There are no qualms about locking up the thousands of poor and unknown.

Pleas on Larry King for Lohan, But What About Other Drug Offenders?
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson 

Within hours after ill-fated model-actress Lindsay Lohan was busted on suspicion of drunk driving and drug possession in Santa Monica her teary eye father, and a parade of Hollywood celebrities, and some of Lohan’s friends and associates, made sobbing, heart wrenching pleas on the Larry King show for public understanding of Lohan’s ordeal. Lohan’s attorney made his pitch for public understanding, calling addiction a terrible and vicious disease.

The kid glove protective attitude of many in the entertainment industry toward Lohan is hardly surprising. She has been released each time within hours on low bond, wears a SCRAM monitoring bracelet, and alcohol monitor on her ankle, gets tested regularly, and got top notch treatment at a posh Malibu, California rehab center. Her film,” I Know Who Killed Me,” which is scheduled for release almost certainly will pack audiences in, if for no other reason out of curiosity and her rogue name.

There’s nothing wrong with Lohan’s entertainment industry friends, and a star-struck public, pleading for empathy for her and urging the courts to spare her a jail sentence, and to give her the help that she obviously needs. But there are thousands of drug offenders that need the same compassion and help as Lohan. The big difference is that these drug abusers aren’t high-profile, bankable screen commodities. They are mostly poor blacks and Latinos. The estimate is that nearly one-fourth of the more than one million blacks that pack America’s prisons are there for non-violent, drug-related crimes. It costs billions to keep them there.

Putting them behind bars has had staggering consequences. It has torn apart families and communities. It has been the single biggest reason for the bloat in federal and state spending on prison construction, maintenance, and the escalation in the number of prosecutors needed to handle the flood of drug cases. Also, few poor, black and Latino drug offenders will be immediately released by police, as Lohan continues to be, and then be allowed to luxuriate in a posh drug treatment center.

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