Melvin B. Miller
Editor & Publisher

Be afraid

Some myths are simply harmless fairy tales, but other myths, when believed, have dire consequences. The myth that blacks are at the heart of drug abuse in America unleashed a ferocious prosecutorial attack against African Americans. It appears now that there was little justification in making African Americans the focus of the anti-drug effort.

A recent study by the Boston Public Health Commission has found that blacks are not the major substance abusers in Boston. Whites accounted for a majority of the drug related deaths (primarily from overdoses) from 1999 through 2003, the years of the study.

The disparity becomes apparent by comparing the number of drug-related deaths per 100,000 units of population. In 2003, 32.9 whites per 100,000 died of drug-related deaths, while this was true for only 25.2 blacks and 22.6 Latinos. In South Boston and Charlestown alone, 69 people per 100,000 died from substance abuse compared to 26.3 per 100,000 for the citywide average.

Many whites have been surprised by the recent debunking of the racial drug myth on the front page of The Boston Globe. However, for some time, other national studies have shown that blacks are guilty of drug abuse at a rate less than whites. The tragedy is that despite the fact that blacks are less likely than whites to be drug abusers, blacks are the ones being incarcerated for drug offenses.

Despite the fact that only 11 percent of drug addicts are black, they constitute 37 percent of those arrested for drug crimes. More than 42 percent of those in federal prisons for drug violations are black, with the number rising to almost 60 percent of those in state prisons for similar offenses.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics are shocking. There is a likelihood that 919 of every 100,000 white males will be incarcerated for drug offenses. That is a mere pittance when compared with the rate for black males. Their drug related incarceration rate is 6,926 per 100,000. And black males commit a lower rate of drug offenses per 100,000 than whites.

There has been a 90 percent growth in the federal prison population over the past decade, with more than 55 percent of the inmates serving time for drug offenses. Only 11 percent have been locked up for crimes of violence. The excessive prosecution of drug offenses against blacks has been devastating. At any time, one out of every eight black males between 25 and 29 years of age is incarcerated. In 1954, the year of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, 98,000 blacks were in jail. By the end of 2004, that number had climbed by more than nine times to 910,000.

A study of drug cases in the Dorchester District Court six years ago published in Commonwealth Magazine found that the national pattern for racially disparate treatment also applies in Boston. While 45 percent of those arrested for drug violations were white, 89 percent of those serving a two-year sentence for having drugs in a school zone were black or Latino. Under state law, those charged with possession with intent to sell can be charged with an extra offense if they are within a park or school zone area. However, these sites cover most of the center city.

It was not helpful to nonwhites if they had no prior record — 58 percent were still charged with “intent” compared with only 14 percent of whites. The pattern of mandatory convictions statewide was similar.

Some black militants claim that discriminatory criminal prosecution is the new Jim Crow. The racially unequal prosecution of drug offenses certainly gives some credibility to the militants’ assertions.