WAR ON DRUGS' FOCUS WRONG, SPEAKER SAYS

Emphasize Programs For Poor, Not Prisons, Nashville Clergyman Tells
New Group.

The key to solving America's drug problem, the Rev. Edwin Sanders
says, resides not in more prisons, but in programs that will help
unlock the potential of the nation's poor.

Sanders, a prominent Nashville clergyman and an expert on health-care
issues, challenged the members of a Syracuse-area group on Tuesday to
look hard at the causes of drug abuse and the crime and violence that
attend it, then work toward reforming the drug laws he said perpetuate
the problem.

"We'll have to stand up. We'll have to speak up. And if necessary,
we'll have to act up," said Sanders, keynote speaker at the kickoff
meeting of the newly formed Families Against Injustice.

The group describes itself as a diverse association of families
concerned about crime and violence, which it says are caused by
poverty, unemployment, hopelessness, ineffective youth policies,
failed drug policies and the unfair application of laws, particularly
the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.

About 70 people gathered at God's Way Church, 1800 S. Salina St., for
the meeting.

America's war against drugs has imprisoned thousands of poor, largely
minority individuals while doing nothing to either rehabilitate
habitual users or solve the underlying causes of drug abuse, several
speakers said.

"While we fully acknowledge the fact that good law enforcement is an
essential part of our society, we feel this one-dimensional method of
looking to law enforcement as the cure to all violence and crime
entrusts the hopes and aspirations of the community to scare tactics,
prisons and ultimately a police state," said the Rev. Larry Ellis,
pastor of God's Way Church, in his opening remarks.

Sanders told the audience of seeing a museum exhibition of graffiti
art in New York City. The artists each were given a canvas with an
obscene word painted on it, then challenged to make something
beautiful of the canvas without painting over the word.

Like those artists, Sanders said, "I'm convinced that the reason we
are here tonight is because we are challenged to take this ugliness,
to take this vulgar situation, to take this obscene reality, to take
this funky mess that you see . . . to deal with it in a way that
transforms what it is and has a liberating possibility for our community."

That can't be done without taking a hard look at the oppression that
results from a poor education system, lack of economic opportunities
and the way the criminal justice system seems to favor the rich,
Sanders said.

In addition, he said, concerned people need to do more than analyze
the problem from the sidelines: They need to take action.

Finally, he said, those who seek change have to learn to rise above
the problem.

"What allows us to rise above it is that we should not be deterred by
the fact that the enemy seems to be so much bigger than we are,"
Sanders said. "We know we are a part of a tradition of people who in
the face of hopelessness found a way to hope."