Concepts from class

As i talked about in the introduction, drug trafficking is a billion dollar market that creates jobs for millions of people from the low-level street dealers who may be individual drug users themselves, through street gangs and contractor-like middle men, up to multinational empires that rival governments in size. Drug cartels depend on low economic social class to distribute their narcotics. Low economic people like street gangs, prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs have long been and continue to be the predominant organized retail drug distributors. Many gangs have evolved from turf-oriented gangs to profit-driven, organized criminal enterprises whose activities include not only retail drug distribution but also other aspects of the trade, including smuggling, transportation, and wholesale distribution. In poorer neighborhoods, many of the young enter the illegal drug market in search of job opportunities and huge incomes. And worst of all, there is no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of government cracking on trafficking in illegal drugs.

At the core of the drug-prohibition movement in the United States is race. Race is the driving force behind the first laws criminalizing drug use, which first appeared as early as the 1870s. In an era in which African Americans, Asian and Mexican immigrants, as well as most European immigrants—Jews, Slaves, and Catholic Irish and Italians—were considered racial others, white racial fears amplified the sense of public menace posed by drugs and drug users. based on beliefs that certain communities of color commonly abuse certain substances. Which Blacks prefer crack cocaine. Five grams of crack constitute possession with intent to distribute. Whites prefer powdered cocaine. In which 500 grams or 1.1 lbs constitute possession. It is easier to find black drug users or dealers with small quantities of crack than whites lugging around a pound or more of cocaine.

Not least, the objective of the war on drugs is to break up trafficking rings. Since the big bosses are difficult to nab. Therefore it is easier for Law enforcement to catch people in areas that tend to be poor, dense, and black. "Although African Americans comprise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses." Mainly from racial profiling, practice of substituting skin color for evidence as grounds for suspicion, by law enforcement in traffic stops. Racial Profiling in traffic stops have led many to name the practice "DWB" (Driving While Black or Brown). “The dehumanizing process behind forming variable capital ‘converts the worker into a crippled monstrosity’” (Wright 73)Due to black men being incarcerated with felony disenfranchisement laws, they are not able to find jobs ad not feel as a regular citizen. The racial disparities in drug arrests and convictions have had a devastating effect on families. Leaving black family farther behind in the white hegemonic system deciding what is legal and illegal.

Read more: Drugs - Drugs Arrests By Race http://social.jrank.org/pages/1309/Drugs-Drugs-Arrests-by-Race.html#ixzz0jzwLp8nU

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