In an effort to illustrate the urgency of the drug epidemic in America, Bush had undercover drug enforcement agents lure a 19-year-old African-American teenager, Keith Jackson, to a park across the street from the White House where the agents bought a bag of crack cocaine from him for $2,400.
Bush held up that bag of drugs, which he falsely said was "seized" from Jackson, during his first nationally televised address from the Oval Office in Sept. 1989 as evidence that no neighborhood was safe from drugs and crime.
"It's as innocent-looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones," he said of the drugs.
The judge who sentenced Jackson to ten years in prison (following mandatory minimum sentencing laws) urged the young man to appeal to Bush to commute his sentence.
"He used you, in the sense of making a big drug speech," the federal district judge, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, told Jackson. "But he's a decent man, a man of great compassion. Maybe he can find a way to reduce at least some of that sentence."
Bush refused to reduce Jackson's sentence and the teenager was ultimately locked up for nearly eight years.