WAR ON DRUGS - TIME FOR BOOMERS TO 'FESS UP

AN ARTICLE in the July 25 Daily News reported that prisons in
Philadelphia are about 1,000 over capacity.

There is an obvious solution to this overcrowding: end mandatory
minimums for low-level drug offenses. The war on drugs has had a
devastating impact on increasing numbers of women who have been
incarcerated as a result of these policies.

Unfortunately, many women's organizations have not paid enough
attention to the impact of the drug war on women and their families.
At its 2005 convention, the National Organization for Women passed a
resolution called "Women's rights: Another casualty of the 'War on Drugs.' "

The resolution says that "the incarceration rate of women convicted
of low-level drug-related offenses has increased dramatically in the
past decade as a result of our nation's relentless 'War on Drugs.'
Poor women and women of color have been disproportionately targeted
for drug law enforcement and receive long mandatory prison sentences
that have little relationship to their actions or culpability."

The NOW resolution also says that "two-thirds of women in prison have
at least two children who are displaced as a result of their
incarceration, often forced to live in the care of family, friends,
or state-sponsored foster care where they may be at increased risk of
emotional, physical, or sexual abuse."

Yet the policies continue and attempts to end mandatory minimums for
low-level drug offenses have been largely unsuccessful. Philadelphia
NOW has tried to implement this resolution by educating our members
and the broader public, yet it has been difficult to get this issue
on the radar screen.

The willingness to incarcerate large numbers of people for minor drug
offenses is the shame of the baby-boom generation.

A generation of young people in the '60s and early '70s experimented
with drugs and for the most part did so with impunity.

Many powerful and successful women and men in our society
experimented with drugs in their youth. But their careers were not
derailed; their families were not torn apart. Sadly, they are now
willing to ignore the fact that another generation of women and men
are being incarcerated in appalling numbers for drug-related crimes.

In 1972, Ms. Magazine published a petition headlined: "We have had
abortions." Fifty-three well-known U.S. women declared that they had
undergone abortions - despite state laws rendering the procedure illegal.

Perhaps we need a petition like this to address the issue of illegal
drugs. (I'm not equating abortion with using illegal drugs, just
suggesting a strategy to call attention to a problem.)

We need people who experimented with drugs and became productive
citizens who are willing to say, "I used illegal drugs and went on to
become a productive member of society. I and other members of my
generation were not incarcerated for long periods of time for what
would be considered low-level drug offenses. The current war on drug
is having a devastating impact on low-income families (particularly
low-income communities of color) and our current policy of mass
incarceration must be stopped."

Such a petition might be what we need to get action on Pennsylvania
House Bill HB 751, which seeks to address prison overcrowding by
abolishing mandatory minimums for certain non-violent offenses. Any takers?

Karen Bojar is president of the Philadelphia chapter of the National
Organization for Women.