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Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

Everything you say is entirely logical, but omits the reality that as a black person in america you are vastly more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. Not more likely to DO drug crimes, just more likely to get caught.

This means profiling and racist policing directly leads to economic exclusion. If the american dream is upward mobility, that means black people get a smaller shot at the american dream.

But all that aside. This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars. The guy in the article had possession charges. That means he had nothing to do with selling the stuff, he was just a fan. That's a big difference from being an accountant convicted of fraud or a bookie trying to work at a casino.

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This is just bad statistics. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-m...

>For example, all of these “equally likely to have used drugs” claims turn out to be that blacks and whites are equally likely to have “used drugs in the past year”, but blacks are far more likely to have used drugs in the past week – that is, more whites are only occasional users. That gives blacks many more opportunities to be caught by the cops. Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine. Further, blacks are more likely to live in the cities, where there is a heavy police shadow, and whites in the suburbs or country, where there is a lower one.

...

>Finally, all of this is based on self-reported data about drug use. Remember from a couple paragraphs ago how studies showed that black people were twice as likely to fail to self-report their drug use? And you notice here that black people are twice as likely to be arrested for drug use as their self-reports suggest? That’s certainly an interesting coincidence.

> Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine

This raises a question about why drugs that whites are more likely to use are penalized less severely than drugs that blacks are more likely to use.

He discusses this in the summary.

>It would be nice to say that this shows the criminal justice system is not disproportionately harming blacks, but unfortunately it doesn’t come anywhere close to showing anything of the sort. There are still many ways it can indirectly harm blacks without being explicitly racist. Anatole France famously said that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich as well as poor people from begging for bread and sleeping under bridges”, and in the same way that the laws France cites, be they enforced ever so fairly, would still disproportionately target poor people, so other laws can, even when fairly enforced, target black people. The classic example of this is crack cocaine – a predominantly black drug – carrying a higher sentence than other whiter drugs. Even if the police are scrupulously fair in giving the same sentence to black and white cokeheads, the law will still have a disproportionate effect.

But note that this supports very different conclusions from what you'd think only knowing that blacks have higher penalty rates. Is it racist laws, or racist policemen? The response to each is going to be different; e.g. giving policemen "diversity training" or something only helps if they were the problem.

> Likewise, whites are more likely to use low-penalty drugs like hallucinogens, and blacks are more likely to use high-penalty drugs like crack cocaine.

Why is it, then, that crack cocaine is a high-penalty drug, and hallucinogens are low-penalty drugs?

(I leave this as an exercise to the reader.)

Because of the damage addiction does to communities. When these laws were passed it was people in those affected communities demanding them. People forget there were huge community marches in the 80s/90s crack epidemics with locals demanding police rid their towns of crack dealers.

> People forget there were huge community marches in the 80s/90s crack epidemics with locals demanding police rid their towns of crack dealers.

People also forget why those dealers were in the business in the first place.

(Hint: the US government played a large role in explicitly financing the drug trade that resulted in a stead inflow of crack, predominantly to black communities[0]. Crack cocaine would not have been anywhere nearly as lucrative a business otherwise[1].)

[0] https://oig.justice.gov/special/9712/

[1] Which isn't to say that it's particularly lucrative either way, as has been demonstrated numerous times by economists - it just happens to be one of the few options available for many people who are trying to scrape together a living under those circumstances.

A steady influx of cocaine, which became too expensive when said shady agencies stopped what they were doing and local dealers decided to boil the expensive coke into crack so it became more affordable to addicts. Now there was a $5 per point addictive drug flooding poor areas with zero law enforcement to control it.

I remember big protests with black community leaders accusing the police of racism for not arresting crack dealers as their neighborhoods had become so dangerous police totally avoided them. They demanded new laws. Their newly elected reps ran on a platform of new tougher laws. The heavy hand of government then solved this by creating mandatory minimum sentencing and other laws that were blanket applied regardless of individual situation and created mass incarceration.

Yes.

Now, let's think why white neighborhoods were not struggling with the same problems of violent crime due to the drug trade. We know that the answer is not

(a) white people weren't doing drugs

(b) white people were doing drugs that were less addictive

because in reality, white people had (and still have) roughly the same total rates of drug use as everyone else. And in this case, white people were largely using the same drug (cocaine, in powered form) as black people (cocaine, in freebase form).

I'm not saying that black people at the time weren't concerned with violent crime and calling for solutions to it. In fact, I'm usually the person who points this out whenever discussions about 80s and 90s drug law sentencing come up on HN. What I am saying instead is that it's silly to ignore the reason that black communities were concerned with problems that white communities never had to face in the first place.

Whites were doing less drugs per drug user, as my comment above said.

No, drug usage rates among whites are not and were not substantially lower than drug usage rates for other races. (In some years, they were actually higher, though not substantially so). In fact, in the 1980s, white people were also 45% more likely to sell drugs as well[0].

The difference in the effects of drug trade on black communities and on white communities in the 1980s are emphatically not due to fundamental differences of the drugs themselves, or due to differences in the prevalence of drug trade and drug usage.

[0] http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/339610?seq=1#page_scan_t...

>Hindelang, Hirshi, and Weiss (1981) compare police records on arrests to self-reports for a sample of individuals and find these to be similar, with the exception of self-reports for young black men, which appear to understate the amount of crime committed.

If the fraction of drug users are equal, but blacks lie about whether they're drug users more often, then your statistics will show that whites use more.

The reported difference between blacks and whites is less than the known difference in honesty between them with regard to drug questions.

You also don't seem to have responded to my point at all, which is that blacks have a higher rate of reported usage within the last week. This is before taking the self-reported nature into account. See the source originally cited, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rdusda.pdf

>Among black drug users, 54% reported using drugs at least monthly and 32% reported using them weekly. Such frequent drug use was less common among white drug users. Among white users, 39% reported using drugs monthly and 20% reported using them weekly.

I'll let you do the math to determine how this affects usage rates.

> You don't seem to have responded to my point at all, which is that blacks have a higher rate of reported usage within the last week.

That's completely counter to the results of both the MTF and NSDUH. Since 1975, with the exception of Native Americans, whites consistently have slightly higher usage rates of drugs than any other racial demographic, although the overall drug usage rates are roughly comparable. For example:

> For a number of years, 12th-grade African-American students reported lifetime, annual, 30-day, and daily prevalence rates for nearly all drugs that were lower—sometimes dramatically so—than those for White or Hispanic 12th graders. That is less true [in 2014], with rates of drug use among African Americans more similar to the other groups[0]

The reason for the discrepancy is that you're citing statistics from the BJS about drug users. That's quite different from usage rates of drugs within the general population.

Finally, you are quite literally begging the question[1] by citing the 1981 analysis (which is itself a rather contested one). Even if we take that data at face value, it concludes that black men understate the crimes they commit, and does so by comparing this to arrest records. The whole point is that arrest records provide a skewed perspective of drug usage for black men (and women), because they are far more likely to be arrested for the behaviors they do.

[0] http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtf-vol1_2014...

[1] Yes, begging the question, not raising the question.

You're using 12th grade numbers. That's more than enough to account for any difference.

>The reason for the discrepancy is that you're citing statistics from the BJS about drug users. That's quite different from usage rates of drugs within the general population.

If the same percent of whites use drugs as blacks, then looking at how many drugs are used by each user (or how often each user uses them) matters. If each black user uses more than each white user, the total usage can be more.

>Finally, you are quite literally begging the question[1] by citing the 1981 analysis (which is itself a rather contested one). Even if we take that data at face value, it concludes that black men understate the crimes they commit, and does so by comparing this to arrest records. The whole point is that arrest records provide a skewed perspective of drug usage for black men (and women), because they are far more likely to be arrested for the behaviors they do.

I took that quote out of your jstor source. If you don't like it, use the one from SSC that I linked to:

>Comparisons of several different surveys of drug use find that “nonreporting of drug use is twice as common among blacks and Hispanics as among whites” (Mensch and Kandel). (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2749113)

This can't be explained by bias in arrest records. Note that they're looking at how many people who admitted using drugs in 1980 denied ever using drugs in 1984.

Crack is highly physically addictive. People aren't out robbing houses to get their next acid fix.

> Crack is highly physically addictive. People aren't out robbing houses to get their next acid fix.

Powder cocaine is literally the same drug as crack cocaine, yet the sentencing disparities since the 1980s have been completely out of sync. They've slightly converged in the last ~5 years (crack cocaine sentences have been reduced), but let's not pretend that the sentencing laws[0] have not been radically influenced by perceptions of associations of drugs with race.

> People aren't out robbing houses to get their next _____ fix

LSD is not physically addictive, but in general, I'll encourage you to question this line of thinking. Looking at whether people are "out robbing houses" glosses over the question of why people would commit robbery in order to purchase drugs, and the racial and socioeconomic issues that are inextricably linked to that.

Put another way: who's not committing robbery in order to purchase the drugs that they use, and why aren't they? Is it because their drug (e.g. powdered cocaine) is fundamentally less addictive? Or is it because they are already in a position in society that allows them other opportunities to finance their drug use? Is it a statement about the drug itself, or simply a statement about the social structures that already exist?

[0] If you want a really wonderful example of this, look at the reason that possession of <27g of marijuana was the only drug that was exempted from the Rockefeller drug laws' mandatory minimum sentencing. It was, quite literally, that kids in predominantly white and wealthy suburbs were being sentenced to prison time, and the parents wanted the judges to have discretionary power when sentencing them.

> Powder cocaine is literally the same drug as crack cocaine

Highly incorrect.

Smoking an equivalent amount of cocaine-base (crack) vs snorting cocaine-HCL (powder) is a completely different experience due to purity, ROA, and absorption (surface area of lungs vs nasal passage is 50x), etc.

Not to mention that is not an ionic bond, it is covalent. Different molecule.

> Smoking an equivalent amount of cocaine-base (crack) vs snorting cocaine-HCL (powder) is a completely different experience

This boils down to "the means of ingestion of a drug has a significant effect on the effects of the drug". Anybody who has ever both smoked a joint and consumed THC edibles knows firsthand that this is the case. Insufflation and ingestion are different from inhalation, so yes, the experience, onset, reinforcement mechanisms would be different. That does not change the fact that they are fundamentally the same drug.

> Not to mention that is not an ionic bond, it is covalent. Different molecule.

It's not the form it's transported in that's relevant; it's the form that reaches the CNS that matters[0]. In this case, the pharmacokinetics of the two drugs are the same once they hit the bloodstream.

If that doesn't convince you, the consider that the effects of injecting crack cocaine[1] and powder cocaine are literally chemically identical.

[0] Actually, it's the pharmacokinetic process of the drug that's relevant, since two different molecules can be metabolized identically. (And not all drugs affect the CNS, but that's a side point).

[1] Less common, because smoking is logistically easier, and also results in a sharper onset since it saves half the round trip to the lungs. But it does happen.

> In this case, the pharmacokinetics of the two drugs are the same once they hit the bloodstream.

Highly incorrect.

The amount of the drug and concentration of the drug and the salt or ester of the drug can impact the pharmacokinetics of the drug.

It was used to be thought that morphine and heroin was the same exact thing because the H was converted to morphine quickly. Except H ends up having different metabolites and ratios - not the mention the effects are not the same / even when accounted for the dose and ROA.

Also, to the main point, if one produces 10x the effect of the other, the point is the same...

Crack is severely more punished over cocaine because it severely impacts user behavior - much more so than cocaine. The campaign to punish crack possession was also largely due to blacks demanding it to be made as so.

> The amount of the drug and concentration of the drug and the salt or ester of the drug can impact the pharmacokinetics of the drug.

Can, but in the case of crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine, they demonstrably do not[0][1].

> Crack is severely more punished over cocaine because it severely impacts user behavior - much more so than cocaine

It really does not. It can be (but is not always) more habit-forming to smoke a drug than to insufflate it, but this is true of all substances. And intravenous or subcutaneous use of crack cocaine and powder cocaine are literally, 100% identical.

> The campaign to punish crack possession was also largely due to blacks demanding it to be made as so.

No. There was support from within the black community, but to say it is "largely" due to this is overstating the case.

And getting back to the original point, that doesn't actually contradict the original statement, because the reason that black communities felt the impact of violent drug crime and white communities didn't is itself a direct effect of the racial power structures involved.

[0] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8926741

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8918856

Your references support my statements...

"However, evidence exists showing a greater abuse liability, greater propensity for dependence, and more severe consequences when cocaine is smoked (cocaine-base) or injected intravenously (cocaine hydrochloride) compared with intranasal use (cocaine hydrochloride).)."

The fact that the effects are different, even with the "same drug".

> the reason that black communities felt the impact of violent drug crime and white communities didn't is itself a direct effect of the racial power structures involved.

Except no matter where you go in the world, no matter its racial break-down, and no matter what it's history is, the pattern is the same: blacks disproportionately commit violent acts. And when those places are near 100% black, it gets even worse.

> And intravenous or subcutaneous use of crack cocaine and powder cocaine are literally, 100% identical.

We are comparing powder cocaine insufflated with crack smoked and how that impacted black communities.

> Except no matter where you go in the world, no matter its racial break-down, and no matter what it's history is, the pattern is the same: blacks disproportionately commit violent acts.

I wish you'd come out and stated that this was your thesis from the very beginning. I now regret having wasted my time with this conversation.

> Why is it, then, that crack cocaine is a high-penalty drug, and hallucinogens are low-penalty drugs?

Because black communities in the 1980s pushed for a crackdown (pun intended) on the crack industry, while no-one really cares all that much about the hallucinogen industries.

He mentions this in the summary. Note that this still doesn't support kennywinker's claim that "profiling and racist policing directly leads to economic exclusion". If anything, higher usage, combined with several other factors, possibly including racist laws (but not racist enforcement of those laws), led to this.

