WAR ON DRUGS IS NOT DELIVERING PEACE

Some say the secret of life is to find what you love to do and do it
as long as possible. I believe the center of all seen and unseen, the
entity many call god, places a burning in your heart and if you clear
away enough of the distractions from your mind you will see clearly
what it is exactly that you are meant to do. The thing that will fill
your heart with love and joy and peace from a job well done. Sometimes
it may be nothing more than sitting on the porch petting your cat
while enjoying a beautiful sunset. For some, when the air is still and
the hustle and bustle of school or work subsides for a moment, the
sound of despair fills their ears and becomes a call to action. I
believe all living things are somehow connected and that true peace
cannot coexist with blatant suffering but rather it is through the
quest of reducing suffering that peace can be attained. There is
something very human about the urge to ease another's suffering. The
forces that oppose suffering are legion and do great things. Doctors
Without Borders, UNICEF, The Salvation Army, The Red Cross and others
have millions upon millions of members and spend their time working to
improve the human condition.

Whenever there is a war the TV news shows glorious battles with
"smart" bombs and "smart" missiles and tactical missions with exciting
firefights but rarely is the "invasion" of the legions of peacemakers
televised. But there they are handing out medicine and food to those
displaced and trying their utmost best to repair the tears to the
fabric of humanity left behind the rocket's red glare. There is one
war however where the legions of peacemakers have been mostly absent.
That is the war on drugs.

Several years ago I had a life-changing journey called the Journey for
Justice, I joined appx: twenty others from several states and together
we caravanned from prison to prison across Texas to bring about
attention to the injustice that is the war on drugs. At each prison we
set up a vigil and were greeted by many family members of those
incarcerated and more than a few guards and the stories they tell are
life changing.

Built upon a house of cards the war on drugs is fifty miles wide and
an inch deep. Scratch anywhere and the funk of a hate crime wafts
through. The drug war is built upon a couple of completely false
premises and enacted with multiple layers of racism and classism. I
remember having a discussion with my dad when I was in highschool
where I asked him "if the government didn't want people to deal drugs
why would they say they are worth so much money?" Have you ever heard
the DEA say that hundreds of pounds of worthless white cocaine powder
was busted at the airport? No, of course not. The news reports "a
Multi Million dollar cocaine bust" and every poor schmuck working for
a living wonders if they should go into the drug dealing business.

The drug war is not now nor has ever been about drugs. If the war was
really about stopping drug use alcohol and tobacco would have been the
first casualties. No, the war is against people. A game of attrition,
the war requires a strong and constant disinformation campaign to
support its assumptions or it will collapse. Truth! Your child
probably doesn't use drugs and probably never will. Only a couple of
percent of the population ever tries a hard drug and although
marijuana is used pretty widely only about one percent of marijuana
users go on to use cocaine! Ask the most ardent anti drug person you
know if they would become a dope addict just because drugs were made
legal [again] and after they stop laughing at the preposterous idea
you'll see the fallacy of the chicken little vision of drug war. I say
chicken little because like chicken little the drug warriors claim the
sky will fall if they stop persecuting drug users. Not them of course,
always the other guy that will be the problem. Well I gotta tell you
there is NO they!!

So why do politicians support the drug war when it causes such harm?
Part of the answer is found by visiting an organization called the
Prisoners Of the Census at www.PrisonersoftheCensus.org From their
website:

"Miscounting prisoners undercounts democracy. In 48 states prisoners
cannot vote, but the Census counts the nation's mostly urban prisoners
as residents of the mostly rural towns that host prisons. Every
decade, states use these "phantom" populations to redraw state
legislative boundaries and re-apportion political representatives and
power accordingly. With U.S. incarceration now setting worldwide
records, and the consequences of that falling disproportionately on
people of color, the harm to our democracy and civil rights is
measurable and profound."

So as you can see the drug warriors are dragging young black men out
of their "blue" neighborhoods and incarcerating them in "red"
neighborhoods. One who really gets the short end of the stick here is
mom who has to practically live on a greyhound bus if she ever wants
to see her baby boy again.

Some of these moms have had about all they can tolerate of a system
that provides no treatment to get off drugs but rather seems to have
unlimited funds to incarcerate, berate and belittle. These courageous
ladies led by Kay Lee, the founder of The Journey For Justice
[www.journeyforjustice.org] , and Family Members and Friends of People
Incarcerated, an organization based in Montgomery, Alabama are calling
for individuals and organizations to travel from their respective
communities to Lafayette Park, Washington, DC on Saturday, August 13th
2005 to "make a unified demand for justice."

An amazing array of people heed the call to end suffering. Heading
towards DC as I write this column is David Losa of FACTS (Families to
Amend California's Three Strikes) [http://www.facts1.com/] David has
undertaken an epic Bicycle Journey for Justice, a 3,000 mile ride from
his home in Santa Barbara, CA, and is scheduled to arrive in
Washington D.C. just in time for the FMI March on Washington. David's
efforts are "to promote the need for prison reform and the injustice
of California's Three Strikes Laws."

At least one soul from Virginia is planning on attending. Lennice
Werth, founder of Virginians Against Drug Violence,
(http://www.drugsense.org/dpfva)www.drugsense.org/dpfva is taking time
from her demanding life as a working mom to trek to DC. Lennice says
"It's overdue that people take note of the enormous numbers of people
behind bars for private acts between consenting adults and the
horrible widespread consequences of this national obsession" She hopes
enough people will make it to the capitol to make their voice heard.

I have great respect for those who are heading to DC, and I hope that
tens of thousands of people show up to protest but my previous
experience with the Journey For Justice tells me that there will be a
beleaguered few that actually make it and with the hundreds of
thousands of mostly African American, annual, casualties in the war on
drugs and the millions of hurt bystanders and billions of dollars
spent where are the legions of peacemakers? To give credit where
credit is due, the legions appear to be slowly waking up. Awhile back
the League of Women Voters passed a resolution against the drug war
followed by the Unitarian Universalist Church and most recently the
National Organization for Women has joined suit with a resolution but
what is needed here is action. According to the Virginia Department of
Criminal Justice Services there are thousands of children under 18
years old arrested each year for drugs right here in Virginia. If your
child were incarcerated for eons for a little bag of worthless powder
you would demand action. Immediate action. Like the kind the Red Cross
delivers.

Michael Krawitz is a regular columnist for the Collegiate Times.

Mentioned in article:

Prisoners Of the Census at www.PrisonersoftheCensus.org

Kay Lee, the founder of The Journey For Justice [www.journeyforjustice.org]
Family Members and Friends of People Incarcerated

Families to Amend California's Three Strikes) [http://www.facts1.com/]

Virginians Against Drug Violence,
(http://www.drugsense.org/dpfva)www.drugsense.org/dpfva