Crack is Wack

I was watching this series on Sundance about drugs "The Drug Wars" and they were talking about the crack epidemic of the 80's. They said the "Drug Free America" laws passed under Reagan's watch put it on the books - 5 grams of crack (worth $125 on the street) automatically gets you 5 years in jail, but 500 grams of cocaine powder (worth $50,000 to get the same sentence). Crack and cocaine are the same thing, so essentially people buying less drugs (crack) got longer time in jail. So as a result, alot of black and latino kids were thrown in jail. I also didn't realize that crack was the first drug to become a big addiction for women, which in the inner city where the household is mainly single (women) parents creates a serous problem. Also, just prior to the drug epidemic, there were massive cuts in urban development, which meant fewer jobs and resources for inner city residents.

Something I was aware of, but never correlated in time was the major overflow of the prisons which began privitizing prison systems was during the crack epidemic. So what have we learned boys and girls?

Take away economic development (jobs), flood the area with powerful illegal drugs, pass laws that prosecute only the petty thugs in the game, while exempting the power players and watch the people tear themselves apart and the media hype the hell out of it to scare everyone and create mass hysteria. Then privitize the prison system so you can get residual income from the government for keeping prisons full. What? Rehabilitation? Fugetaboutit.

If that ain't a plan by "the man" to keep a people down, I don't know what is.