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Speaker 1: This podcast is based a large part on the book

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Speaker 1: Born Ready, The Mixed Legacy of Lund Bias. Some cults

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Speaker 1: are narrated by podcast producer and book author Dave Ngrady

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Speaker 1: from interviews done for the book. Recruitings for those comments

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Speaker 1: were not available.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the crack problem has become a cracked crisis and

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Speaker 2: it's spreading nationwide.

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Speaker 3: We must be intolerant of drugs, not because we want

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Speaker 3: to punish drug users, but because we care about them

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Speaker 3: and want to help the minute.

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Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety six, I was sentenced to thirty five years.

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Speaker 4: This is Spara just caused my sentence to be increased

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Speaker 4: for twenty years, longer than it would have been had

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Speaker 4: it been for powder cocaine.

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Speaker 5: In nineteen ninety five, I was simptoms to twenty years.

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Speaker 5: My eleven year old daughter was molested while I was

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Speaker 5: in prison at eleven years old.

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Speaker 6: My sister was barely twenty three years old and a

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Speaker 6: mother of three young children.

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Speaker 7: Fay Eugenia had been.

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Speaker 2: Sistance for powder cocaine sensors with been less than half

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Speaker 2: of the ones she received.

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Speaker 8: Why did we do that? Because we were frightened.

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Speaker 9: It was a reaction.

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Speaker 1: There was a misperception that crack cocaine was something different

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Speaker 1: chemically than what powder cocaine was.

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Speaker 10: Congress created this disparity, which was one hundred to one

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Speaker 10: between crack and powdered cocaine sentences.

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Speaker 1: It has punished crack cocaine users far more harshly than

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Speaker 1: powder cocaine users. The disparity has placed hundreds of thousands

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Speaker 1: of young black men and women in prison for decades.

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Speaker 1: That has helped decimate mostly urban families.

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Speaker 11: The legacy of this legislation hats to be framed in

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Speaker 11: terms of whether it made the United States safer and

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Speaker 11: healthier for its citizens, and I think the record really

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Speaker 11: shows that it has. It failed, doesn't save lives, doesn't

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Speaker 11: reduce crime. So what does it do? It protects the

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Speaker 11: status quote, and the status quo is white Britlete is passing.

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Speaker 12: It wasn't just a tragedy that we lost one great person.

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Speaker 9: We lost a lot of great people.

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Speaker 13: Drugs were bad fried your brain, and drug dealers with

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Speaker 13: monsters young men like me who hustle became the soule villain,

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Speaker 13: and drug addicts lack moral for the two.

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Speaker 9: How did this happen?

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Speaker 1: It all started the mere months after Limbias died, it

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Speaker 1: is the most profound and troubling part of the Mixed

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Speaker 1: legacy of Limbias.

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Speaker 14: I concluded that Limbias's death was the single most important

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Speaker 14: date in the history of drugs in the United States

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Speaker 14: since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in June of nineteen

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Speaker 14: thirty five.

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Speaker 1: Up next and Lembias, the Mixed Legacy, mandatory minimums and

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Speaker 1: maximum impact. How the death of Bias changed the criminal

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Speaker 1: justice system.

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Speaker 9: The boy was.

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Speaker 12: So You've had people for you know, minimal drug crimes

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Speaker 12: languishing in prison for years and years, uh, for no good.

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Speaker 12: The federal mandatory something saying, even to this day has

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Speaker 12: been a horrible outcome for America and for so many

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Speaker 12: Americans and largely African American.

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Speaker 1: That's Jay billis prominent ESPN college basketball anamals, owner of

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Speaker 1: a law degree. He played four years at Duke, the

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Speaker 1: same four years as Biased. He knows full well about

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Speaker 1: Len's legacy as one of the best college basketball players

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Speaker 1: of all time. He also understands the impact Len's death

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Speaker 1: has had on the federal drug legislation and the criminal

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Speaker 1: justice system in the United States.

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Speaker 12: I can't think of anything more tragic than you pile

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Speaker 12: on to a tragedy with multiple tragedies that have tentacles

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Speaker 12: that keep going out. You know, families being ruined. I mean,

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Speaker 12: it's awful. It's awful.

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Speaker 1: One sad part is the story of Dorothy Gaines. Games

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Speaker 1: was a nurse and pta mom when police rated her

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Speaker 1: home in Mobile, Alabama, in August nineteen ninety three. Games

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Speaker 1: claimed she didn't know that her them boyfriend was involved

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Speaker 1: a carrier for a drug deal. He was living with

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Speaker 1: her at the time. No evidence was found that Gaines

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Speaker 1: herself had sold or even possessed drugs. The state of

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Speaker 1: Alabama dropped its case against her, but the federal prosecutors

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Speaker 1: charged her with drug conspiracy. Gains was a single mother

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Speaker 1: of three children with a steady job. The father of

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Speaker 1: her children died of a heart attack years before.

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Speaker 5: Yeah before the rest my life was I thought was perfect.

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Speaker 5: So with Jesse a thrill, we had loved the life.

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Speaker 5: Nothing unless my cheer was involved. I never drink. I've

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Speaker 5: never been to a club in my life. Everything I

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Speaker 5: did I did it with my children, boy Scout girls,

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Speaker 5: Scout uh, going to movies. Everything involved my children. So

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Speaker 5: this was a big setback. When I left my kids,

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Speaker 5: and they were the only you know, I was the

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Speaker 5: only paint, not just I was the only parent of

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Speaker 5: my kids. Hey, my mother was stuff from counsel. I

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Speaker 5: was working at the hospital as a nurse, so you know,

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Speaker 5: everything just went down the draint at that moment.

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Speaker 1: At gains of sentencing, hearing her nine year old son

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Speaker 1: Philip jump at the lap of the judge pleading for her.

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Speaker 9: Mom to come home.

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Speaker 1: He had written a letter to the judge asking to

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Speaker 1: set her free.

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Speaker 15: Dear judge, would you help my mom. I have no dad,

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Speaker 15: and my grandmom have cancer. I don't have anyone to

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Speaker 15: take care of me, my sisters and my niece and nephew.

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Speaker 15: And my birthday is coming out on October the twenty fifth,

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Speaker 15: and I need my mom to be here on the

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Speaker 15: twenty fifth. And for the rest of my life, I

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Speaker 15: will cut your dish and wash your car every day.

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Speaker 15: Just don't send my mom off, Please, please, please don't.

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Speaker 1: My lips plea did not work. Games received a sentence

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Speaker 1: of nineteen years and seven months. After all, the judge

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Speaker 1: was bound by the mandatory minimum requirements and could not

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Speaker 1: alter her sentence.

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Speaker 5: And when I was twenty years too.

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Speaker 7: And I saw every since that day.

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Speaker 5: He's not a prisoning body.

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Speaker 7: So my wife just been tor up ever since.

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Speaker 5: And how much of his behavior do you figure it's

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Speaker 5: related to what happened to you?

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Speaker 9: One hundred percent.

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Speaker 5: By the time tried to kill himself while I was gone,

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Speaker 5: He said his simple but.

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Speaker 1: It took all with those Gaines spent six years in

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Speaker 1: prison before her sentence was commuted by President Clinton in

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Speaker 1: two thousand.

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Speaker 9: During that time, her oldest daughter was.

