THE WAR ON DRUGS - A CONTINUATION OF THE WAR ON THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN FAMILY

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 i n maintaining the stratification patterns of racial/ethnic minorities and women. In this sense, racism and sexism are impediments to achievi ng rational drug control policies. In the current ''War On Drugs,'' Af rican American men and women are disproportionately criminalized and i ncarcerated for abuse of cocaine and its derivative crack. A deconstru ction of this ''War'' suggests that it maintains and efficiently updat es for the new millennium American's long standing war on the African American family begun under the system of chattel slavery.