San Francisco County Sheriff Michael Hennessey recently reported that over 60 percent of all prisoners in the city’s jail are Black despite the Black population in San Francisco only being 6.7 percent. Nearly half of the inmates are in jail for drug offenses.

The increasing incarceration of Blacks is a direct result of the War on Drugs. As a result of the War on Drugs, Black communities are suffering from mass incarceration. Not only are large numbers of Blacks being locked-up, Blacks are incarcerated at staggering numbers that far exceed any purposeful law enforcement interest and which are destroying Black communities.

The idea that Blacks commit more drug related offenses, and that this is the reason for the disparities, is false. Most drug arrests are for possession. Possession is a crime that every drug user commits and, in the United States, most drug users are white.