The day the drug war really started

The national frenzy that resulted in 1986 after the sudden death of future NBA star Len Bias unleashed the most severe legislation the War on Drugs has ever seen. Without scientific review and study of the proposed laws, Democrats and Republicans rushed to pass tough legislation. Well, the resulting law was certainly tough, but it was also discriminatory and ended up putting hundreds of thousands of mostly black and hispanic Americans in jail for possession of modest amounts of crack and powder cocaine. The law also instituted a 100-1 ratio for crack that disproportionately affected minorities. That severity ratio was cut to 18-1 in 2010 but is still completely arbitrary. In 1986 the federal prison population was 36,000 and today it's swelled to 216,000, and the war goes on.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/19/len_bias_cocaine_tragedy_still_affecting_us_drug_law/index.html