Chapter 16

• Jurisdiction: United States

Chapter 16 Drug Crimes

The War on Drugs

In June 1971, Richard Nixon said that drug abuse was public enemy number one and declared a war on drugs. In 1973, the Drug Enforcement Administration was established. In 1984, Ronald Reagan signed into law the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 that, among other things, set mandatory minimum sentences and established civil asset forfeitures for drug cases.

From 1980 to 1984 the federal annual budget of the FBI's drug enforcement units went from $8 million to $95 million. Nancy Reagan contributed the "Just Say No" to drugs slogan. In 1986, the "war on drugs" was in full swing. And, in that year, the King County Prosecutor's Office established the Special Drug Unit in the Criminal Division, which was headed by Senior Deputy Prosecutor Al Matthews.

The Special Drug Unit handled only drug crimes, and this centralization of responsibility expedited the filings and trials of those cases. Deputy prosecutors in the Drug Unit worked with Seattle Police Department narcotics officers in organizing a series of reverse stings that the targeted street drug dealers. In one sting operation in the Seattle University District, over 140 people were arrested in two days. Law enforcement agencies responded to the call for action, and drug case filings increased from 450 in 1986 to 2,504 in 1989.

We previously examined the issue of how a prosecutor might address the problem of law enforcement arresting a disproportionate share of minorities and submitting their cases for prosecution. This is a particularly acute problem when dealing with drug crimes. Research studies have shown the racial disparity in felony drug arrest rates. Also, studies have found that Blacks and Hispanics are much more likely than Whites to be imprisoned for drug offenses. One study of prison populations determined that 24 percent of the Blacks and 23 percent of the Hispanics were imprisoned for drug offenses in contrast to only 14 percent of the Whites.

During the war-on-drug years, the penalties under federal sentencing law for possession and trafficking in crack cocaine, which was more likely used by Blacks, were substantially higher than those for possession and trafficking in powder cocaine, which Whites favored. For example, the sentence for possession of five grams of crack was a five-year mandatory minimum of incarceration as opposed to 500 grams of powder for a like sentence.

While I was Chief Deputy, Ricardo Martinez took over as the head of the...