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Speaker 1: Forced to leave college to take care of her two

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Speaker 1: siblings and raise her own two children. Soon after release

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Speaker 1: from prison, Gaines became an advocate for sendency reform. She

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Speaker 1: wanted release from prison with the help of such groups

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Speaker 1: as Family Against Mandatory Minimums and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.

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Speaker 1: Both groups were formed after the death of Bias to

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Speaker 1: promote fair sentencing and compassion for drug offenders. Here's Kevin Ring,

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Speaker 1: the group's executive director.

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Speaker 10: There's no checks of balances. Once that prosecutor decides you're

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Speaker 10: the bad person, it's over for you. And so that

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Speaker 10: really tilted the system in a way that gave the

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Speaker 10: prosecutor too much power. The prosecutor says, well, Congress gave

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Speaker 10: me this tool. I'm just using the tool they gave me,

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Speaker 10: and then the judge gives the sentence that the prosecutor

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Speaker 10: seeks and gets a conviction on it and says, I

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Speaker 10: can't do anything about it. I'm bound by the mandatory sentence.

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Speaker 10: The Congress past, and then Congress says, well, we didn't

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Speaker 10: intend for it to go to people like Dorothy Gaines.

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Speaker 10: We just wanted the prosecutors to use smart discretion. So

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Speaker 10: nobody takes responsibility. And what results from that is thousands

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Speaker 10: of injustices.

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Speaker 1: Because of that nineteen eighty six Anti Drug Abuse Act,

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Speaker 1: thousands of low level crack cocaine dealers, possessors, and users

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Speaker 1: received lengthy prison sentences. The legislation from mandatory minimum sentences

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Speaker 1: for certain drug offenses. It's greatly impacted those such as

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Speaker 1: Games who are simply unlucky or on wise in their

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Speaker 1: choices of association. Hundreds of thousands of lives like those

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Speaker 1: of Gang's children were disrupted. The federal prison population soart

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Speaker 1: from thirty six thousand and nineteen eighty six so as

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Speaker 1: much as two hundred and fifteen thousand and twenty eleven.

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Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, the population dropped to about one hundred

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Speaker 1: and seventy thousand. More than half of all federal prisoners

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Speaker 1: are there for drug offenses. Many are either a minor

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Speaker 1: criminal record before their conviction or no record at all,

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Speaker 1: and it can all be traced back to the death

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Speaker 1: of Lambias.

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Speaker 11: In the nineteen eighties, I was assisted counsel to the

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Speaker 11: House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Crime. My job was to

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Speaker 11: work on federal drug laws, gun control, pornography, organized crime,

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Speaker 11: money laundering, and other issues. And in nineteen eighty six

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Speaker 11: I was working on drug legislation when len Bias died.

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Speaker 11: I played a central role in writing the mandatory minimum

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Speaker 11: sentences that Congress wrote after the death of len Bias,

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Speaker 11: and played a major role in many of the vision

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Speaker 11: of the in writing the Anti Drug Abuse Act of

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Speaker 11: nineteen eighty six. The legacy of this legislation has to

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Speaker 11: be framed in terms of whether it made the United

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Speaker 11: States safer and healthier for its citizens, and I think

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Speaker 11: the record really shows that it failed.

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Speaker 1: That's Eric Sterling, the founder and former executive director of

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Speaker 1: the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. The group promotes a criminal

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Speaker 1: justice system that is fair, honest, and efficient. Sternly started

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Speaker 1: the foundation only a few years after he played a

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Speaker 1: prominent role in contributing to the fate of Games and

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of others.

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Speaker 9: It's a role still today that he regrets having played.

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Speaker 11: But I worked for the Congress as a lawyer. They

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Speaker 11: were my clients, and my job was to do what

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Speaker 11: my clients needed to have done. I expressed reservations in

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Speaker 11: the course of the development of the legislation, but they

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Speaker 11: were not heeded, and the results of this legislation weighs

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Speaker 11: a great deal on me. I've met many of the

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Speaker 11: family members and when they've re released from prison. Many

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Speaker 11: people who served extremely long sentences for conduct it by

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Speaker 11: any other judgment, does not deserve decades of imprisonment.

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Speaker 1: Here's what created Sterling's concern and consternation. The Anti Drug

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Speaker 1: Abuse ac of nineteen eighty six was fast tracked through

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Speaker 1: Congress and signed by President Reagan within four months. It

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Speaker 1: was passed as a direct reaction to the death of Lambis.

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Speaker 1: The law reestablished mandatory minimum sentences for first time drug

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Speaker 1: offenders manufacturing or distributing cocaine, those working with five hundred

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Speaker 1: grams of powder cocaine based a five year mandatory minimum sentence,

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Speaker 1: where five thousand grams of powder cocaine a ten year

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Speaker 1: minimum sentence. Those working with five grands of crack cocaine

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Speaker 1: received a five year mandatory minimum. With fifty grams have

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Speaker 1: received the minimum of ten year sentence. For sentences longer

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Speaker 1: than the minimum, there was no hope of parole. Starlinghart

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Speaker 1: write the legislation establishing mandatory minimums. He blames in part

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Speaker 1: the politics within the US Congress for the problem. The

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Speaker 1: Democrats saw a chance to take control of both chambers.

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Speaker 11: The legislation was born in the Democratic leadership's recognition that

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Speaker 11: this issue could be used in a partisan way to

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Speaker 11: retake control of the United States Senate. In nineteen eighty

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Speaker 11: on Ronald Reagan's coattails, the Senate went Republican after having

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Speaker 11: been in Democratic hands since the early nineteen fifties. The

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Speaker 11: Democratic leadership thought that they could kind of restore the

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Speaker 11: natural order if the tragedy of Len's death and the

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Speaker 11: drug issue were seen as the area where the Democrats

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Speaker 11: had the ideas, and in that sense the legislation was

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Speaker 11: a success. The Democrats took recontrol of the Senate in

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Speaker 11: the nineteen eighty six election.

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Speaker 1: Scott Green had a clear perspective about how Congress reacted

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Speaker 1: to the death of Bias. He was Special advisor on

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Speaker 1: Crime and drug issues for the Senate Judiciary Committee from

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety. He worked closely with then

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Speaker 1: Senator Joe Biden, who became chair of the committee in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six.

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Speaker 9: He called the death of Bias a tipping point.

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Speaker 12: Scott Green told me the attention and scare and shock

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Speaker 12: provided by somebody with that kind of talent, a young

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Speaker 12: guy at the.

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Speaker 9: Top of the world. The fact that drugs took him

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Speaker 9: away that quickly.

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Speaker 16: Was it an overreaction, probably, But a lot of good

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Speaker 16: things came out of it.

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Speaker 1: For instance, the bill approved close to three hundred million

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Speaker 1: dollar to help drug and alcohol addicts. They gave special

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Speaker 1: consideration to veterans and at risk you. But those good

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Speaker 1: deeds have been mostly forgotten. More attention has been given

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Speaker 1: to how and why Congress moved so quickly on legislation

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Speaker 1: motivated heavily by politics, and what feel of the politics

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Speaker 1: of his death was the fact that it happened so

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Speaker 1: close to Washington, d c.

