It is a known and documented fact that the CIA invented/developed crack (oliver north was the head of this mission) to sell to ambitious African American groups in urban (black) neighborhoods all over the country. The CIA needed money to fund anti terrorism programs. The blacks got smart and learned how to make their own crack, they did not need Oliver North anymore. The black neighborhoods went to crap, they operated like third world nations. The few drug dealers made all the money while the rest of the people were starving and dieing from the drugs.
Enter Richard Nixon.
Nixon declared a "war on drugs". The American people believed this was a great thing, drugs kill....Nixon wants to lock up the drug dealers and drug addicts to make this nation a better place. This is 100% wrong. The government knew they screwed up with Oliver North. But the Gov is smart and they used it to their advantage. They put hefty laws on crack cocaine, the crack form carried a longer sentence then the powder form (the rich mans form). They started locking people up left and right which in turn created what we know today as these huge prisons. Which created TONS of jobs, all the way from police officers to probation officers to prison guards. They could not build prisons fast enough. The deadly substance now had its enemy, the "drug dealer". Yes i partially blame the drug dealers but then again i do not, they saw opportunity...they took it. This is a win, win for the government. It gave them the opportunity to attract voters and the opportunity to destroy the people that would other wise not vote for them (poor urban communities) all the while creating jobs and developing systems (prisons, half way houses, drug programs) to monitor and "cage" the less desirable areas of this country.
The government is terrified of what it cant control. People in the ghetto selling crack have no tax ID numbers, do not pay taxes, do not vote. People like you and me have jobs, we pay taxes, we vote. The government knows everything about us, we have a paper trail. So they need to somehow "control" these criminals, and they do so with prison etc. The government is beyond genius with the way they conduct the war on drugs.