Len Bias wears a Boston Celtics hat after being selected as the No.
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It turned out that Bias had in fact snorted powder cocaine, but by the time that became clear the crack frenzy was in full flower. A rumor, spread in the press, said he'd died smoking crack, a cheap form of cocaine that was being blamed for increasing crime and all sorts of social ills. Sterling was a lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee when Leonard Kevin "Len" Bias, an All-American forward at the University of Maryland, died on June 19, 1986, two days after being drafted by the NBA champion Boston Celtics. "The law that flowed from this completely destroyed the federal justice system and tarnished the reputation of the whole American justice system," said Eric Sterling, who as a young congressional aide helped draft the legislation and has since worked to unwind its effects. Those effects are now fueling a bipartisan reform effort. The new law established mandatory minimum drug sentences, provisions that exacerbated racial disparities, led to an explosion in prison populations and helped lay the groundwork for grievances that erupted in anti-police riots in Baltimore last year and in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
Friends of the Len Bias carry his casket on June 23, 1986. Thirty years later, America is still reeling from the impact. Bias' 1986 cocaine overdose helped sparked a panic, stoked by false rumors and a high-stakes political campaign, that culminated in a law that swept thousands of low-level drug offenders - most of them young and black - into prison.
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