Name: Anonymous 2011-03-17 6:52
The racism in drug laws lies in their enforcement, and the ludicrously uneven ways in which drug laws are applied to different racial groups. "Our research shows that blacks comprise 62.7 percent and whites 36.7 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state prison, even though federal surveys and other data detailed in this report show clearly that this racial disparity bears scant relation to racial differences in drug offending. There are, for example, five times more white drug users than black. Relative to population, black men are admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than that of white men. In large part because of the extraordinary racial disparities in incarceration for drug offenses, blacks are incarcerated for all offenses at 8.2 times the rate of whites. One in every 20 black men over the age of 18 in the United States is in state or federal prison, compared to one in 180 white men." - [source](http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00.htm#P54_1086) There are more white drug users than black drug users in the United States. Blacks and whites consume illicit drugs at rougly equal rates: 8.1% of whites vs. 8.6% of blacks [source](http://oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k4nsduh/2k4results/2k4results.htm#2.7). But black people are overwhelmingly more likely to get arrested for drug use than white people, more likely to be convicted than white people, more likely to be sentenced to prison than white people, and more likely to be sent to prison for subsequent offenses than white people. TL;DR: Black people and white people both smoke weed, but only one of these groups is going to prison for possession