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40 Years Later: America's Failed War on Drugs
Jesse Jackson
How do you end America's longest war that is an abject failure? No, not
About
Yet despite this, drugs are just as available as and cheaper than they were 40 years ago. As the U.S. drug czar,
And the war's casualties are mounting. The war on drugs turned, early on, into a new
Now the state fiscal crisis is forcing states -- even states as conservative as
In a new report, the
I have spent decades talking with young men and women about the perils of drugs, in classrooms, in church basements, in prisons and jails and on the street. The scourge of drugs is destructive of lives and of hope. But so, too, is the war against drugs.
We must use the 40th anniversary of a failed war to call that war into question. What if we treated drug addiction like alcohol addiction as a public health problem? Marijuana accounts for one-half of all drug arrests in the U.S.; decriminalizing it would save millions that could be used to treat addicts rather than arrest kids. Alternatives to incarceration should be preferred for those who pose no threat to others. Harsh mandatory and minimum sentences should be repealed. Why not take drug addiction out of the criminal justice system and treat it in the public health system? It surely would be better to spend the money not on locking people up, but on clinics that might treat their illnesses.
Ending the "War on Drugs" doesn't mean we abandon the effort to regulate them, to teach children of their dangers, or to treat those who are hooked. But it does mean we don't waste millions more lives and billions more dollars on a war that cannot be won.
The drug war has been waged by both parties. Politicians have postured tough on crime, competing to invent the harshest punishments. Money was no object. An entire prison complex -- with powerful private interests -- has grown up to warehouse the prisoners of the war. But now, 40 years later, isn't it time to put aside the posturing, and have a fundamental debate about alternatives to this failed war?
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