Len Bias, a 6-7, 22 year old college student who was the Boston Celtics’ No. 2 draft pick in 1986, has long been forgotten, but the impact of his death due to a cocaine overdose fueled the fire for mandatory minimum sentencing, a tragic externality that is still felt by many.
In 1986, Bias was probably the most promising young athlete in the nation. He was finishing his senior year at the University of Maryland.
One night while celebrating being drafted into the NBA, Bias died of a cocaine-induced heart attack.’
Many, even the group of friends with him that night, speculated this was his first encounter with drugs.’
Regardless of whether he had used cocaine in the past or if this was his first encounter, what was most significant was the loss of such a promising life and the manipulative way Congress used Bias’ death to force mandatory minimum sentencing legislation into law.
Rumors began to circulate after Bias’ death that he died not from snorting cocaine, but rather from smoking ‘crack cocaine.’ It became almost a media campaign to link the two. In the first month after his death, 74 news segments aired about crack and cocaine and the assertions that crack killed Bias. At the time, the media clearly portrayed the typical crack user as black and poor and the cocaine user as white and rich.
The government’s response right after Bias’ death was to hurriedly push federal laws through Congress, including the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, decreeing that drug offenders were subject to mandatory minimum sentences.
This legislation decreed possession or sale of 1/100th of an amount of crack cocaine as compared to powder cocaine (5 grams vs. 500 grams) would trigger those mandatory minimum sentences.
Under these new sentencing laws, Derrick Curry, a close friend of Jay Bias, Len’s brother, was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison for possession.
It has taken years for them to step back and reflect, but Republicans and Democrats both have realized the bias in their legislation, as well as the negative impact of the laws they wrote, which stemmed out of fear and were conceived in haste.’
They now see they took it too far.’ Advocacy groups like Families Against Mandatory Minimums show multiple case studies where these minimum sentencing guidelines simply do not make sense.’
One case study is of John Van Winkle, who is currently serving a nine-year sentence in federal prison for selling prescription strength cold medicine.
The tragic loss of a promising young man 23 years ago should not have turned into the loss of thousands of young lives in the two decades to follow.’
In our legislators’ haste, they did not concern themselves with the unequal way in which their laws were written or applied, nor did they have the foresight to see the horrendous impact their laws would have on our society years down the road.’
Mildred Scott is a communication senior and may be reached at [email protected].
