AMERICA NEEDS STRATEGY TO EXIT ITS LONGEST WAR

FORTY years ago today, President Richard Nixon declared illicit drugs
"public enemy No. 1." The ensuing war on drugs has been fought in fits
and starts by every ensuing administration and is arguably the most
disastrous public policy in American history since chattel slavery and
its Jim Crow progeny.

This ignominious anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect, to
ask ourselves and our leaders some very hard questions, and to demand
a new direction in U.S. drug policy once and for all.

Initiated by President Nixon and escalated under Presidents Reagan,
Bush and Clinton, the war on drugs was said to be fought to keep
Americans, particularly children, safe from harmful psychoactive
substances. After four decades and at least $1 trillion, illicit drugs
are actually cheaper, more potent, and widely available to Americans
of all ages.

Addiction remains persistent among a relatively small percentage of
drug users, yet the overwhelming majority of people who want to access
drug treatment don't, most often because they simply can't afford it.
What's more, overdose deaths as well as HIV and hepatitis C
transmissions have all skyrocketed despite recognized, low-cost public
health interventions. That's because the drug war focuses on criminal
justice - rather than health-centered - solutions to problems caused
by drugs.

In fact, the acceleration of drug-related prosecutions is the largest
contributor to the sixfold ballooning of this country's prison
population since 1970. Of the 2.3million Americans behind bars, half a
million are there for drug offenses, the vast majority for possession
of small amounts of illicit drugs for personal use. For context, the
United States incarcerates more people just for drug crimes than
Western Europe - with 100 million more people - incarcerates for all
crimes combined. Here in California, we imprison 8,500 each year for
drug possession, at an annual cost of nearly half a billion dollars.

Our over-reliance on a criminal justice approach to drugs is made even
uglier by easily documented racial disparities that reveal system-wide
selective enforcement of our drug laws. Despite what we're used to
seeing in the mainstream media, people of all races and ethnicities
consume and distribute drugs in roughly equal proportion. That means
white Americans take and sell the vast majority of illicit drugs.

Yet, African-Americans and Latinos represent a startling two-thirds
of all people arrested for drug crimes. The impact of a permanent drug
arrest record, let alone a felony conviction, has well-documented
lifelong consequences. The mass criminalization of people of color,
particularly young African-American men, has become as profound a
system of racial control as the Jim Crow laws were in this country
until the mid-1960s.

Far from keeping us safer and healthier, the war on drugs has been a
war on families, on communities of color, and on American public
health. Today a vibrant national movement voices that message as more
and more people speak out against this historic policy
catastrophe.

At least 50 events around the country this weekend, seven of them in
California, will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the drug war and
advocate alternative approaches, many of which have been in place
around the world for decades. And just two weeks ago, the Global
Commission on Drug Policy called for a major paradigm shift in how our
society deals with drugs, including decriminalization and legal regulation.

The high-profile commission is composed of international dignitaries
such as former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S.
Secretary of State George Shultz, entrepreneur Richard Branson, and
the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Switzerland.
Their report understandably sent a jolt around the world, generating
thousands of international media stories.

Now the time has now come for all of us to forge an exit strategy from
this nation's longest war. It's time to replace our punitive drug
laws, and their race-based enforcement, with policies grounded in
science, compassion, health and human rights.