Nexus - 0604 - New Times Magazine-pages

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War money" is being used primarily to fight against the Zapatista From one point of view, the War on Drugs can actually be seen rebels in the southern state of Chiapas, who are demanding land _as a pre-emptive strike: the state's repressive apparatus working reform and economic policy changes which are diametrically overtime, putting poor people away before they get angry; incar- opposed to the transnational corporate agenda. cerating those at the bottom—the helpless, the hopeless—before In the Colombian jungles of Cartagena de Chaira, coca has they demand change. What drugs don't damage (in terms of intact become the only viable commercial crop. In 1996, 30,000 farm- communities, the ability to take action, to organise), the War on ers blocked roads and airstrips to prevent crop-spraying from air- Drugs and mass imprisonment will surely destroy. The crack- craft. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), down on drugs has not stopped drug use. But it has taken thou- one of the oldest guerrilla organisations in Latin America, held 60 sands of unemployed (and potentially angry and rebellious) young government soldiers hostage for nine months, demanding that the men and women off the streets. And it has created a mushroom- military leave the jungle, that social services be increased and that ing prison population. alternative crops be made available to farmers. And given the notorious involvement of Colombia's highest officials with the | PRISON LABOUR: A POT OF GOLD powerful drug cartels, it is not sur- An American worker, who once prising that most US "Drug War" upon a time made $8 per hour, loses military aid actually goes to fighting his job when the company relocates the guerrillas. to Thailand where workers are paid One result of the international war Arrests of African-Americans only $2 per day. Unemployed and on drugs has been the internationali- alienated from a society indifferent to sation of the US prison population. have been about five times higher his needs, he becomes involved in For the most part, it is the low-level than arrests of whites, although the drug economy or some other out- "mules" carrying drugs into the lawed means of survival. He is United States who are captured and whites and African-Americans arrested, put in prison and put to incarcerated in ever-increasing num- | Ys@ drugs at about the same rate. work. His new wage: 22 cents per bers. At least 25 per cent of inmates hour. From worker, to unemployed, in the federal prison system today to criminal, to convict labourer, the will be subject to deportation when cycle has come full circle. And the their sentences are completed. only victor is big business. In the US, the War on Drugs has For private business, prison labour been a war on poor people—particularly poor, urban, African- is like a pot of gold: no strikes, no union organising, no unem- American men and women. It is well documented that police ployment insurance or workers compensation to pay, no language enforcement of the new, harsh drug laws have been focused on problem as in a foreign country. low-level dealers in communities of colour. Arrests of African- New leviathan prisons are being built with thousands of eerie Americans have been about five times higher than arrests of acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for whites, although whites and African-Americans use drugs at Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shov- about the same rate. And, African-Americans have been impris- el manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lin- oned in numbers even more disproportionate than their relative gerie for Victoria's Secret—all at a fraction of the cost of "free arrest rates. It is estimated that in 1994, on any given day, one out labour". of every 128 US adults was incarcerated while one out of every Prisoners can be forced to work for pennies because they have 17 African-American adult males was incarcerated. no rights. Even the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, The differential in sentencing for powder and crack cocaine is one glaring example of institutionalised racism. About 90 per cent of crack arrests are of African-Americans, while 75 per cent of powder cocaine arrests are of whites. Under federal law, it takes only five grams of crack cocaine to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sentence; but it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine—100 times as much—to trigger this same sen- tence. This flagrant injustice was highlight- ed by a 1996 nationwide federal prison rebellion when Congress refused to enact changes in sentencing laws that would equalise penalties. Statistics show that police repression and mass incarceration are not curbing the drug trade. Dealers are forced to move, turf is reshuffled, already vulnerable families are broken up. But the demand for drugs still exists, as do huge profits for high-level dealers in this fifty-billion-dollar interna- tional industry. From one point of view, the War on Drugs can actually be seen as a pre-emptive strike: the state's repressive apparatus working overtime, putting poor people away before they get angry; incar- cerating those at the bottom—the helpless, the hopeless—before they demand change. What drugs don't damage (in terms of intact communities, the ability to take action, to organise), the War on Drugs and mass imprisonment will surely destroy. The crack- down on drugs has not stopped drug use. But it has taken thou- sands of unemployed (and potentially angry and rebellious) young men and women off the streets. And it has created a mushroom- ing prison population. JUNE — JULY 1999 NEXUS - 23 Arrests of African-Americans