The
drug war is a humanitarian disaster that has inflicted harm and
violence on communities of color and low-income people by separating
families, facilitating deportations, fostering mistrust in healthcare
and social services, and perpetuating poverty and stigma. It has led the
U.S. to be the global leader in incarceration rates and overdose
deaths. July 1 marks 50 years of the Drug
Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) deadly and violent existence – and a more
than $1 trillion vehicle to propel and
accelerate criminalization and incarceration, drug war propaganda, and
policies rooted in fear rather than care. Click
here to demand that half of the DEA’s over $3 billion budget is
reallocated back into public health, services and care for people who
use drugs! When Nixon
officially declared the War on Drugs in 1971, he continued strengthening
the drug war machine through criminalization (like mandatory minimums
and no-knock warrants) and false
narratives. He even ignored a report commissioned
by him from his appointees that argued cannabis should be
decriminalized, and instead the focus should be on social support
structures. By establishing the DEA in 1973, Nixon created an agency
aimed at propagating and perpetuating this harmful and deadly approach
to drugs. More recently, the DEA has been actively spreading fake news and non-science based propaganda
to expand the drug war. The fear mongering narrative that first
responders and police can overdose by coming in contact with fentanyl
has long been debunked. This dangerous myth produced laws at the federal
and state level that increase criminalization (including mandatory
minimums), all while preventable overdoses are surging to record-high
levels - with the highest rates in the Black community.
If
the Nixon administration’s real motivations for the drug war weren’t
clear enough, an interview with John Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide, published in 2016, answered any remaining questions:
“The
Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two
enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m
saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war
or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with
marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily,
we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid
their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night
on the evening news. Did we know we
were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Click here to demand investment in care over criminalization! As
our nation endures surging overdose deaths, the DEA continues to spend
well over $3 billion of our tax dollars annually on the same violent,
failed drug war tactics. Despite the overwhelming agreement that we can
only solve our current problems through a public health
approach, our government continues to fail at investing in housing,
proven services and care to address substance use, and unmet mental
health needs. Join
us as we call on our federal elected officials to reallocate half of
the over $3 billion annual budget of the Drug Enforcement Agency. |
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire