Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986

While never actually saying that the welfare queen was Black, Reagan relied on pretty racist language to promote this idea and used similar language while promoting the war on drugs.

In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which also had very harmful implications for Black and Brown communities.

It created longer prison sentences for individuals who used crack cocaine, which was typically used by Black Americans, and shorter prison sentences for those who used powder cocaine, which was typically used by White Americans.

For example, If a person had five grams of crack, it would trigger an automatic five-year sentence.

The result was a dramatic expansion of punishment and bipartisan approval.

Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, establishing a sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

Under the law, possession of five grams of crack triggered the same mandatory minimum sentence as as a possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine, a 100 to 1 disparity.

Because crack was more prevalent in black communities, the law produced profoundly racialized consequences, even though the two forms of cocaine are pharmacologically similar.

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As we discussed in detail last time, Ronald Reagan passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986 and then a follow-up in 88.

These laws reinstated federal mandatory minimums for crack users only.

Mandatory minimums for all drug crimes had been lifted about 15 years earlier with the 1970 Controlled Substance Act.

Wow.

Congress, under his administration, passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which allocated $1.7 billion to the war on drugs and established mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug offenses.

So notably, there's this huge difference between crack and coke.

Coke, typically used by like white, wealthy people, party drug, used in a lot of circles that Reagan probably ran in.

So Joaquin could actually move money for the drug cartel legally, if you could believe that.

But in 1986, during the Reagan administration, Congress passed the Money Laundering Control Act alongside the Anti-Drug Abuse Act.

For the first time, major forms of money laundering involving criminal proceeds became specific federal crimes.

And according to Joaquin, that's when he decided, I'm done.