The nation's "War on Drugs" has its roots in efforts to control and repress ethnic minorities and should be abandoned in favor of a policy that ends its racially disparate enforcement by the criminal justice system, speakers at a state college-sponsored conference said Wednesday.
Moreover, the principal participants in the parley at Central Connecticut State University argued that public opinion has changed significantly so that lawmakers now have the political capital to refocus federal and state drug policies away from incarceration and toward treatment.
Several speakers also urged Connecticut residents to support a bill pending in the General Assembly that would reclassify the possession of minor amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction.
The measure sponsored by two New Haven Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney and Sen. Toni N. Harp, the co-chairwoman of the legislature's Appropriations Committee, would amend the current law that makes first-time possession of small amounts of marijuana punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Instead, tickets and a nominal fine would be assessed.
In the conference's keynote address, Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, blasted the "War on Drugs" initiated during the Nixon administration as a "grave moral failing" driven by fear and ignorance.
Citing its precedents in near-century-old laws he said were spurred by racist bids to repress minorities and, most notably, migrant workers such as Chinese railroad builders who indulged in opium and Mexican farmworkers who smoked marijuana, Nadelmann said the rules were never about protecting health.
"What determined which drugs were criminalized had everything to do with who was using those drugs," he said.
Nadelmann challenged "the presumption that the criminal justice system has to be involved" in addressing drug problems, saying the country's current "punitive approach" also stemmed in part from a sort of "pharmacological Calvinism."
"It's not just about hate and racism, it's about our belief about drugs," he said. "We are part of the drug-war culture."
Nadelmann said the drug war has propelled the U.S. to rank first in the world in per capita incarceration rates.
Not only is the country "locking people up at rates five to ten times" that of other nations with similar problems, he charged, but the nation tends both to jail people convicted of drug crimes for longer periods and to keep them still longer under the supervision of the parole and probation system.
Nadelmann said the current economic crisis might make it possible to reverse the government's course, if only because of the huge cost of incarcerating more and more drug offenders.
He cited a significant shift in public opinion so that the unprecedented level of incarceration in the nation is now seen as the problem, and said there is a growing momentum, "especially in states in the West," for decriminalization of marijuana possession.
"The hysteria of the drug war peaked in the '80s," he said. "Now, 20 years out, it's fading and people are now willing to move on."
He added: "We're not calling it legalization, we're calling it tax, tax, tax."
At the same time, Nadelmann decried what he said was the news media's failure to correct drug war "propaganda."
He said a few years ago news magazines were predicting that might be 350,000 "c***k babies," born to mothers who used c***k and said to be doomed to a life of serious health problems.
But, he added, recent studies have suggested that babies born to crack addicts suffered no more health issues than those born to "clean" mothers from similar neighborhoods.
Nadelmann insisted that he wasn't "speaking on behalf of drugs," and that "the horror stories are there."
But he said he wanted to raise questions that pointed to the wrong-headedness of current policy and emphasized freedom and compassion.
"What I really want to know is how many people are really using m**h in America and what do they look like?" he said. "And who is recruiting new meth users – definitely not the people whose teeth are falling out."
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Journal Inquirer
Author: Don Michak
Contact: Journal Inquirer > Customer Service > Main
Copyright: 2009 Journal Inquirer
Website: Parley Participants Call for End to War on Drugs
Moreover, the principal participants in the parley at Central Connecticut State University argued that public opinion has changed significantly so that lawmakers now have the political capital to refocus federal and state drug policies away from incarceration and toward treatment.
Several speakers also urged Connecticut residents to support a bill pending in the General Assembly that would reclassify the possession of minor amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction.
The measure sponsored by two New Haven Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney and Sen. Toni N. Harp, the co-chairwoman of the legislature's Appropriations Committee, would amend the current law that makes first-time possession of small amounts of marijuana punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Instead, tickets and a nominal fine would be assessed.
In the conference's keynote address, Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, blasted the "War on Drugs" initiated during the Nixon administration as a "grave moral failing" driven by fear and ignorance.
Citing its precedents in near-century-old laws he said were spurred by racist bids to repress minorities and, most notably, migrant workers such as Chinese railroad builders who indulged in opium and Mexican farmworkers who smoked marijuana, Nadelmann said the rules were never about protecting health.
"What determined which drugs were criminalized had everything to do with who was using those drugs," he said.
Nadelmann challenged "the presumption that the criminal justice system has to be involved" in addressing drug problems, saying the country's current "punitive approach" also stemmed in part from a sort of "pharmacological Calvinism."
"It's not just about hate and racism, it's about our belief about drugs," he said. "We are part of the drug-war culture."
Nadelmann said the drug war has propelled the U.S. to rank first in the world in per capita incarceration rates.
Not only is the country "locking people up at rates five to ten times" that of other nations with similar problems, he charged, but the nation tends both to jail people convicted of drug crimes for longer periods and to keep them still longer under the supervision of the parole and probation system.
Nadelmann said the current economic crisis might make it possible to reverse the government's course, if only because of the huge cost of incarcerating more and more drug offenders.
He cited a significant shift in public opinion so that the unprecedented level of incarceration in the nation is now seen as the problem, and said there is a growing momentum, "especially in states in the West," for decriminalization of marijuana possession.
"The hysteria of the drug war peaked in the '80s," he said. "Now, 20 years out, it's fading and people are now willing to move on."
He added: "We're not calling it legalization, we're calling it tax, tax, tax."
At the same time, Nadelmann decried what he said was the news media's failure to correct drug war "propaganda."
He said a few years ago news magazines were predicting that might be 350,000 "c***k babies," born to mothers who used c***k and said to be doomed to a life of serious health problems.
But, he added, recent studies have suggested that babies born to crack addicts suffered no more health issues than those born to "clean" mothers from similar neighborhoods.
Nadelmann insisted that he wasn't "speaking on behalf of drugs," and that "the horror stories are there."
But he said he wanted to raise questions that pointed to the wrong-headedness of current policy and emphasized freedom and compassion.
"What I really want to know is how many people are really using m**h in America and what do they look like?" he said. "And who is recruiting new meth users – definitely not the people whose teeth are falling out."
News Hawk- Ganjarden 420 MAGAZINE ® - Medical Marijuana Publication & Social Networking
Source: Journal Inquirer
Author: Don Michak
Contact: Journal Inquirer > Customer Service > Main
Copyright: 2009 Journal Inquirer
Website: Parley Participants Call for End to War on Drugs
