The “war on drugs”: A continuation of the war on the African American family

Abstract

While American drug control policies have been consistently irrational and ineffective when measured by levels of substance abuse, they have been remarkably rational and successful as agents of social control in maintaining the stratification patterns of racial/ethnic minorities and women. In this sense, racism and sexism are impediments to achieving rational drug control policies. In the current “War On Drugs,” African American men and women are disproportionately criminalized and incarcerated for abuse of cocaine and its derivative crack. A deconstruction of this “War” suggests that it maintains and efficiently updates for the new millennium American's long standing war on the African American family begun under the system of chattel slavery.