THE WAR ON DRUGS 40 YEARS LATER

Punitive Drug Policies Don't Work

How do people who are essentially only harming themselves come to be
treated as criminals? If our correction system was one time designed
to rehabilitate, how have we drifted so far afield from this ideal?
Where are the treatment centers, the rehabs, the hospitals?

After struggling side-by-side for nine agonizing years with my son,
Ian, as he dealt with depression, self-mutilation, drug use, and
repeated incarceration for simply self-medicating, I saw him begin to
find inner strength, confidence, and stability despite the feeling
that he was being hounded by probation. Three months into this period
of growing self-esteem, however, he had one "dirty test" and decided
that all was lost, that this time he would be sent to state prison--a
threat that is held over the heads of the thousands who go through our
court system for using drugs. He ended his life that day, at the
tender age of 23.

After a period of intense grief, and the deaths of a dozen other young
adults under similar circumstances that winter in Santa Barbara,
several of us moms came together. Certain questions were preying on
our minds.

How do people who are essentially only harming themselves come to be
treated as criminals? If our correction system was one time designed
to rehabilitate, how have we drifted so far afield from this ideal?
Where are the treatment centers, the rehabs, the hospitals? Where is
the help for someone who is struggling with anxiety, depression, or
more serious thought disorders, and is self-medicating?

Forty years ago this week, President Nixon declared a "War on Drugs."
Apparently, we've lost this war, despite the fact that it is costing
us $51 billion dollars a year.

Apparently the drug war hasn't been able to stem the flow of drugs
into our communities. On the contrary.

In 1980--a year before my son was born--there were 50,000 people
incarcerated in the U.S. for drug law violations. Today there are
500,000. This number does not include the thousands and thousands
being held on probation or parole violations such as dirty urine
tests, or offenses committed under the influence of drugs. Thirty
thousand people are in prison in California for a drug offense;
two-thirds of them merely for a possession offense.

Apparently, incarcerating people who use drugs does not get them to
stop using. The latest recidivism rate cited for the Santa Barbara
County Jail--where almost of our inmates have a drug or alcohol
problem--is 85%

The "War on Drugs" doesn't seem to have reduced the number of overdose
deaths either. Twenty-six thousand people died of a drug overdose in
the U.S. in 2006. Between 2008 and 2009, Santa Barbara County saw a
three-fold increase in drug- and alcohol-related deaths. The shame
connected with an overdose death--be it that of a 35-year-old Latino
father or a white, upper-middle-class "bipolar" youth--tends to hide it
from view, especially in a town like Santa Barbara that likes to look
good to tourists.

"Public safety" is the mantra, the refrain, the chorus that you hear
over and over and over ad nauseum in the halls of government. I heard
it used at least 25 times this week at the county budget hearings.

If we send a helicopter to hover over the home of an anxiety-ridden
Santa Barbara man who is self-medicating, along with a SWAT team on
the ground to break down his 80-year-old mother's door--do you feel
safer? I don't. I feel worried. I wonder who is paying for this and
who will be next?

As far as I'm concerned, public safety requires treatment. We need to
provide treatment options that are compassionate and effective for
people who are experiencing enough distress to become addicted to drugs.

If the "war on drugs" hasn't curbed the use of "illicit" drugs (on the
contrary), and hasn't reduced the number of overdose deaths (on the
contrary), and has only succeeded in providing an excuse for search
and seizure of hundreds of thousands of people (in particular those on
probation or parole); and if this state of affairs is supporting vast
industries and tempting communities to abdicate their responsibilities
to private prison corporations, why are we tolerating it?

Why don't we redirect these resources to helping to prevent and heal
the most fragile members of our society?

Families ACT! and Moms United to End the War on Drugs are co-
sponsoring a Teach-In and Vigil this Friday, June 17 from 5:30 to 7:45
p.m. at The Adobe, at 15 E. Carrillo Street, on the 40th Anniversary
of the "War on Drugs." The public is welcome, and hors d'oeuvres will
be provided free of charge.