July 21, 2021 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 7
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AP PHOTO/ALLEN G. BREED
50-Year War on Drugs Imprisoned Millions of Black Americans
Alton Lucas sits on the porch of his home outside of Raleigh, N.C., on
Friday, June 18, 2021. As a teenager, Alton Lucas believed basketball
or music would pluck him out of North Carolina and take him around
the world. In the late 1980s, he was already the right-hand man to his
musically inclined best friend, Youtha Anthony Fowler, who many hip
hop and R&B heads know today as DJ Nabs.
By AARON MORRISON
Associated Press
L
andscaping
was
hardly his lifelong
dream.
As a teenager, Al-
ton Lucas believed bas-
ketball or music would
pluck him out of North
Carolina and take him
around the world. In
the late 1980s, he was
the right-hand man to
his musical best friend,
Youtha Anthony Fowler,
who many hip hop and
R&B heads know as DJ
Nabs.
But rather than jet-set-
ting with Fowler, Lucas
discovered drugs and the
drug trade at the height
of the so-called war on
drugs. Addicted to crack
cocaine and involved
in trafficking the drug,
he faced decades-long
imprisonment at a time
when the drug abuse and
violence plaguing major
cities and working class
Black communities were
not seen as the public
health issue that opioids
are today.
By chance, Lucas re-
ceived a rare bit of mer-
cy. He got the kind of help
that many Black and Lati-
no Americans struggling
through the crack epi-
demic did not: treatment,
early release and what
many would consider a
fresh start.
“I started the landscap-
ing company, to be hon-
est with you, because
nobody would hire me
because I have a felony,”
said Lucas. His Sunflow-
er Landscaping got a
boost in 2019 with the
help of Inmates to En-
trepreneurs, a national
nonprofit assisting peo-
ple with criminal back-
grounds by providing
practical entrepreneur-
ship education.
Lucas was caught up
in a system that imposes
lifetime limits on most
people who have served
time for drug crimes,
with little thought given
to their ability to reha-
bilitate. In addition to be-
ing denied employment,
those with criminal re-
cords can be limited in
their access to business
and educational loans,
housing, child custody
rights, voting rights and
gun rights.
It’s a system that was
born when Lucas was
barely out of diapers.
Fifty years ago this
summer, President Rich-
ard Nixon declared a war
on drugs. Today, with
the U.S. mired in a dead-
ly opioid epidemic that
did not abate during the
coronavirus pandemic’s
worst days, it is ques-
tionable whether anyone
won the war.
Yet the loser is clear:
Black and Latino Amer-
icans, their families and
their communities. A
key weapon was the im-
position of mandatory
minimums in prison
sentencing. Decades lat-
er those harsh federal
and state penalties led to
an increase in the pris-
on industrial complex
that saw millions of peo-
ple, primarily of color,
locked up and shut out of
the American dream.
An Associated Press
review of federal and
state incarceration data
shows that, between 1975
and 2019, the U.S. pris-
on population jumped
from 240,593 to 1.43 mil-
lion Americans. Among
them, about 1 in 5 people
were incarcerated with
a drug offense listed as
their most serious crime.
The racial disparities
reveal the war’s uneven
toll. Following the pas-
sage of stiffer penalties
for crack cocaine and
other drugs, the Black in-
carceration rate in Amer-
ica exploded from about
600 per 100,000 people
in 1970 to 1,808 in 2000.
In the same timespan, the
rate for the Latino pop-
ulation grew from 208
per 100,000 people to 615,
while the white incar-
ceration rate grew from
103 per 100,000 people to
242.
Gilberto Gonzalez, a
retired special agent for
the Drug Enforcement
Administration
who
worked for more than 20
years taking down drug
dealers and traffickers
in the U.S., Mexico and
in South America, said
he’ll never forget being
cheered on by residents
in a predominantly His-
panic
neighborhood
near Los Angeles as he
led away drug traffickers
in handcuffs.
“That gave me a sense of
the reality of the people
that live in these neigh-
borhoods, that are pow-
erless because they’re
afraid that the drug
dealers that control the
street, that control the
neighborhood are going
to do them and their chil-
dren harm,” said Gonza-
lez, 64, who detailed his
field experiences in the
recently released mem-
oir “Narco Legenda.”
