the most effective tool we have found to break the epidemic.
So here is the $64,000 question: who were the real "victims" of the Crack epidemic, the effects of which are still being felt today? Were the victims the petty dealers, who often were just trying to support their own habits? Or were the victims the unfortunates who tried Crack without realizing the danger, and the children abandoned and neglected by mothers who would give up anything for another "hit" of Crack?
The worst cognitive dissonance occurs in those who believe simultaneously that Crack was a plot by the CIA to enslave Black Americans, and that the plot was directed against young, Black Men. The vector of damage caused by Crack is directly at the youngest, most innocent victims of the epidemic.
PC-thought allows for only one oppressor class, white men; once you have to tailor all your thinking to fit the model, it is all too easy to come up with foolish conclusions. When agents of the white male oppressor act, the focus of the PC police is on the immediate victim of their attack, whether it be drug dealers dealing death and destruction, or Islamofascists doing their version of the same. The real victims of aggression and violence, the true innocents, are readily abandoned to the vicious thugs. It is surreal.
It makes one wonder who truly cares about the innocents in the Black community and in Iraq; those who demand responsible behavior from the purveyors of Crack and IED's, and are willing to back their demands up with force, or those who would counsel us to surrender the streets of Baghdad and Harlem to the most successful sociopaths?
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