The first section is an introduction to the history and politics of American drug policy. The discussion concludes that drug use, like crime, immigration, and welfare, has become entangled in the political symbolism of recent conservative politics, which means that debates about the goals or effectiveness of current policies are as much about normative as about empirical issues. The history of American drug policy teaches that, ironically, public and political attitudes toward drug use become most punitive and moralistic at times, like the present, when drug use is declining. An examination of drug use patterns shows two stable long-term findings: the use of illicit and licit drugs has been declining since the late 1970's, and black Americans report lower levels of use of nearly all drugs than do white Americans. By trying principally to reduce the supply of drugs, rather than demand for them, by adopting a prohibitionist crime control approach, rather than a harm- reduction approach, policymakers chose strategies that had little prospect of succeeding but a high likelihood of worsening racial disproportions in the criminal justice system. Urban black Americans have borne the brunt of the War on Drugs. Cocaine and more recently crack have been the drugs primarily targeted and they, particularly crack, are notoriously used and distributed in the inner city. The political symbolism of cocaine has been high since the mid-1980's. The harsh drug laws of the 1980's remain in place and new ones continue to be enacted. The percentage of black men between ages 20 and 29 who were in jail or prison, or on probation or parole, increased from 23 percent in 1990 to 32 percent in 1995; drug arrests and sentencing policies for drug crimes are the principal reason for the increase. The social and economic conditions and life chances of members of the black American underclass have steadily worsened since the early 1980's. No end to the damage disproportionately done by the politically motivated War on Drugs to young disadvantaged black men is in sight. 9 figures, 2 tables, and 35 references