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Speaker 11: Perhaps as important to this story as the brilliance of

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Speaker 11: Land Bias as a basketball player is the fact that

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Speaker 11: he was a brilliant basketball player inside the Washington Beltway

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Speaker 11: that from high school through college, every member of Congress

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Speaker 11: who watched the evening sports wrap up and they all

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Speaker 11: did knew and appreciated the greatness of Land Bias and

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Speaker 11: almost identified with him. And then the fact that he

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Speaker 11: signed with the Boston Celtics, the home of the house

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Speaker 11: speaker and the NBA champion team, meant that his death

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Speaker 11: got an attention in the Washington Post and in the

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Speaker 11: national news media that a death of an equally gifted

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Speaker 11: athlete in a different media market would have had. There's

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Speaker 11: no question that there's no question in my mind that

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Speaker 11: had Led Bias played and died in Missouri or Kansas,

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Speaker 11: or Detroit, any other part of the city that was

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Speaker 11: any other part of the country that was not.

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Speaker 9: Washington, d C.

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Speaker 11: His death would not have been a national story. And

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Speaker 11: it is quite unlikely that there would have been the

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Speaker 11: momentum around the legislation that his death created.

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Speaker 1: Tip O'Neil was the speaker of the US House of

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Speaker 1: Representatives when Bias died. Heiled from Massachusetts, former basketball player

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Speaker 1: and a Celtics fan. He had personal interest in the

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Speaker 1: legislation as well.

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Speaker 6: My dad was an athlete. He you know. He was

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Speaker 6: captain of his own basketball team at Saint John's High School,

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Speaker 6: played intermuneral basketball at Boston College.

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Speaker 9: That's Tom O'Neill, tip O'Neill's son.

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Speaker 6: Well, first of all, my dad is a It was

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Speaker 6: a sports a real sports fan, a sports fanatic. And

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Speaker 6: it didn't matter whether it was baseball, hockey, basketball, it

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Speaker 6: was all the same. He loved his sports ever since

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Speaker 6: he was a young man. And the Boston the Boston

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Speaker 6: teams ring very large, but did ring very large in

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Speaker 6: his life. To be very honest with you, I mean

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Speaker 6: it was not it was not obscure to see him

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Speaker 6: at a Red Sox game or a Celtics game.

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Speaker 1: Tip O'Neill's interest in anti drug abuse legislation hit close

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Speaker 1: to home. Michael O'Neill, Tom's brother, battle drug and alcohol addiction,

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Speaker 1: a factor that helped motivate Tip O'Neill to pass anti

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Speaker 1: drug abuse legislation. The impact of Bias's death was often

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Speaker 1: brought up during dinner at the Old Neil House.

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Speaker 9: My brother.

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Speaker 6: Of all five O'Neil children, he was probably the most successful,

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Speaker 6: but somehow a little later in life, in his late

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Speaker 6: twenties thirties, he started to drink and then take drugs,

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Speaker 6: and by his buddies, it had overwhelmed him. It was

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Speaker 6: devastating for my mother and father. My dad and mother

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Speaker 6: both knew the high chip of being addicted, but bringing

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Speaker 6: it back to bias, I mean that Fittaly had an

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Speaker 6: impact on my father.

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Speaker 1: Tip O'Neil knew the House and Senate needed to approve

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Speaker 1: the bill by early October for the Democrats to claim

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Speaker 1: credit in the November elections for an anti drug program.

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Speaker 1: The Anti Drug Abuse Back of nineteen eighty six was

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Speaker 1: introduced in Congress shortly after Labor Day. Congress signed off

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Speaker 1: on the bill on October twenty one. On October twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: President Reagan signed the bill into law. Democrats clearly benefited

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Speaker 1: from a hasty progression of the bill.

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Speaker 11: Certainly there they're in retrospect as a census.

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Speaker 9: This was a.

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Speaker 11: Politically shrewd approach, but it was a terrible diagnosis of

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Speaker 11: what needed to be done. There certainly was a recognition

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Speaker 11: that crack cocaine was a dangerous drug. There were people

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Speaker 11: who were addicted to it, and we had a serious

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Speaker 11: crack cocaine epidemic in the late nineteen eighties and early

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Speaker 11: nineteen nineties, there was an enormous amount of violence in

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Speaker 11: the criminal drug trade. Many families were broken up by it.

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Speaker 11: But there was very much the sense in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 11: six and nineteen eighty eight that this was a political

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Speaker 11: issue that the Democrats, if they played it right, could win.

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Speaker 1: And the Democrats won big. They increased their all already

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Speaker 1: large majority in the House. They also gained eight seats

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Speaker 1: in the Senate, taking the majority of both chambers for

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Speaker 1: the first time in six years. You're listening to lembis

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Speaker 1: the mixed legacy on the eighth side Network. Mandatory minimums

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Speaker 1: for drug offenses arose from the War on drugs that

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Speaker 1: started in the nineteen seventies with President Nixon.

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Speaker 12: America's public enemy Number one in the United States is

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Speaker 12: drug abuse.

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Speaker 6: It is epidemic, and it can kill.

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Speaker 1: President Nixon dramatically increased the size and presidence of the

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Speaker 1: federal drug control agencies. He passed through measage such as

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Speaker 1: mandatory sentencing and no knock warrants. The Drug Policy Alligance

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Speaker 1: a few years ago produced a video that provides a

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Speaker 1: history lesson on the War on drugs. The group's aim,

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Speaker 1: in part is to reduce the harms of drug use

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Speaker 1: and drug prohibition. Here's how Jay Z begins the.

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Speaker 13: Video eighty six when I was coming of age, Ronald Ray,

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Speaker 13: they can doubled down on the war on drugs that

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Speaker 13: have been started by Richard Nixon in nineteen seventy one.

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Speaker 13: Drugs were bad, fried your brain, and drug dealers with monsters,

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Speaker 13: young men like me who hustle became sole villain, and

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Speaker 13: drug addicts lack moral fort two.

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Speaker 1: We'll have more on that video later. In the nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: First Lady Nancy Reagan introduced a just Say No message

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Speaker 1: as part of the war on drugs. She too used

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Speaker 1: a video to promote her message. It was released some

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Speaker 1: two months after Lembias died.

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Speaker 17: Not long ago, in Oakland, California, I was asked by

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Speaker 17: a group of children what to do if they were

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Speaker 17: off for drugs, and I answered, just say No. Soon

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Speaker 17: after that, those children in Oakland formed a Just Say

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Speaker 17: No club, and now there are over ten thousand such

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Speaker 17: clubs all over the country.

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Speaker 1: Before Bias died, cocaine was considered a potentially addictive drug

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Speaker 1: that made you feel energruzed. Cocaine's addictive quality could be

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Speaker 1: strong in rare cases, death could occur. There were high

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Speaker 1: profile cocaine related deaths in the late nineteen seventies and

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Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, Lowell George, the lead singer of the

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Speaker 1: rock band Little Feet, and comedian John Belushi, a Saturday

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Speaker 1: Night Live star.

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Speaker 9: Still, cocaine was not considered a dangerous drug.

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Speaker 2: Cocaine was actually a recreational drug, according to The New

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Speaker 2: York Times and several other media outlets.

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Speaker 1: That Sound Cash a former agent for the Drug Enforcement

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Speaker 1: Agency from nineteen seventy three to nineteen ninety three. Cash

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Speaker 1: focused on operations from the Caribbean and Latin America. In

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Speaker 1: his work, he saw how it was used in different venues.

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Speaker 1: One such place was a New York City nightclub infamous

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Speaker 1: for excessive drug use by its patrons in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventies and nineteen eighties.

