The arrest of recovering drug addict Robert Downey, Jr. made headlines. He apparently spent the Thanksgiving holiday alone, in the Merv Griffin Resort Hotel, in a $600 a night room on a drug binge. He might not have been busted, but for an anonymous tip. He spent the night in jail, paid $15,000 bail, and is expected to appear in court on December 27. Given his history of two prior drug arrests, and the fact that he has served jail time, it is likely that he’ll be sentenced to serve more. That is, unless the Hollywood machine cranks up its sympathy for Mr. Downey and he is allowed to return to a rehabilitation program.

Robert Downey’s case is a tragic one. It is also an illustration that drug use is more a medical problem than a crime. Downey wasn’t hurting anyone, except himself, during his Thanksgiving drug binge. It’s a misplaced use of resources to incarcerate him when he really needs to be hospitalized. But I’ll not argue that Downey ought to get a break, unless we are prepared to give a break to those thousands of drug addicts that are arrested every day. Tens of thousands collide with the law enforcement system each day, but their arrests don’t make headlines. Because they are low-income people of color, their arrests aren’t considered newsworthy. Nor are their convictions or incarcerations. It is only when a celebrity is picked up that the implications of our "drug war" are even discussed.

Downey, caught with powdered cocaine, is already getting a break because of his race and class. Says Marc Mauer, Assistant Director of the Washington DC based Sentencing Project, "The federal mandatory sentencing laws provide the same minimum sentence for someone who is caught with 5 grams of crack cocaine as for someone who is caught with 500 grams of powdered cocaine." The law treats the person who has crack cocaine possessor much more harshly than one who has powdered cocaine Downey already got a break.

Actually, he has probably gotten a couple of breaks because of who he is. He was arrested in 1996 with drugs and guns in his possession. While awaiting trial, he was found passed out in a neighbor’s home, under the influence of drugs. He was sentenced to a rehabilitation program instead of going to jail, but he had two more drug violations while he was on probation before he went to prison. He served about a year of a three-year sentence. In contrast, Marc Mauer says there are 450,000 people drug offenders serving time now. These folks, like Downey, didn’t hurt anybody but themselves. They took drugs, they got caught, and they are serving time. Any argument that someone uses to cut Downey a break ought also be used to offer a break to the 450,000 drug offenders now serving time.

Indeed, a group of clergy have asked President Clinton to commute the sentences of low-level, non-violent drug offenders who have already served 5 years for their victimless offenses. There are more than 16,000 non-violent drug offenders who meet this description. In addition, African American groups are asking the President to grant clemency to Kemba Smith, who was a young student from Hampton Institute in Virginia when she was sentenced to 24 years of jail time as an accomplice to her drug-dealing boyfriend. Smith had neither possessed drugs nor sold them. Her crime was that she had poor romantic judgement. If every woman with bad romantic judgement were incarcerated, the jails would be brimming over!

The war on drugs has really been a war on Americans, many of whom are sick and have little control over their actions. We tolerate other addicts, making allowances for smokers, and developing education campaigns to promote responsible drinking. But drug addicts are criminalized for their illness, locked up for dozens of years because they cannot control their addiction. Understand. They weren’t drugging and driving, or drugging and robbing. Nearly half a million people are locked up because they were just drugging, harming themselves. Most of them are people of color. Many won’t get the breaks Robert Downey, Jr. got. Judges won’t be steering them to rehab, but instead pushing them to jail.

The Downey case gives us a chance to look at the fallacy of our drug policy, but also to look at issues of disparate treatment of addicts. The sympathy machine that has already begun to churn for Downey doesn’t work for nameless, faceless addicts who struggle with the same addictions.

If a drug war is to be effective, it must treat addiction as an illness, whether it hits Robert Downey, Jr. or a homie in the ‘hood. Instead of jails, we need to build hospitals to medically treat those sick individuals who are losing their personal war on drugs.

JULIANNE MALVEAUX’S COMMENTARY NOVEMBER 30, 2000

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