Thread by @DrRJKavanagh

So it's not just Matt Gaetz's hypocrisy that bothers me, it is the idea that struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine is somehow worse than than alcohol.

Because you know that's why he thought it was OK to go there even tho he has a DWI.

As a public defender I see this ALL THE TIME.

A DWI is pretty much the only socially acceptable criminal conviction a person can have. It's the one crime where the racial and socio-economic make up of people arrested more closely matches the actual population.

Every public defender can tell you a story of interviewing someone at arraignments charged with a DWI whose first comment is, I don't belong here, I'm not like these people, I'm not a criminal. They can be the most difficult & entitled clients. Mostly they retain private counsel.

It's the one crime for which people are far less likely to do jail time, even tho the conduct of which they are accused actually endangers other people.

In fact, even when people are convicted of manslaughter resulting from drunk driving their sentences are far less than comparative sentences.

Consider Ethan Couch in Texas who was sentenced to probation in a case where he killed four people and injured nine.

By contrast, people charged with simple possession of crack cocaine can do years in prison.

Even residue of crack cocaine in what is called a "stem" - an instrument used to push cocaine into a pipe - is enough for an arrest and conviction.

I have had cases where police have knocked down doors to apartments and tossed them without cause, found an old stem, arrested people and charged them with possession of crack cocaine because of the RESIDUE in the stem.

And let is not pretend that what happened today during the hearings was not about the fact that crack cocaine is a drug that people conflate with Blackness and poverty. If Hunter Biden had taken powdered cocaine or opioids I highly doubt that Gaetz would have brought it up.

It was Biden's proximity to a drug that still carries that stigma - why mention that he bought the drug from someone living in a "homeless encampment?"

If you can't get him on the big stuff, it's a way of associating a rich White guy with Blackness and criminality.

This, despite the fact that alcohol causes more deaths, is responsible for more acts of violence, is more difficult to withdraw from than crack cocaine. I have had two people very close to me who have struggled with alcohol addiction so I know up close & personal what it can do.

I know that a lot of people tweeting about this didn't mention the fact that Gaetz talked about crack cocaine, just "drugs." That's cool, but I feel it's also because there is some stigma in mentioning it. Maybe I am wrong there.

Sorry this is a long thread. I just feel really upset by this for a bunch of different reasons. Again, f*** you, Matt Gaetz.