NPR June 17, 2021 “After 50 Years Of The War On Drugs, ‘What Good Is It Doing For Us?’ by Brian Mann
Rank of States 1 Highest Substance Abuse-51 Lowest Substance Abuse. From wallethub.com
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Summary provided by 2244
“During the War on Drugs, the Brownsville neighborhood in New York City saw some of the highest rates of incarceration in the U.S., as Black and Hispanic men were sent to prison for lengthy prison sentences, often for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes.”
A longtime Brownsville resident-community organizer and -activist, Aaron Hinton, asks about the 50 year War on Drugs, “What good is it doing for us?” The question resonates more broadly now and “in many parts of the U.S., some of the most severe policies...are being scaled back or scraped altogether.” Hinton remarks that we’ve been “spending so much money on these prisons to keep kids locked up.” He admits that his community “needed help coping with cocaine, heroin and drug-related crime that took root” in Brownsville in the 70s and 80s. His own family has been devastated by drug-use including “four years ago, his mom overdosed and died after taking prescripton painkillers, part of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans including many along the rustbelt in places like Huntington West Virginia. In total, it is estimated that “roughly 20.3 million [Americans]...have a substance use disorder.”
NPR reporter Brian Mann notes that “The nation pivots (slowly) as evidence mounts against the drug war.” After interviewing across the spectrum including law enforcement and prosecutors there’s a growing sentiment “that the drug war simply didn’t work” and is “racially biased.” “Studies show from the outset drug laws were implemented with a stark racial bias...with “black men nearly six times more likely than white men to be locked up…” Police enforcement in drug-use interdiction has again been highlighted recently with examples of “aggressive police tactics” leading to the death of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and others. After 50 years there are far more drugs on the street now than ever as highlighted by “300-kilogram seizures of meth...and 90,000 deaths” due to overdoses.
Recently there’s tangible evidence of a retreat from the drug-law and drug-law enforcement approach. “17 states...and the District of Columbia have backed the legalization of recreational marijuana” but others see the crisis more clearly and are calling for decriminalization of all drugs. Some experts cite the root cause of prevalent drug use, especially in economically-deprived locales, is the need for “jobs, health care and safe housing…” While the U.S. still spends “$37 billion” on the war on drugs with some retreat from the traditional approach the prison population has declined to 1.2 million from 1.6 million in 2009 and “there has also been substantial growth in public funding for health care and treatment for people that use drugs, due in large part to passage of the Affordable Care Act.”
Still, nobody expects the trend and regulations to change overnight but people in highly affected neighborhoods “want answers.” Community leaders have “predicted…[a continued] shift toward a public health model for addiction: treating drug users more often like patients with a chronic illness and less often as criminals.” Hinton comments “it may take decades to unwind the harm done to his neighborhood...it’s one step forward, two steps back...but I remain hopeful, Why? Because what else am I going to do?”