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Speaker 7: In Studio fifty four, they had instead of sugar bowls,

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Speaker 7: they had little bowls cocaine, and then everybody was The

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Speaker 7: real formula of a success was that you had a

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Speaker 7: little spoon that you wore in a necklace around your neck,

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Speaker 7: and you took this little spoon and you could spoon

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Speaker 7: out just the right amount, and you could cut it

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Speaker 7: up with a razor blade and so forth.

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Speaker 2: Cocaine had taken on this harmless aspect, this entertainment aspect,

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Speaker 2: this ability to use it without having any bad effects.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't heroine, it wasn't opium, It wasn't all of

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Speaker 2: the other difficult drugs of the time MDMA and LSD

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Speaker 2: and all the rest of it. Until the death of

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Speaker 2: lum Bias. Well, I think it was a shock to

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Speaker 2: us all, including the DEA agents. I was in Washington

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Speaker 2: at that particular point in time, and I think that

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Speaker 2: the the DA agents at the time, uh said, uh.

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Speaker 7: Coke, what cocaine?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, isn't that something that the drummers used,

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Speaker 2: didn't They didn't didn't didn't they musicians a snort a

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Speaker 2: little cocaine back in the day of Gene Krupa in

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Speaker 2: that group, or did they just uh piddle around with it?

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Speaker 7: But it was not It was something certainly not harmless.

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Speaker 2: And then we said, holy shit, harmless, This stuff will

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Speaker 2: kill you.

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Speaker 9: Benal agent soon changed the way that police cocaine.

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Speaker 2: Certainly in that first year or two when anybody mentioned cocaine,

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Speaker 2: there was a approach to try to get an undercover

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Speaker 2: in there, or try to do somebody to see if

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Speaker 2: they could penetrate an organization that would distribute or sell.

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Speaker 7: Cocaine.

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Speaker 9: Further says Cash was a change in the perception about

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Speaker 9: athletes abusing drugs.

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Speaker 2: Of all things, an athlete of his capability, it was

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Speaker 2: just almost unheard of. Athletes don't use drugs. You know,

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Speaker 2: they don't use drugs. They don't they don't drink, they

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Speaker 2: don't smoke, they don't do this, they don't do that.

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Speaker 2: And then now you have the star of the star

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Speaker 2: dying of a cocaine overdose, which just blows all the

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Speaker 2: hell the theory that these guys are, let's say, less

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Speaker 2: than pure.

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Speaker 1: One prominent athlete of the time managed to keep his

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Speaker 1: cocaine addiction quiet for years.

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Speaker 9: Do I Gooden, a picture for the New York Mets.

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Speaker 1: Gouldn't won the nineteen eighty five Cy Young Award, given

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Speaker 1: to the top picture in the game for that year.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty six, a few months after Limbi's died,

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Speaker 1: good In, the Mets won the World Series during that season,

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Speaker 1: and the throes of his cocaine addiction didn't won The

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Speaker 1: type of cocaine that killed Bias from the ESPN documentary

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Speaker 1: Once Upon a time. In Queen's in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: twy Gooden was quoted saying, I remember when Limbias died.

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Speaker 1: You see that and like, for the first four or

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Speaker 1: five hours it hits you, Wow, that could have been me.

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Speaker 1: But then the sickest part about it, you go into

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Speaker 1: your dealer and say, give me that Limbias stuff.

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Speaker 9: That's sick. But that's where I was at at the time.

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Speaker 1: I would say, Hey, I want the Limbias stuff, meaning

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Speaker 1: in street terms, I want the strongest stuff you have.

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Speaker 1: That's how crazy my brain was at the time. Can

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Speaker 1: you imagine give me the Limbias stuff. So you're going

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Speaker 1: to die, your family and friends are left, and my

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Speaker 1: dad saying my son died of a drug overdose. Still,

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Speaker 1: the death of Bias changed the perception of cocaine. It

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Speaker 1: was now considered a killer. That perception was amplified when

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Speaker 1: Cleveland Brown safety Don Rogers died from a cocaine overdose

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Speaker 1: eight days after the death of Bias.

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Speaker 14: When bias deaths changed the world, it took cocaine that

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Speaker 14: was a drug that was seen as quote soft like marijuana,

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Speaker 14: and made it hard like heroin, and it took away

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Speaker 14: the idea that the drug problem was uniquely poor people

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Speaker 14: and disadvantaged people, because here we had an American prince

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Speaker 14: at the peak of his career, with public attention rarely

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Speaker 14: seen in anything including sports on him at the time,

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Speaker 14: with a wonderful family of support that he had, and

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Speaker 14: he died as a result of his drug use, and

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Speaker 14: the kind of innocence about cocaine use was ripped away

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Speaker 14: at that point, and it became a pariah, became a

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Speaker 14: threat to the country.

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Speaker 1: Robert DuPont was the president of the American Council of

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Speaker 1: Drug Education when Bias died. In the nineteen seventies, he

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Speaker 1: was the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse

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Speaker 1: and a White.

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Speaker 9: House drug Zone.

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Speaker 1: He relates the death of Bias to another impactful moment

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00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: in the history of US substance abuse.

445
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 14: Glenn Bias's death was the single most important date in

446
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 14: the history of drugs in the United States since the

447
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 14: founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in June of nineteen thirty five.

448
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 14: I've never seen, in my fifty years in this field

449
00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 14: the death of any one person make a difference like

450
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 14: that in the way people thought about drugs. But it

451
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 14: certainly happened here, and it was very dramatic from one

452
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 14: extreme to the other.

453
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: It was inevitable that pop culture would be cued into action.

454
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty seven, the White House worked with Motion

455
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,639
Speaker 1: Picture Association of America to produce a series of visual

456
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: anti drug adds. The ad started running in July that year,

457
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: before feature films produced by major American studios. One featured

458
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties acting icon Clint Eastwood.

459
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 18: See this cute little vial here, that's crack rock cocaine

460
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 18: the most addictive form. You think it's the glamour drug

461
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 18: of the eighties. Well that's the point of this front

462
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 18: of the little reminder. It can kill you. And if

463
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 18: you've got to dine for something this, sure as hell,

464
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 18: ain't it.

465
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: Those anti drug abuse messages related to cocaine appeared to help.

466
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 1: Cocaine abuse decreased over the next decade, especially among teenagers,

467
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: but so did the number of drug cases on federal

468
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: prisons arose four hundred and fifty percent from nineteen eighty

469
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: eight to nineteen ninety six. Here's more from jay Z.

470
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 13: The War on drugs exploded the US prison population, disproportionately

471
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 13: locking away black and Latinos. Judges hands were tied by

472
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 13: tough on crime laws and they were forced to hand

473
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 13: out mandatory life sentences for simple possession and low level

474
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 13: drug sales. Then the FEDS made distinctions between people who

475
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 13: sold powdered cocaine and crack cocaine, even though they were

476
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 13: the same drug. Only difference is how you take. And

477
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 13: even though white people used and sold cracked more than

478
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 13: black people, somehow was black people who went to prison,

479
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:08,960
Speaker 13: the media ignored actual data. To this day, crack is

480
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 13: still talked about. It's a black problem.

481
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: Bernald Dwayne Betts was only six years old when Lunbais died.

482
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: Like Bias, he grew up in Prince George's County. Like Bias,

483
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: he showed potential for greatness. He was a part of

484
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: a Gifted and Tis of educational program since the second grade.

485
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 19: Most nights out energy was youth hours out there, after

486
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 19: more hours out there. This was the year do the

487
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 19: right thing.

