So people in rural areas having more space to commit crimes than people in urban areas is equivalent to APARTHEID? Are you fucking kidding me?

We're not talking about freedom of speech or the right to free association - all of which were actual human rights denied under apartheid. We're talking about selling drugs, which whether or not you think it should be legal or not is hardly on the same plane as the right to free speech or public association or access to medical care. It's SELLING FUCKING DRUGS.

And you're saying that people who live in one kind of place - and the idea that rural NJ is somehow this white enclave is the first clue you really don't know what the fuck you're talking about - have more room to break the law in a certain way than people who live in other parts is the equivalent of 50 years of a systematic government effort to disenfranchise and displace a homogenous ethnic group?

Are you out of your fucking mind?

I think DHJ, that in the simplest terms, the comparison is apt.

The statistics bare out that laws as currently drawn disproportionately punish minorities to a greater degree than whites for identical crimes. This is institutional racism.

It is obviously not as overt, but it is real.

By using an arbitrary marker like 1000 feet and applying it to both high-density (largely minority areas) and low-density (largely white areas) you basically create a law that effectively says 1 in 10 whites will be punished twice as harshly for selling drugs from their homes, and 1 in 3 blacks will be punished twice as harshly for the same crime.

Whether there was intent or actual malice is an obvious point of contention, but the fact that legislators are resistant to making any changes when confronted by evidence of this racial discrepancy is telling.

I'm hardly the first person to compare the drug war to Apartheid in the sense that it imposes arbitrary restrictions on minorities. Many people have called the drug war something like "[40 or so] years of a systematic government effort to disenfranchise and displace a homogenous ethnic group." But: Whatever, you didn't like my rhetorical flourish, that's fine.

(I have a nice book that compares the drug war to the Holocaust if you'd like to borrow it.)

Anyway, it's not about having more space to commit crimes; it's lawmakers making areas where more minorities live -- the "urban effect," the Jersey sentencing commission called it -- have higher punishments than elsewhere. And the result is 96 percent of DFSZ arrests are of minorities.

It seems like you may not care because these people are drug dealers, but it's no surprise people turn to dealing drugs when they may have few other chances for advancement and when prohibition has created a lucrative market. Considering the 1000-foot border was chosen arbitrarily, I don't think it's out of line to strongly question why -- when presented evidence that the law doesn't keep dealers away from schools and that it targets almost exclusively minorities -- politicians continue to support the law.

It coulda been worse, too; I almost turned in this column with a line that amounted to "why does Richard Codey hate children?" Fortunately I thought better of it.

@Dark Horse John: Dmac had stats and facts to back up his assertions. Your argument can be summed up as, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?"

Dmac wins. You lose. Fail.