THE HUMAN COST OF OUR FRUITLESS WAR ON DRUGS

This summer I spent many hours walking around the streets of New Haven
working with people and talking to them about problems they see in
their families and communities.

Ruth and I worked together collecting information about the costs of
phone calls for prisoners. Many of Ruth's family members are or have
been in jail. As frustrated as she is with the system that's locking
up her relatives, she's frustrated with one of her grandchildren who
"keeps doing stupid things" and is so addicted to drugs he seems to
have little interest in changing his ways or improving himself.

Barbara is a friend I've worked with for a few years. One day she
walked out of her house to see the police beating her son. When she
asked for the police officer's badge number she said he arrested her
for assaulting a police officer. With a possibility of facing this
felony charge and doing prison time, she settled for a misdemeanor
plea of interfering with a police officer. Nearly every day she sees
police in unmarked cars driving around trailing groups of young black
men from the neighborhood. She said the police frequently jump out of
the car and drag the young men to jail. It's the "war on drugs" that
the police use to justify this surveillance of the community.

Michelle's husband finished a five-year prison term in March. By May
he was back in prison for another two years for another nonviolent
drug offense. Michelle believes that the lack of treatment in the
prison and the lack of opportunities for ex-offenders is much of what
led her husband back to prison. She has started a grass-roots
organization for people coming out of prison -- to help find them
jobs, and to speak out against the injustices they face in and out of
prison.

Drugs are central to the problems people and families in New Haven
face. Nearly 30 years into the "war on drugs," drug abuse has not
decreased. And now, the destructive effects of drug abuse on
individuals and communities have been compounded by the devastating
effects of mass incarceration. Incarceration is not only an inhumane
response to drug abuse, but also an ineffective one. Rarely does
prison get people off drugs. Nearly 80 percent of people who go to
prison will be arrested for something else within a few years of
getting out. Furthermore treatment, education and job training that
could help people, is rarely available in prison. The waiting periods
for treatment programs in prisons are often longer than many people's
sentences.

I have come across some people who cite their time in prison and fear
of returning to prison as key factors in convincing them to finally
quit. However, even in these cases it is often too late in their lives
to continue education and too late to prevent whatever damage their
drug abuse might have caused to in their family and community. Even in
these cases where some would say our system works, it works only once
a lot of personal and communal damage has already been done.

The war on drugs has failed, and nearly destroyed communities in the
process. We must turn to alternatives that will get to the root of the
problem of drug abuse and treat people humanely in the process.
Improve family structures by creating living wage jobs and enough good
employment that people don't have to work multiple jobs and can be
home with their family. Provide adequate mental and physical health
services for people to help work through the pain and the difficulties
of life. Invest in education and provide extracurricular programs for
kids to expose them to stimulating, positive activities. We need to
invest in our communities.

But this is not the direction that our nation or our state is
going:

- - Schools often have more police officers than guidance
counselors.

- - It is still illegal to provide treatment for cocaine abuse. Cocaine
addicts in New Haven who want to quit regularly have to pretend to be
alcoholics in order to get into treatment centers that are designed to
treat alcoholism.

- - The Connecticut drug courts used to provide an alternative to
incarceration for people arrested for drug related crimes. In the
statewide cutbacks this summer the CT Department of Corrections
decided to end the drug courts rather than to reallocate funds from
prisons to alternatives to incarceration that are proven to be cheaper
and more effective.

- - While these services are cut Connecticut continues to pay $90
million a year to hold New Haven residents in jails around the state.
The vast majority of these people who are being held are nonviolent
offenders arrested for drug possession or sale. Connecticut has spent
over $1 billion in the last 10 years for prison construction alone.

Imagine the possibilities if just some of this money was invested in
New Haven schools and into activities for youth, into comprehensive
treatment facilities, or into creating more living wage stable jobs so
that more people could afford to spend time with their children.

When we have remained silent the state has moved away from making
positive change in our cities. Whether you believe that prisons have a
role in overcoming drug abuse or not, if you believe we must invest in
our communities and work to solve some of their problems, we must come
together and work for positive change.