CHALLENGING THE WAR ON DRUGS

A unique coalition of religious leaders, politicians, former prisoners, and
addiction specialists gathered at a downtown Los Angeles conference this
weekend to discuss the impact of the "war on drugs," which has led to the
incarceration of more than half a million Americans. While highlighting the
disproportionate impact of the drug war on ethnic minorities, conference
organizers and attendees sharply criticized the failure of incarceration as
a strategy for controlling drug abuse.

Today, African Americans and Latinos make up over three-fourths of prisoners
doing time in state prisons for drug-related offenses, despite the fact that
the majority of drug users in the United States are white, according to the
Department of Health and Human Services.

"Virtually every drug war policy--from racial profiling to length of
sentencing--is disproportionately carried out against minorities," said
Deborah Small, director of public policy and community outreach for the Drug
Policy Alliance (DPA), which organized the event.

In addition to nearly 600 attendees who traveled from across the U.S. and
Europe to sit in on dozens of sessions and workshops, politicians including
California Rep. Maxine Waters, Texas Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, Massachusetts Rep.
Barney Frank and others weighed in to support efforts to end what many
participants referred to as the nation's "failed, prohibitionist" drug
policies, including mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes-you're-out
legislation.

In 2002, federal and state governments will spend more than $40 billion in
their battle against illegal drugs, compared with just $1 billion spent in
1980. Critics of the drug war point out that, despite this dramatic increase
in drug war funding, neither street-level dealing nor drug trafficking have
been reduced, and illicit drugs are now cheaper, purer, and more readily
available than they were decades ago .

"The least successful policy we have is the war on drugs," said Rep. Frank
in a video presentation during the opening session.

New Mexicans, including former Governor and Attorney General of New Mexico
Toney Anaya and Dine' (Navajo) drug and alcohol counselor Harrison Jim, Sr.,
from the Na'Nizhoozhi Center in Gallup, were heavily represented at the
conference.

Others in attendance included the three-term mayor of Baltimore, Kurt
Schmoke, who spearheaded one of the nation's first needle exchange programs.
AIDS is now the leading cause of death among both African American and
Latino men between the ages of 25 and 44. Among African Americans, more than
60% of these deaths are associated with injection drug use resulting from
contaminated needles.

During his tenure from 1987 to 1999, said Schmoke, he worked hard to get his
constituents and Congress to understand that "there is no simple solution to
these problems, but we should consider [addiction] to be a public health
problem, not a criminal one."

Schmoke was joined by Antonio Gonzalez, President of the William C.
Velasquez Institute in Los Angeles, who stressed the pressing need for
movement-building across ethnic lines to address the "incarceration crisis"
afflicting communities of color.

Religious and faith-based leaders issued some of the conference's strongest
statements in favor of abandoning moralistic, punitive and ineffective drug
policies. The task is as important for religious organizations and ethnic
communities as it is for the government, said Ana Garcia-Ashley, Senior
Staff Organizer for the Gamaliel Foundation in Wisconsin.

With regard to the drug war in America, "the church needs to become a
spiritual body that cares about human beings and stands up for what's right
when nobody else is doing it," said Garcia-Ashley, an outspoken Catholic
activist and an immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

Garcia-Ashley explained that she has two brothers who struggle with
addiction.

"One brother is an alcoholic. One is dependent on illegal substances. [But]
for me," she said. "These are good people. I don't have an evil brother and
a Christian brother ... I have two good brothers."

Garcia-Ashley was one of several panelists in a workshop addressing issues
of faith, morality and drug use. The workshop, moderated by Antionette
Tellez-Humble, Director for the Albuquerque-based New Mexico Drug Policy
Project, also explored the unique impact of the drug war on Native
Americans. Because Native Americans who live on tribal lands are subject to
the mandates of federal -- not state -- law, those who are arrested for
drug-related crimes are processed through the federal court system. Indians
now comprise almost two- thirds of those prosecuted for criminal offenses in
federal courts.

But the answer to addressing alcohol and substance abuse issues in Indian
communities, said Gayle Zepeda, a community organizer with the Northern
Circle Indian Housing Authority in Ukiah, California, is not prison. "Our
communities must do that healing ourselves. We can't enact a law that we
won't put something in our bodies or shoot something into our arms. For us,
it's a healing issue and connecting with our own spiritual power so that we
can arrive at a place of balance again."

Better, more effective and less expensive models for addressing both
recreational and habitual drug use might lie in studying approaches of other
countries, suggested several conference participants, including David
McFarlane, a Scotland Yard detective and coordinator for the National Black
Police Association of London.

McFarlane noted that police officers in the UK have begun to take a more
relaxed approach toward "soft" drug use, including the possession of small
amounts of marijuana.

James A. Pitts, a conference panelist and public health expert based in
Sydney, noted that Australia, which now has the lowest HIV infection rate in
the western world, has had considerable success with its treatment-oriented
approach toward drug addiction.

"People are going to continue to use drugs, but you can do something to
prevent the health consequences," he said.