Should drug use be a criminal justice issue, or a public health issue?
Prohibition increases drug related crimes, especially drug related homicide. The same trend was evident during the time that alcohol was prohibited in America, so the government decided alcohol prohibition wasn’t the way to go.
Well, what about marijuana? What about other drugs? Should drug possession even be a crime? We know many drug users who are routinely arrested for drug possession are addicts. Sending them to jail over and over does nothing to address the problem of drug addiction. Why are we turning these addicts into criminals, instead of helping them recover from their drug addiction? Doesn’t that seem counterproductive?
The ACLU advocates taking drug use and possession out of the criminal justice system and putting it into the public health system, where it belongs. Addiction is a disease, not a crime! 1 million children in the United States are without parents, because the parents are incarcerated for drug offenses. That’s a whole lot of families ripped apart because of our failed approach at solving the drug problem in this country.
The drug problem will never be solved. As long as the human race survives, there are going to be people who want to consume mind-altering substances. There will always be those who become addicted, but we need to find a better way to deal with the situation because right now things are only being made worse by the “War on Drugs” that’s been raging in America for the past few decades.
Mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines that put small-time drug users behind bars in federal prisons for non-negotiable periods of time are hurting us, not helping! There are several bills being introduced in Congress this year that would help these non-violent, often first time offenders to get out of prison and back home to their families, where they belong. The first is H.R. 1466 – or The major drug trafficking prosecution act of 2009. This bill would remove mandatory minimum sentences from minor drug offenses. Another is H.R. 61 -The Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent Offender Relief Act of 2009. The full text of both bills can be found at GovTrack.us.
Get involved! There are literally handfuls of web sites on the internet where you can reach out to your legislators about issues of importance to you. GovTrack.com allows you to track a bill, see the committees the bill has been referred to, and visit the web sites of the committee members where you can obtain their contact information. It’s important to stay in touch with your legislators. Lobby for or against issues you feel strongly about. This is an issue that affects so many families in America, please write to your legislators in support of both these bills. Better yet, write directly to members of the committees assigned to each bill and urge them to get behind this legislation and get it passed. It’s long overdue.
How can we claim to be the “land of the free” when we have the highest incarceration rate in the world?
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