War on Drugs Catches the Minnows, Not the Big Fish
The Houston Chronicle reports today that the war on drugs nets small-time offenders.
"Texas' war on drugs punishes few major importers and dealers but imprisons thousands caught with less than a sugar packet full of cocaine or other illegal drugs."
"The battle rages most fiercely in Harris County. Of the 58,000 drug convictions won by local prosecutors over the past five years, 77 percent involved less than a gram of a drug, according to district court data analyzed by the Houston Chronicle. Harris County sent 35,000 of these small-time offenders to jail or prison."
"The numbers suggest that these men and women are collateral damage in the war on drugs, arrested because they were easy targets rather than objects of a grand strategy. The impact is felt most harshly in black neighborhoods."
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