Human Rights Watch reported in 2000 that, in seven states, African Americans constitute 80 to 90 percent of all those sent to prison on drug charges.3 In at least fifteen states, blacks are admitted to prison on drug charges at a rate from twenty to fifty-seven times greater than that of white men.4 In fact, nationwide, the rate of incarceration for African Americans convicted of drug offenses dwarfs the rate of whites. When the War on Drugs gained full steam in the mid-1980s, prison admissions for African Americans skyrocketed, nearly quadrupling in three years, and then increasing steadily
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