488
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: That's Bets reading from his poem Knights of the Living

489
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: base Heads from his book Bastards of the Breaking the Era.

490
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: The book addresses the harsh realities of black men in

491
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: society and.

492
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 9: The war on drugs.

493
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: Like Bias, Bets made a bad decision at a young

494
00:28:49,480 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: age holding a gun in his hand. He hijacked a

495
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: card when he was sixteen. It was the first time

496
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 1: he held a gun. He ended up spending nine years

497
00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 1: in prison.

498
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 19: So this title poem is, it's a poem narrated by

499
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 19: a speaker who gets locked up. And you know I

500
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 19: got locked up in ninety six. This speak gets locked

501
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 19: up in like ninety and it's somebody who was in

502
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 19: the middle of the drug wars, and it's somebody from

503
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 19: my neighbors.

504
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 1: Like Bias, Best attended the University of Maryland, but unlike Bias,

505
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: Bets earned his degree and achieved his ultimate greatness. He's

506
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,959
Speaker 1: an accomplished poet and writer. He's won national awards, has

507
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: written for The New York Times magazine and Washington Pops.

508
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 9: Here's more from the poem, Knights of the Living Base.

509
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 19: Habits spike hatters on edge, near, ready to toss a

510
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 19: trash can through this city. Lin Bias was dead and

511
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 19: we was lamping stone cold, lamping pockets fat because we

512
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 19: were entrepreneurs, and so we figured every brother man's life

513
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 19: is like swinging the dice while I live so close

514
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 19: to caskets. After that Rockefeller Wealth, a few got crushed

515
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 19: by Rockefeller drug laws locked slam up before the money flowed,

516
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 19: like it's in a tenement hallway back then. It was

517
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 19: always winter, always cold in the street. My mind, rabbit

518
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 19: would want for equity, for dookie, gold change, Jordan's more.

519
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 9: The hustle courted us and we were down. It'll take

520
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 9: you to ruin.

521
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 19: Moms would say, as if disaster wasn't that damn place

522
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 19: those afternoons and all that Soireirns Blair. Maybe she knew

523
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 19: that soon five sweet and love sized packets of crack

524
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 19: would me in a flat nickel and a kaleidoscope of cells.

525
00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 19: A mandatory minimum of years with home becomes God's nightmare,

526
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 19: our curse. And so the way you see bias come

527
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 19: up in that poem is the way bias would have

528
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 19: came up in my life. It's just a marker for

529
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 19: the tragedy. And so that's how he comes up in

530
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 19: that poem, just like somebody recounting how they came up

531
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 19: and how they got involved with drugs and bias. It's

532
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 19: that marker, and a complicated marker too, because people so

533
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 19: dope knowing about the tragedy of bias, and they so

534
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 19: dope to other folks knowing about the tragedy to bias.

535
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 19: And that's what I was trying to The whole poem

536
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 19: is trying to get at that that that that conflict

537
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 19: that goes on in somebody's mind where they're forced to

538
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 19: be in the spot in prison. So the Wayland Bias

539
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 19: operated in my head was was almost like a fucking ghost.

540
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 19: But I didn't really know who he was until I

541
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 19: went to prison, and he becomes an explanation for why

542
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 19: it's just like the fucking dual tragedy of drugs, right,

543
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 19: it's the fact that they actually do ruin our community

544
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 19: and the fact that, like you think that the punishment

545
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,120
Speaker 19: that comes out of the response to bias is death

546
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 19: is as.

547
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 9: Disastrous as as the death.

548
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 19: So you know, if you say, you know, like how

549
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 19: did he come up in the poem, I mean, honestly,

550
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 19: he in a poem because he's just always there but.

551
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:07,080
Speaker 1: Goes to bias still haunts Bets in a way, or

552
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: perhaps it's a motivating force. Bess has become an advocate

553
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 1: for reforming mandatory minimum sentences. He is a graduate of

554
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: Yale Law School and his license to practice law in Connecticut.

555
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: His legal work involves handling pro bono cases, trying to

556
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 1: win release for friends he met while incarcerated, and he's

557
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: begun a project to build what he calls freedom libraries

558
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: and prisons.

559
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 19: And it was just really easy for most of us

560
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 19: in prison to tell one story about mandatory minimums that

561
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 19: connected the mandatory minimums that was a response to crack

562
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 19: cocaine to the mandatory minimums that we got, Like we

563
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 19: saw this fight against mandatory minimum sentences, that's also a

564
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:51,479
Speaker 19: fight against all incosteration. I'm saying that this thing has

565
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 19: been going on for a long time. Even in my head.

566
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 9: Bess has some ideas on how to fix the problem.

567
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 19: Which he realizes a lot of these mandatory sentences aren't

568
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 19: based on science, based on the actual psychotropic effects of drugs,

569
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 19: but in fact based on the hysteria around it. And

570
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 19: so I think one of what needs to happen is

571
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 19: we need to have a more robust understanding of science

572
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 19: in this. And then the second thing is I think

573
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 19: that we just need a realistic assessment at the cost

574
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 19: of incarceration. You know, we have tried to assess the

575
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 19: cost of drug use and drug selling. I think that

576
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 19: we haven't, like realistically assessed the cost of incosceration, and

577
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 19: so when we think about incarceration, we don't think about

578
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 19: it in the context of the human cost of incarceration.

579
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: Families Against Mandatory Minimums has been working since nineteen ninety

580
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: to create awareness about the problems and mandatory minimums. Here's

581
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: Kevin Ring, the group's executive director.

582
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 10: Congress in nineteen ninety four ended up passing what they

583
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 10: call a Drug Safety Valve to exempt first time offenders

584
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 10: that had low amounts and no violence. But early on

585
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 10: everybody got caught in this net. You had judges who

586
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 10: would hand down these sentences and say, I do not

587
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 10: want to do this. I don't want to give this

588
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 10: person this time. You had Reagan appointed judges resigning from

589
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 10: the bench because they didn't like what they were party

590
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 10: to do, and so crack was the one that early

591
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 10: on people realized these penalties were completely out of a portion.

592
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 13: Again, here's Jay z and the nineteen nineties, incarceration rates

593
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 13: in the US blew up. Today, we imprisoned more people

594
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 13: than any other country in the world. Our prison population

595
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 13: grew more than nine hundred percent. When the War on

596
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 13: Drugs began in nineteen seventy one, our prison population was

597
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 13: two hundred thousand. Today it is over two million.

598
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 1: Those last numbers are from twenty fifteen. Eric Sterling offers

599
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: a more broad perspective about the criminal injustice of mandatory minimals.

600
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 11: During the nineties and early two thousands, as the effort

601
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:57,879
Speaker 11: to repeal these mandatories or reform them existed, I did

602
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,240
Speaker 11: a lot of research. When you looked at the data,

603
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:10,480
Speaker 11: you would find that perhaps one out of four of

604
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:17,680
Speaker 11: the powder cocaine defendants was white, but nine out of

605
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 11: ten of the crack defendants were black. It was one

606
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 11: of the most egregious instances of structural racism, of racial

607
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 11: discrimination in the criminal law, and this involved tens of thousands.

608
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:37,479
Speaker 9: Of cases a year.

609
00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 7: What drove this.