“We realized then that,
along with dismantling
(drug trafficking) orga-
nizations, there was also
a real need to clean up
communities, to go to
where the crime was and
help people that are help-
less,” he said.
Still, the law enforce-
ment approach has led
to many long-lasting
consequences for peo-
ple who have since re-
formed. Lucas still won-
ders what would happen
for him and his family if
he no longer carried the
weight of a drug-related
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conviction on his record.
Even with his sunny
disposition and close to
30 years of sober living,
Lucas, at age 54, cannot
pass most criminal back-
ground checks. His wife,
whom he’d met two de-
cades ago at a fatherhood
counseling conference,
said his past had barred
him from doing things
as innocuous as chaper-
oning their children on
WAITLIST OPEN
1BR Apts
school field trips.
“It’s almost like a life
sentence,” he said.
Read the rest of this story at
TheSkanner.com
BUILDING
OFFICIAL
The City of Camas is
hiring a Building Official.
$7772-9309/monthly
DOE. Open until filled.
Go to http://www.cityof-
camas.us/jobs
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7-14-2021
7-14,21-2021
REACH CDC is pleased
to announce that our
waitlist for one-bedroom
apartments at Albina
Corner will open on
Tuesday, July 20, 2021
at 9 am. Albina Corner
is restricted for house-
holds at or below 60% of
the area median income.
The rent for a one-bed-
room unit is $860 per
month. This opening is
to add your household
information to the wait-
list only. Once 100 total
waitlist applications are
received, we will tem-
porarily close the list.
Please visit http://reach-
properties.org/
wait-list/ for more
information.
REACH CDC is pleased
to announce that our
newly constructed The
Mary Ann Apartments in
Beaverton is accepting
applications for one-bed-
room and two-bedroom
units. These units are
restricted for households
with incomes at or be-
low 50% to 60% of the
Area Median Income.
Rents range from $753
to $1,141 per month de-
pending on unit type. If
you are interested in ap-
plying, please visit
http://reachproper-
ties.org/wait-list/.
7-21-2021
7-21-2021
WAITLIST OPEN
1BR & 2BR Apts
CITY OF GASTON, OREGON
INVITATION TO BID
THIRD STREET IMPROVEMENTS
PROJECT
Bid Opening: 2:00 pm, July 29, 2021 at 116 Front
Street, Gaston, Oregon, 97119.
The work includes of asphalt removal, new road base,
asphalt; sidewalks, curbs, gutters, retaining walls, catch
basins, storm pipe, ADA ramps, driveway aprons, vege-
tated filter strip plantings and irrigation.
Contractor will be required to use LCPtracker for payroll
reporting. The higher of Davis Bacon or BOLI wage rates
shall prevail.
CAPITAL AND
FACILITIES
PROJECT
MANAGER
Clark College is current-
ly accepting applications
for a Capital and Facil-
ities Project Manager.
Salary is $65,720/annu-
ally. For complete posi-
tion description, closing
date, requirements and
to apply, access our
website at www.clark.
edu/jobs. Clark College
Human Resources, 1933
Fort Vancouver Way,
Vancouver, WA 98663
(360) 992-2105. AA/EO
employer.
7-21-2021
2 POSITIONS:
FISCAL
SERVICES
COORDINATOR
PROGRAM
ASSISTANT
The higher of Davis Bacon wage rates or BOLI wage rates
shall prevail. Questions: Brooke Harrison at Brooke.Har-
rison@tetratech.com or 503.890.8108.
MHCC Head Start is
hiring! We are hiring for
a Fiscal Services Co-
ordinator, and Program
Assistant - Bilingual
Spanish/English. If you
are interested in learn-
ing more about these
positions or would like
to apply, please visit:
https://www.schooljobs.
com/careers/mhcc. Con-
tact Elsy Cortez with any
questions: elsy.cortez@
mhcc.edu
7-14,21-21
7-21-2021
Documents: Obtain from Becky.Connelly@tetratech.
com or 503.510.7375 or review at Salem Contractor’s
Exchange, DJC Plan Center or SW Washington Contrac-
tor Association.
Non-Mandatory Pre-Bid Meeting: 1:00 pm, July 20, 2021
at Gaston City Hall, 116 Front Street, Gaston, Oregon
97119.