As most of us have been in quarantine for one period of time or another in 2020, the experience has given us time to tend to things (household projects, exercise, dieting, etc.) that really matter most. Throughout the first half of 2020, our public discourse has also shed light on various matters of national concern. These issues include things like racial economic disparities, overcrowded prison populations, police-community relations, and a general restoration of "law and order."
Issues related to each of these problems are highly interwoven, and they each need to be given individual attention by national and local leaders across the nation. Believe it or not though, there is also one major area of reform that leaders can tackle, and get the added benefit of making major headway towards solving these other challenges. The answer- we need to fundamentally rethink how we deal with drugs and drug use.
Consider this first just as a matter of practicality. America first adopted its national policy of Drug Prohibition in 1914, and catapulted its passage by waging a "War on Drugs." This war was based on the idea that we could end drug use, eliminate drugs from the world by outlawing them, and then crime would fall throughout North America. But after 106 years, drug use and addiction rates today are as high ever, the current incarceration rate in the Land of the Free is literally the highest in the world, and the black market forces of the drug trade have grown so wealthy by the widespread supply of illegal drugs into the U.S. market, drug cartels are virtually dictating policy to the Mexican government.
The illegal drug market today is now greater than a $500 billion a year industry. This fact alone plainly shows that the outright prohibition of a substance neither squashes demand, nor eliminates the drug supply. Prohibition has, however, actually made the supply tremendously more dangerous and deadly than ever.
There is overwhelming evidence to prove the scourge of overdose deaths we see today is largely driven by a deadly and violent underground market where consumers are being supplied with toxic and fatal concoctions of opioids on our streets. In 2018 alone, over 70,000 Americans lost their lives due to drug overdose. Now, some of those cases did involve over-consumption and addiction to prescription opioids. According to the CDC, however, 75% of overdose deaths were a direct result of consuming contaminated streetside supplies of Heroin & Fentanyl.
Some still argue we just have a legal, prescription drug crisis. Our prescription drug policy is, in fact, problematic. But by and large, what we are facing in the U.S. is an illegal, mafia-driven drug crisis, and these unchecked drug cartels pulling the strings are targeting the poorest, most desolute and vulnerable populations in the U.S. Too often, this unfortunately means they are going after minority groups and young people. In many cases, if these prospects don't become consumers, they prey on them by coercing them into becoming their foot soldiers on their end of the drug war. Covid-19, cancer, car wrecks, and heart attacks, put all these aside; we are suffering tremendous losses in a drug war plagued by overdose and violence that are completely preventable, and it is literally of our own creation.
On the other end of the fight, our strategy is to keep our streets "clean" from drugs by jailing any and all players in the drug war, a great many of whom are addicts. Two weeks ago, I spoke with an Officer on the Hattiesburg Police Department, on the condition of anonymity, about this problem. He acknowledged the wrongheaded nature of what's happening, but it was what he said after that I found most eye-opening. "Not only is incarceration a completely ineffective and inhumane approach to treat an addict," he continued, "but this century-old strategy of incarcerating the problem away has also had a tremendously counterproductive and sagging impact back on our law enforcement."
I began to consider this then from a resource and optics standpoint for our men and women in blue. I thought about how law enforcement resources are being deployed across the spectrum, and took to some research on different crimes and their clearance rates (cases solved) across the country.
According to the FBI, in most local jurisdictions throughout the nation, clearance rates on serious victim-ridden crimes like rape, human trafficking, and online child-pornography are consistently below 50%.
On another recent occasion, I had lunch with Forrest County's newly elected Sheriff, Charlie Sims, to discuss drug reforms. Sheriff Sims is a good man who I would describe as ethical and sincere. Over time, I've been able to gather from the Sheriff that he remains open to exploring all models of drug reform; that he simply wants to find whatever works best for citizens, families, law enforcement, and communities, alike. So at one point over our meal, I shared my belief that the majority of cops would be opposed to ever exploring some form of drug-regulation, or legalization. He gave me a curious look and asked why I thought that. So in a moment of candor, I explained they may feel if the War on Drugs ends, police departments will lose revenue, downsize, and then they'll lose their jobs. I'll never forget how he responded after I shared this. "Well, I don't think that way. I'd be saying, look at all of the other things I'll be able to get to now. Other crimes, preventing crime, police-community trust-building, so on."