610
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 11: Was in the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Justice,

611
00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 11: a focus on predominantly low level crack defendants, men and

612
00:35:55,680 --> 00:36:01,359
Speaker 11: women selling on the street, corner, selling out of bodegas,

613
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 11: selling out of abandoned houses. These were serious offenders in

614
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:13,799
Speaker 11: some sense, but these were not the global level drug

615
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 11: traffickers that should have been the responsibility of the US

616
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 11: Drug Enforcement Administration in the US Department.

617
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,960
Speaker 1: Of Justice as an agent of the DEA. In the

618
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties. Tomcash saw firsthand the injustices

619
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: related to mandatory minimums.

620
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 3: If you were to have paid me a dollar for

621
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: every day I sent in a federal courtroom, I'd be

622
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 3: a wealthy man.

623
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 7: When you start.

624
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 2: Interrogating somebody for eleven hours, after eleven hours, they'll tell

625
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 2: you anything you want about money.

626
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 7: And this is just not correct.

627
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 3: And then you see people, some of them doing twenty

628
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:52,160
Speaker 3: three years, twenty four years.

629
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 2: That don't seem to be fair and win that mandatory

630
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 2: a minimum does not give the judge, and I'm not even.

631
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 7: Sure it gives the jury.

632
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think that there's many churres that would

633
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 2: agree to mendiatrate.

634
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:15,760
Speaker 7: It's not like the death penalty.

635
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 2: You know, the law allows police officers and the EA

636
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:24,919
Speaker 2: agents at the agents to not always tell the truth.

637
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 7: So they can indeed exaggerate.

638
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:35,720
Speaker 2: And if they tell a god, well, you know you're.

639
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:37,240
Speaker 7: Going to do twenty five to life.

640
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 2: And many people think that.

641
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 7: They are in a bind, because they are in a bind.

642
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 7: But the question is the.

643
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:53,120
Speaker 3: Validity of the interrogation procedures and processes where they use

644
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 3: the mandatory minimum as a stick. If you will to

645
00:37:57,080 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 3: beat people over the head.

646
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 7: I don't approve it that.

647
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 2: I was not allowed in the officers that I ran,

648
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:06,760
Speaker 2: and I ran nine officers.

649
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: You're listening to lembis the mixed legacy On the eighth side,

650
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: network momentum has shifted toward reducing mandatory minimum sentences. The

651
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: hard work by advocates of fair sentencing paid off dramatically

652
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 1: in twenty ten. That's when President Obama signed the Fair

653
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: Sentencing Act into law. The law reduced the mandatory minimum

654
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:29,520
Speaker 1: sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine from one

655
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: hundred and one to eighteen and one. The legislation also

656
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:36,879
Speaker 1: eliminated a mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack cocaine,

657
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: and since twenty eleven it may have been able to

658
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 1: request reduce sentences. A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers supported the

659
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: Fair Sentencing Act.

660
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 10: Our Congress is not one entirely responsive. Two people still

661
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 10: had the image of crack in their head. They knew

662
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 10: the horror stories cracked babies, all the media hysteria that

663
00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:01,760
Speaker 10: went into that, and so just inertia. And then even

664
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 10: when there was a recognition that they should eliminate the disparity,

665
00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 10: the first proposals were to increase penalties for powder cocaine

666
00:39:09,040 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 10: to make them equal to crack. Also, the crime rate

667
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 10: finally started to fall. We finally had a crime decline

668
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 10: starting in two thousands, and people were finally open to

669
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 10: making changes.

670
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 1: More positive change related to mandatory minimums came from the

671
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 1: first step back signed by President Trump in twenty eighteen.

672
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: The law gives judges more flexibility to impose sentences based

673
00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: on character and circumstance. That's a change from relying only

674
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: on guidelines forced on the courts. It also improved sentencing

675
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:39,879
Speaker 1: laws related to drug offenses. Here's Kevin Ring.

676
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was really important.

677
00:39:41,640 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 10: So when the Fear Sensing Act passed, it was a

678
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 10: really hard pill for groups like FAM and others to

679
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 10: support because all the people we knew had been hurt

680
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 10: and impacted by this law and now weren't going to

681
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 10: benefit from it because it didn't apply retroactively. One of

682
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,760
Speaker 10: the provisions we fought hardest for was is a provision

683
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 10: to make the Fair Sensing Act retroactive. So in the

684
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 10: past two to three years, we've seen thirty five hundred people,

685
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 10: ninety one percent of which were people of color, finally

686
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:16,359
Speaker 10: get the sentence in sentence reductions from the Fair Sensing Act.

687
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 10: So they've gotten retroactive relief average of six years off

688
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 10: each sentence. They're all coming back to the community now.

689
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 10: Everybody's you know, they're doing well.

690
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 1: Still, many felt things should improve even more for some

691
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: convicted of cocaine related crime. The Judiciary Committee in the

692
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 1: US Senate in June twenty twenty one held a hearing

693
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:39,359
Speaker 1: on sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine, the goal to wipe

694
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 1: out any disparity and mandatory minimum sentences between crack and

695
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 1: powder cocaine.

696
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:46,839
Speaker 9: Here Senator Dick Durbin.

697
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 8: In response to a nation and panic, we passed on

698
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 8: a bipartisan basis, a law that imposed one hundred to

699
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 8: one sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses

700
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 8: any Drug Abuse Act of nineteen eighty six. To to

701
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 8: this date, it is one of the worst votes I

702
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 8: ever cast.

703
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: The administration of President Biden has made it clear that

704
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: they support eliminating any disparity in sentencing between crack and

705
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:18,520
Speaker 1: powder cocaine. Here's Regina LaBelle, the Acting Director of the

706
00:41:18,520 --> 00:41:21,800
Speaker 1: Office of National Drug Control Policy, speaking at the hearing.

707
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 20: The current disparity is not based on evidence. It has

708
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 20: caused significant harm for decades, particularly for individuals, families, and

709
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 20: communities of color. The continuation of the sentencing disparity is

710
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 20: a significant injustice in our legal system, and it's pastime

711
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,399
Speaker 20: for it to end. Higher percentage of Black Americans are

712
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 20: convicted in federal court for crack cocaine offenses versus powder

713
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 20: cocaine offenses, and this sentencing disparity has caused them to

714
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:52,560
Speaker 20: receive substantially longer average sentence lengths for comparable offenses.

715
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: One who receives such a sentence as Matthew Charles. He

716
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: testified at the Senate hearing. Here's Matthew telling his story.

717
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 21: I grew up in the Cramp public housing unit in

718
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 21: North Carolina with a father who was both physically and

719
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 21: verbally abusive. At eighteen, I tried to escape home life

720
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 21: and joined the Army, but I was still angry and

721
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 21: mad at the world. For the next decade, I was

722
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,240
Speaker 21: in a dark place. I sold drugs and spent about

723
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 21: five years in state prison, but I had not yet

724
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 21: hit rock bottom. In nineteen ninety five, I was arrested

725
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 21: for selling two hundred and sixteen grams of crack cocaine

726
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 21: to an informant and illegally possessed a firearm. Because of

727
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 21: my prior criminal activity and because I sold crack cocaine

728
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 21: instead of powder cocaine, I was given a thirty five

729
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 21: year sentence.

730
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, Charles was released under new sentencing guidelines,

731
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:50,919
Speaker 1: establishing in the Fair Sentencing Act his life.

732
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 9: I turned around at that time.

733
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 21: I moved to Nashville, got a job as a driver,

734
00:42:56,239 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 21: reconnected with family, volunteered weekly at a food pantry called

735
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,320
Speaker 21: the Little Pantry that Could, and became deeply involved in

736
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 21: my church.