> Why is it, then, that crack cocaine is a high-penalty drug, and hallucinogens are low-penalty drugs?

Because people are much more likely to kill, rob, rape, and do other heinous crimes from crack use than occasional LSD use.

When crack-cocaine hit the black communities, it absolutely destroyed them far much more than any previous drugs did.

In this article they attempt to list area stopped and income as factors unrelated to race that should be controlled for. Do you think that's reasonable? Do those things have nothing to do with race in your world?

The paragraph immediately after discusses whether they should be controlled for, and provides further evidence.

"This is like saying that people who've had DUIs can't work at bars"

In fact, people with alcohol-related felonies have a really tough time getting liquor licenses.

Yes, but this guy wanted to work at the front desk, not own the license. And society hasn't recently taken major steps towards legalizing DUIs.

But this is more like someone owning a liquor store selling to underage kids, thus breaking the law losing his license then getting denied a job at distillery for prior lapse of judgement.

It doesn't sound like that at all to me. In fact, it sounds a lot more like getting caught drinking underage, and then getting denied a job at a distillery.

If we're being precise, it sounds like getting caught drinking when you're 20, then a few years later the drinking age is lowered to 19 but you still get denied a job at a distillery.

More apt would be getting caught making moonshine and getting denied a job at a distillery. The point is the same. Prior bad judgement may result in diminished future outlook.

The person in the article wasn't growing pot. They had a joint on them and were stopped by the cops. You're trying to escalate it but the point is they did something that we now consider not wrong, served their time, but are still being punished for it.

I am a black person in America and I think you're half right.

White people and black people use illegal drugs at approximately the same rate. Black people, despite being a population only 1/4 the size of the white population, are arrested for drug crimes in both greater numbers and in greater proportion.

Into my mid-to-late 30s, when I would get pulled over by the police, roughly half of the time, the officer would ask me if I had any drugs in my car. My response was usually "No more than you do, officer". The police profile and harass us. There are even rogue officers who plant evidence to manufacture crimes.

We all know this. As a result, many of us are more staunchly against even casual drug use in our personal lives.

It's not fair. It's not right. It's just the way it is.

I have a friend whom I have known since childhood who is currently serving 20 years in a federal prison for marijuana related offenses. He made a choice and it turned out poorly for him.

I'll save my outrage for the people who were falsely convicted. I'll save my outrage for the victims of planted evidence and corrupt cops.

If someone is actually guilty of the crime, their case is far less sympathetic.

> Everything you say is entirely logical, but omits the reality that as a black person in america you are vastly more likely to be arrested for drug crimes. Not more likely to DO drug crimes, just more likely to get caught.

It is true that black people are more likely to be arrested than white people for drug crimes. 57% of arrestees are white, 37% black. That's about 3x the percentage that you'd expect if you just go by the racial distribution of drug users.

However, that's not actually really relevant here because most drug users, white or black, do not get caught at all. There are about 1.2 million drug arrests per year, so roughly 680k whites and 444k blacks.

We've got about 320 million people. Let's be generous and knock out people 0-14 (20%) because they are probably too young to have gotten into drugs, and also knock out 55+ (26%) because older people don't seem to get arrested much for casual drug use (perhaps if you are old and a regular drug user you've figured out how to not get caught...). So that leaves us 173 million people who are similar demographically to the people getting arrested for drugs.

That would be about 22 million blacks, 109 million whites.

So...we've got about 680k whites arrested for drugs per year out of 109 million, which means 108.6 million out of 109 million whites are NOT arrested. In percentages, 99.4% of whites are not arrested for drugs in any given year.

For blacks, we've got 444k arrested for drugs out of 22 million, which means 21.6 million out of 22 million blacks are NOT arrested. In percentages, 98.0% of blacks are not arrested for drugs in any given year.

98.0% is lower than 99.4%, and that is something that should be investigated--I'm not trying to argue that there is no bias. I'm just saying that by focusing on those arrested rather than those not arrested, you get a misleading picture.

This kind of mistake is common when people assess risks, and so people tend to overreact when something increases a very low probability risk. For instance, we read that some particular food might increase our chances of getting some particular disease from 1/10^6 over our lifetime to 3/10^6, and we think we need to immediately cut that food even if we like it and it does plenty of good things for us, because it increases our risk 3x and that sounds huge.

Oddly, we don't seem to do this with transportation. Someone trying to decide whether to drive or fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco will probably decide based on cost, time, convenience, things on the driving route they might want to visit, whether they want their car with them in San Francisco, and similar factors. For most people I don't think that the fact that flying (at least on a major airline) is safer than driving would be a factor. They recognize that the chances of dying in an automobile accident on a drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco are so low as to not be worth considering, and so that some other mode of transportation would have even lower chances is not relevant.

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