PRECKWINKLE RIGHT ON DRUG WAR

Acts of political courage are not all that common these days. That's
why County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's presence at a June 17
rally in downtown Chicago calling for an "End to the War on Drugs" was
a singular event.

Showing up might seem to have been a no-brainer. She was given the
opportunity to make the case for saving the county money and lives:
"The War on Drugs has failed to eradicate drug use, instead it has
resulted in the incarceration of millions throughout the nation and
annually 100,000 (8,500 at any one time) here in Cook County.

"Nearly 70 percent of those are held on nonviolent offenses -- many for
drug possession charges . . . yet we have only 8,500, or 16 percent,
of the jail population in drug treatment programs. The cost is too
great to continue fighting this war on drugs with so little success.
Rather than investing in detaining people at the jail for $142 per
day, we must invest in treatment, education, job skills training."

Her numbers pertain to Cook County. But the facts of the war on drugs
as a failure are national, even global. We have spent more than $1
trillion since Richard Nixon initiated the war in 1971; drug markets
have not been curtailed; the U.S. has become a prisoner nation,
putting more people in jail than any other country in the world, and
treatment programs have gotten short shrift.

Given these facts, why are most of our political leaders so unwilling
to talk, and talk straight?

New York Times columnist David Brooks in his new book, The Social
Animal, tells us that rational arguments come in a distant second in
choosing political affiliations and setting public policy. This is
true of all of us -- right, left or middle. It is mostly our emotions,
biases and unconscious fears that determine the party we will choose
and how we will vote. If that is true generally, how much more so when
it comes to drugs, which have been cruelly and cynically conflated
with crime and race for at least the last 100 years in this country.
On few other issues is it so easy to exploit our deepest fears no
matter the facts.

My heart goes out to all who grew up in families where alcohol and
other drugs were a problem and don't want their kids to fall victim to
the same pathologies. I can imagine nothing worse than losing a child
to drugs. But just as abstinence programs have not proved effective in
deterring teenagers from having sex, why do we think that driving
drugs underground is a better alternative than candor, education and,
when necessary, treatment?

At the rally we learned that the current generation of young people is
not buying into the drug war. Listen to Madison Mullen, who has just
graduated from Frances Parker School and will attend American
University next fall:

"I stand before you as a member of a generation that refuses to be
used as the excuse for this Drug War. . . . We are tired of fear being
emphasized above reason. . . . In school, we are taught to expect that
our leaders want that which is best for the American people. But we
are learning now is that politicians are so concerned with re-election
that they overlook human rights abuses within our borders," Mullen
said.

Fortunately, Toni Preckwinkle does not fall into that category. At the
end of the rally, I found myself not only grateful for her mettle but
also wondering whether Mayor Rahm Emmanuel will show comparable
courage. Together they could make quite a team.