737
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 1: But Charles was not in the clear yet. At the hearing,

738
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 1: Senator Corey Booker explained.

739
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 22: After rebuilding his life for almost two years, an appellate

740
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 22: court ruled that mister Charles had been released in error.

741
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 22: After the First Step Act passed, mister Charles was eligible

742
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 22: for resentencing, and thank god, he was released again.

743
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 21: I spent the last two and a half years advocating

744
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 21: for those left behind. I deserve to go to federal

745
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 21: prison for my crimes, but I didn't need a sentence

746
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 21: of thirty five years, especially when twenty of those years

747
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 21: were due to the fact that I sold one type

748
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,720
Speaker 21: of crack, one type of cocaine rather than another.

749
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: Much of the testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee in

750
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 1: the US Congress last June focused on eliminating the crack

751
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 1: versus powder cocaine disparity. ASA Hutchinson is the current governor

752
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: of Alabama. He has served as the director of the

753
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: US Drug Enforcement Agency.

754
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 16: We understand the science, better understand the impact. We understand

755
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 16: the unfairness of it. It's supported by statistics, and that

756
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 16: should lead us to take the final step to eliminate

757
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 16: completely that disparity.

758
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 9: Here's Senator Corey Booker.

759
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 22: The Fair Sentencing Act, the first step pack has brought

760
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 22: us closer to doing away with this wrong, but we

761
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 22: can't let another deck that go by without addressing this Injustice.

762
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 1: Equal Act was introduced in the Senate by Booker on

763
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 1: January twenty eight, twenty twenty one. The US House passed

764
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: its version of the legislation in September twenty twenty one.

765
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:36,719
Speaker 1: Hasing the bill could take years, and at least one

766
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: person feels it may not happen at all.

767
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 11: I don't think there'll be a wholesale reform of mandatory

768
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 11: minimums in the Biden administration unless in an upcoming Congress

769
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:50,399
Speaker 11: there are bigger Democratic majorities.

770
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: That's Eric Sterling, who up to write the legislation that

771
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,720
Speaker 1: led to mandatory minimums in the nineteen eighties.

772
00:44:56,239 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 11: The Justice Department greatly value this mandatory minimum sentencing.

773
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 3: As a.

774
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:12,320
Speaker 11: Tool that they could use to force people to plead guilty.

775
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 11: If you plead guilty and make a deal, you won't

776
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 11: get this mandatory ten years. So they're going to be

777
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 11: very reluctant to give up mandatory minimums. The Justice Department

778
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:30,920
Speaker 11: position will put pressure on the White House not to

779
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:32,719
Speaker 11: repeal mandatory minimums.

780
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: And here Sterling discusses the political challenges of eliminating mandatory minimums.

781
00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 11: The Republicans are not interested in repealing mandatory minimums. Generally,

782
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 11: all of these members and senators are going to look

783
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 11: at this issue from the perspective of a primary opponent

784
00:45:55,760 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 11: or a general election opponent having a SoundBite that says

785
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:08,840
Speaker 11: something like, when drug overdoses were skyrocketing in America, Senator

786
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 11: Smith voted to cut the sentences for high level crack dealers.

787
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 11: Who's Senator Smith working for you or America's dope dealing scum?

788
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,359
Speaker 11: So how many times do you have to repeat that SoundBite?

789
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 11: How many times do you have to imagine that SoundBite

790
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 11: in your nightmares to say I'm not voting for that.

791
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:38,480
Speaker 11: So framing the legislation is going to be key. And

792
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 11: I'm not sure that a term like the Equal Act

793
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 11: is going to be any more effective than the Crack

794
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:50,799
Speaker 11: Cocaine Equitable Sentencing Act in attracting Republican voters. I don't

795
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 11: think it will be any more effective in attracting Republican

796
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 11: votes in the House and the Senate.

797
00:46:58,160 --> 00:46:58,760
Speaker 9: And the Senate.

798
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: The Judiciary can many hearing last summer feature concerns by

799
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: Republicans about recidivism rates for crack cocaine users.

800
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 9: Here's Senator truck rasping.

801
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 23: Drug sentencing laws are complex. They must be fair, and

802
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 23: they must be just, but prioritizing public safety is very important.

803
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:27,240
Speaker 23: I've indicated my openness to reevaluating the sentencing disparacy between

804
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 23: crack and powder cocaine, but I do have some questions

805
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 23: about how the best do this. There are discrepancies between

806
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 23: crack and powder cocaine in terms of recidivism rates, addiction.

807
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 9: And violent crime.

808
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 23: These factors can't be ignored.

809
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: Still, proponents are Senate reforms for those convicted of cocaine

810
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: crimes want more.

811
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 9: It involves retroactive application of the law.

812
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 10: So now this new bill, a Equal Act that would

813
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 10: finally eliminate dispirity to one to one is also retroactive.

814
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 10: But we're hearing opposition to retroactivity. There even people who

815
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:08,800
Speaker 10: support one to one. There's some senators. Senator Kornyn is

816
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 10: a good example who has supported reform sometimes but doesn't

817
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 10: support retroactivity because it feels like it undoes old convictions

818
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 10: or the sentences that people got. But it's really unjust.

819
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 10: If Congress is going to repudiate a sentence as being

820
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 10: too harsh, that should apply to all the people who

821
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 10: are suffering under that and whose stories we told in

822
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:30,759
Speaker 10: order to convince them to change the law. And so

823
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 10: that's you know, that's going to be a fight.

824
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: A story Ring and fam have promoted is about Doorthy Gaines,

825
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 1: the women we introduced you to at the beginning of

826
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: this segment. Since leaving prison in two thousand, Gaines has

827
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,799
Speaker 1: struggled to rebuild her life. Her son, Philip, the one

828
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: who actually judge to free her mom when he was

829
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:52,959
Speaker 1: nine years old, has repeatedly attempted suicide. Still, he later

830
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: became an honorall student, but then he dropped out of

831
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: school while his mother was still in prison. He was

832
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:01,800
Speaker 1: later convicted of cocaine possession and robbery and is serving

833
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:03,879
Speaker 1: two twenty year prison sentences.

834
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 9: There have been quiet victories.

835
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 1: Her eldest daughter, Natasha quick college to care for her

836
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 1: siblings and her own son after Dorothy was incarcerated. She

837
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 1: is now a teacher. Kanes has been caring for Philip's

838
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:20,240
Speaker 1: child and four other grandchildren. For her daughter, Charlie, Charles

839
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: still struggles from substance abuse issues related to the time

840
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 1: Gain spend in prison. Gain struggles to work and pay

841
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 1: her bills.

842
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:31,400
Speaker 5: It's been a struggle since I come home, Dave, is

843
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 5: I mean the work ethic thing, you know, with that

844
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 5: fellow thing I had on my rook because I was

845
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:39,520
Speaker 5: I was commentated, but I wasn't partner.

846
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 14: You know.

847
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 5: There wasn't letting you get housed if you had a

848
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 5: drug fell on the record. There was a lot going

849
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 5: on that we had to fight through, even with voting rites.

850
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:49,359
Speaker 5: So I had to get out fighting for voting, fight

851
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,280
Speaker 5: for house, and fight for food stamping.

