Rand Paul: "The War On Drugs Has Had A Racial Outcome"

realclearpolitics.com ^ | June 23, 2014

[Tailgunner Joe]

"Three out of four people in prison are black or brown for nonviolent drug use. However, when you do surveys, white kids are doing drugs at an equal rate, and they are a much bigger part of the population. So, why are the prisons full of black and brown kids? It is easier to arrest them. It is easier to convict them. They don't get as good of attorneys. And, frankly, they live in the city in a much more collected fashion than in the suburbs, and so the police are patrolling the city more. But it is unfair. The war on drugs has had a racial outcome, unintentionally, but it has a racial outcome. And I want to try to fix it."

[digger48]

We have about as many white meth-heads here as we do black crack user/dealers.

The white meth heads get the same amount of time in the pen for making it as as the blacks get for the the drugs.

but with the blacks, there are always, always a ton of priors, and usually include gun crimes

[nopardons]

They ALWAYS have been!

[nathanbedford]

As one with radical libertarian views toward legalizing drugs, I nevertheless feel constrained to point out that it is fallacious to say that it is wrong to arrest some people for using drugs because we do not arrest other people for using drugs. We do not excuse speeders because other cars are also driven over the limit. Nor do we say that it is wrong to cite Black speeders because we do not cite white speeders proportionately.

Having said that, it is not inappropriate to note that yet another unanticipated consequence of the war on drugs has been uneven enforcement among the races. While that is not a reason to fail to enforce the law, it may be a reason to repeal the law. One wrong does not justify another, but invidious enforcement between races might not be a desirable social outcome.

Back in the 60s the black community in Philadelphia was complaining because the police were arresting row house occupants for drinking on their front stoops while letting white suburbanites drink freely in their backyard grill parties. There was a time when both might be hassled by the police for breaking prohibition.

[nopardons]

Which he won’t get!

[jimbug]

Also simple: don't do sex outside of marriage that creates fatherless, directionless offspring looking for an escape.

The current issue of Imprimis, published by Hillsdale College, has an excellent article titled "The Worldview that Makes the Underclass" available online at http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/current

[GeronL]

but the libertarian Democrats won’t accept that either

[CatherineofAragon]

Keep on digging that hole...

[2ndDivisionVet]

Pretty funny coming from a guy whose known more Nazis than a Munich beer hall and more neo-Confederates than an SCV convention.

[cdcdawg]

Hmmm, Rand Paul makes a pretty fair living from medicine and politics. Colorado legalized pot. Shouldn’t the incarceration rate even out now? Since more drug busts are for pot, and drug busts are the purported reason for the disparity in the prison population, I would think that Senator Paul would be willing to bet good money against little, ole cdcdawg (a descendent of traffickers in contraband) that the incarceration rate will even out in that state. I would be willing to go even further, and bet that it widens. Drug possession and dealing is among the few things they ever get white perps on. Again, spend a few days at the courthouse, Rand.

[cherry]

I think they go after white kids plenty....I suspect that the white "kids" are not as violent and don't have the history some of the convicted blacks do....

however, if someone wanted to destroy the black population they found an easy way to do it thru abortion,drugs,welfare,fatherless homes, etc...

someone might suspect it was intentional.

[P-Marlowe]

Rand Paul has been smoking too much “medical” marijuana.

[Yogafist]

Let him talk. I would rather find out who he is before I am misled into voting for him. He wasn’t my favorite but I would have worked, and donated to get him elected. At this point, I don’t see myself even voting for him if he gets the nomination.

[Jim Robinson]

No matter how you spread it, bull shit is still bullshit. Don’t do drugs, don’t deal drugs.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[GeronL]

bump

[Lurker]

Duh, Rand. These anti drug laws were racist from the get go.

[MV=PY]

"However, when you do surveys, white kids are doing drugs at an equal rate, and they are a much bigger part of the population."

Oh! Maybe white kids respond to surveys more than black kids?

This is beyond absurd.

[SkyDancer]

That too - some probably out on parole and got caught.

[gwgn02]

Jerry “moonbeam” Brown and Rand “Rainbow” Paul

[RoosterRedux]

Paul is thinking of running in 2016. Like a rock climber, he is looking for a toe-hold.

He has fired off a lot of these toe-hold seeking shots lately...to little avail.