Race and the War on Drugs

I was mentioning in the comments below that I'd look up some information about the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. Here's a quote I found particularly interesting:

According to the federal Household Survey, "most current illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998." And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations. African-Americans comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 20.7%.

These statistics comes from several government surveys. Here's the website were I got this quote. They have other revealing statistics there.

The point of this? Only 15% of drug users are black, but around 40% of prisoners in jail for drugs are black. The justice system is heavily skewed against minorities, particularly when it comes to the War on Drugs.