852
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: Four years into her Gain sentence. Lamont and Lawrence Garrison

853
00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: just started their prison sentences in nineteen ninety eight. Lama

854
00:49:59,160 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: received nineteen years and Lawrence got fifteen years, both for

855
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:06,320
Speaker 1: conspiracy to distribute cocaine. At the time of their arrest,

856
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,399
Speaker 1: the identical twins were juvenile counselors. They're about to begin

857
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: school at Howard University. They both wanted to be lawyers.

858
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 1: Soon after the twins began their incarceration, their mother, Karen Garrison,

859
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: became an advocate for prison sentence reform.

860
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 24: You know, what I started to do was work those

861
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:27,239
Speaker 24: organizations or anything I saw on the news that had

862
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 24: something to do with this crack cocaine and you know,

863
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:36,359
Speaker 24: mass incarceration and things like that. I started to find out,

864
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:37,879
Speaker 24: and Dorothy's name would come up.

865
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 9: A lot of times.

866
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:42,280
Speaker 24: I would mention Dorothy's name, you know, when I went places,

867
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 24: so that people would know that there are other cases

868
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 24: that were worse than what I was talking about, or

869
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:49,839
Speaker 24: the same, you know, stuff like as in.

870
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: Two thousand and two, Garrison met Gains at a commutation event.

871
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: Two have been working since then the ways of awareness

872
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 1: about prison sentence reform. Garrison is known as Mommy Active

873
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: is for her work.

874
00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 24: Those draconian laws that were coming about because of them bias.

875
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 24: Everybody automatically wanted to lock everybody up that had anything

876
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:13,399
Speaker 24: to do with drugs or anything like that, you know,

877
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 24: and that's when things got just got like off the hook.

878
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 24: But when Dorothy came home and people would ask for

879
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 24: people to speak, I had the connection. I was kind

880
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 24: of like that go to or resources or linked. I

881
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 24: would always make sure here being in DC when they

882
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 24: needed people like Darthy'll need the story to be told

883
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:33,959
Speaker 24: or something like that.

884
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 1: It's a story, as Jay BILLI says, that needs to

885
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:41,240
Speaker 1: be told. Game's children have also struggled with drug addiction.

886
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 5: I'm still suffering with these kids that got messed up

887
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,759
Speaker 5: doing these drug log Bible was gone, and it's like

888
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:49,880
Speaker 5: a recycled things.

889
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:51,840
Speaker 7: Dripped on down to the next generation of kids.

890
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: The side tag of Games and many others is not

891
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:57,719
Speaker 1: lost on Jay Billis ESPN basketball analysts who played for

892
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:01,920
Speaker 1: Duke against Lambias look on the future of mandatory minimums

893
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: prison sentences is both gritty and grim, right.

894
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 12: I think the short answer for me is, I don't.

895
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 12: I'm not optimistic. We're gonna we're going to make substantial

896
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,799
Speaker 12: progress in the short run has been going on a

897
00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 12: long time, and there has been uh some some progress

898
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:25,719
Speaker 12: over the last several years. But you know, we're we're

899
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:28,879
Speaker 12: a country that incarcerates. I mean, nobody incarceraates like we do.

900
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 12: The answer is, you know, for many is just lock

901
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:36,319
Speaker 12: lock them up. And and I think it's profoundly wrong.

902
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:41,040
Speaker 12: But you know, my confident that our government, both state

903
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 12: and federal, but especially federal with federal drug crimes, we're

904
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 12: going to be able to, you know, look at the

905
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 12: damage that's been done and and not not just reverse it,

906
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:52,879
Speaker 12: but at least try to stem the tide of it.

907
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:55,319
Speaker 12: I don't have a lot of confidence that will do

908
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:56,839
Speaker 12: that in an efficient way.

909
00:52:57,239 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 9: And the fact that we haven't.

910
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 12: As a country been able to view it objectively and

911
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 12: say this is wrong, we need to change this. It

912
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 12: always sidens me thinking about it.

913
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 1: Ganges tries to communicate with her son Philip almost daily

914
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:19,719
Speaker 1: while he remains in prison. His challenges extend to his

915
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:21,880
Speaker 1: own daughter, who Dorothy is caring for.

916
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 5: Well, he been gone, he was stayed fifteen times and

917
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:27,399
Speaker 5: did another time. He got his broke cut last year.

918
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:31,399
Speaker 5: Well then prison did me and his daughter was going

919
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 5: to see him and we almost got killed going to

920
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:37,320
Speaker 5: he as one child and she's now tried to commit

921
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:42,439
Speaker 5: suicide last month herself.

922
00:53:43,640 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 9: How do you keep it together with all this? What

923
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 9: is your what is your foundation of what keeps you going?

924
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 5: Just hope that one day is going, One day we

925
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:56,880
Speaker 5: can have an enjoyment of seeing each other again.

926
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 7: On the outside.

927
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 5: It's just been like a been in prison for the

928
00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 5: last thirty years. It's been like prison. M oh No.

929
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: Next on Lambis. The mixed legacy from Dynasty to drug Out.

930
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 1: The death of Lemby's affected the Celtics and the n

931
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: b A.

932
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 9: Thirty five six Celtics.

933
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:28,800
Speaker 4: That's when they were peaking.

934
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:32,719
Speaker 22: That's when they were totally kicking ass every night and

935
00:54:32,760 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 22: it was the greatest show on basketball Earth at the time.

936
00:54:36,200 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 9: Well, he was clearly physically dominant. He was he was mean.

937
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 7: He had a mean mean on court the game and

938
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 7: that was that was important. But he had to have

939
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:51,959
Speaker 7: the skill set to go with it. And for them

940
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:58,480
Speaker 7: to have this monster of a player, it would have

941
00:54:58,640 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 7: It would.

942
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:03,800
Speaker 14: Have changed every thing against the Celtics, against.

943
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 9: The Lakers, it would have changed it all.

944
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:14,000
Speaker 25: We're always thinking like, you know what, how how might

945
00:55:14,040 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 25: the NBA have been different had had had he been

946
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 25: around when I was in the NBA.

947
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:22,320
Speaker 7: I mean they definitely had a drug problem.

948
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 22: Yeah, I think I think the NBA changed this whole

949
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:28,280
Speaker 22: mentality about drugs.

950
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 7: It changed the NBA drug policies.

951
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 9: All of a sudden.

952
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:36,720
Speaker 22: It was like now they was brought people out looking

953
00:55:36,719 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 22: for people who are getting hot.

954
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,360
Speaker 1: This segment was produced by Dave Ungrady and Don Marcus.

955
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: It was written by Dave Ungrady and edited by Don Marcus.

956
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: The narrator was Jamal Williams Child. Voice over provided by

957
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:53,320
Speaker 1: Kayden Ungrady. Technical production was provided by Octagon Entertainment. Production

958
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 1: assistance was produced by Kevin McNulty, Tino Quagliatta, marn Rosh,

959
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: Georgia Brown, Chasey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannix, and anzol

960
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:07,880
Speaker 1: Al Varenwin. Matt Dewhurst is providing the social media assistance.

961
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:11,480
Speaker 1: Some content provided by the Office of Senator Dick Durbin

962
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 1: and from the Drug Policy Alliance. Special thanks to the

963
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: University of Maryland and American University for providing inservice. The

964
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: Decision Education Foundation is a content and promotional partner of

965
00:56:22,040 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: this podcast series. For more information, go to gogradingmedia dot com.

966
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: This has been a production of go grading Media and

967
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: the Eighth Side Network