Now it is a rather large elephant in the room, but it's no secret that law enforcement is currently experiencing an increasingly negative image and trust deficit across the nation. This is especially true in minority communities. Nevertheless, here we are further imperiling law enforcement's image by forcing them to enforce bad and ineffective drug laws. Even worse, this wrongheaded drug enforcement threatens our officer's own personal safety, especially in some of the black, brown, and rural communities suffering the worst through our drug epidemic. Put differently, as we constantly crackdown on drug use through the lens of criminal justice, not only are we bringing more harm to our citizens, but we are backhandly handcuffing our law enforcement officials from fulfilling their duty: to protect and serve.
There is no way around this. Our State & Federal lawmakers simply need to start tackling the Opioid Epidemic for the public health crisis that it is. Did you know, according the DEA's Community Outreach Section, the major contributing factors of addiction are psychological and environmental, and are often compounded by trauma? Now, consider that this research is not up for debate, and it just so happens to come from the premier drug enforcement powerhouse in the United States. Given that, maybe it's time we all start thinking about drug misuse, abuse, and simple possession as more of a public health matter, and less of a criminal justice issue.
When it comes to crime and prison populations, according to the Prison Policy Initiative, we have a tremendous incarceration problem, along with an "enormous jail churning problem." Now a number of inmates, to be sure, should be in prison. Actions like theft and distribution of controlled substances are prison worthy. Take a closer look at the data though, and it become readily apparent we are taking problems and piling additional problems on top of the drug problem. The U.S. currently detains 1.5 million people just between state and federal prisons. Out of those 1.5 million, 685,000 are serving time for either drug-related charges, or property-related charges. According to the Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP), 8 out of 10 property crimes today are born neither out of petty or professional theft, but are rather the result of an addict looking for cash to "score their next fix."
Now, as previously said, theft is theft, and it is wrong. Yet in so many of these cases, there are three terrible truths we need to better understand. One, there is always an innocent victim who has unnecessarily lost a prized possession or family heirloom now bound for the closest pawn shop that will buy it. Two, before the vast majority of these property crimes ever occur, there is someone suffering in the shadows from a terrible disease we have spent decades systematically stigmatizing and criminalizing. As a result, they are left to their own devices to make it to their next "fix." Three, if they are caught, they will be thrown in prison where they will actually learn to become a criminal, which inevitably spills back over into the community. In other words, because we refuse to treat drugs as a public health crisis, we are unwittingly creating more instances of crime, a wider variety of them, and hampering law enforcement from optimally protecting and serving the community-at large.
Over the past year, I have spent time with various mental health professionals, pharmacists, judges, law enforcement officials, and affected family members regarding our drug laws. We discuss things like Harm Reduction initiatives, what prohibition does, and what regaining a real LAW and ORDER control of the drug trade in the long run means. The atmosphere is always open, because virtually everyone knows we have to change our one-size-fits-all criminal approach to drugs, but many valid questions and concerns still remain. The most common objections I get are "I don't want drugs in the hands of children," "I don't want to see everybody overdosing on heroin" and "I don't want to cripple or undercut our law enforcement."
These are genuine concerns and I can tell you without a shred of doubt that these people truly care about their community, the people in it, and they don't want society creating undue harms on its citizens. I know that along the path of my own journey, I have wrestled with these same exact concerns. If you study this stuff though, and take the time to think in earnest about the groups in question here- our children, addicts, and law enforcement- there is no way around hiding from the fact that America's kids and cops, alike, are unduly exposed to vast amounts of harm caused by drug prohibition. After all, as the War on Drugs continues, we have UNKNOWN dealers selling vast amounts of UNKNOWN substances to UNKNOWN users all over the place. They don't ask for I.D. And if a rival gang moves in on their territory, the only competitive advantage they have on the black market is violence.
To be certain, this is going to be hard to wrap our head around, much less embrace. For the past 100 years, we have all constantly been told that the only way you can control a drug is to prohibit it, and that if we ever reverse course, chaos, crime, and a scourge of death will promptly ensue.
We can kid ourselves no longer! We are losing 200+ Americans daily to overdose, over 1 million young African-American men are currently in America's prisons on non-violent drug offenses, and law enforcements capacity to truly protect and serve has suffered. Let's end our criminal approach to drugs. Let's end it for good!
Brett Montague is a Hattiesburg native and drug policy reform advocate.
