Punitive drug policy is attuned to the race of the user population

Evidence

Not only were the location and demographics of the new drug epidemic markedly different than that of its predecessors, but also the policy response to this new epidemic diverged sharply. Instead of calling for more arrests, prosecutions, and harsher punishments of opioid drug offenders, the policy response has emphasized greater access to treatment and greater harm reduction in the form of expanding distribution of naloxone (an opioid antagonist that stops opioid overdoses), and it has deemphasized criminal justice interventions via programs that divert or “deflect” drug offenders from the CJS entirely. … Musto, after reviewing this history, concludes that drug crises associated with racial/ethnic minorities consistently have been met with punitivism, but those associated with Whites have not. As an empirical illustration of this pattern, Murakawa (2014) notes that the number of federal mandatory minimums for drug offenses are strongly related to the racial distribution of drug arrests, such that federal mandatory minimums are commonly enacted during periods with relatively high proportions of minority drug arrestees and removed during periods with relatively high proportions of White drug arrestees. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1086

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This is a strong structural echo of the sacrifice article — who gets designated offender/sacrifice (minority) vs. patient (White) maps onto which population the polity agrees to expend.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1086