Biden was supposed to end America’s longest war: the war on drugs

The war on drugs, not the war in Afghanistan, is America’s longest war. It has used trillions of American taxpayers, militarized American law enforcement agencies (federal, state, and local), claimed untold numbers of lives, targeted the future of people (especially among Black, Latin American, and Indigenous populations), and efforts on the most diverse and poorest neighborhoods in the country.

The war on drugs was a harrowing political failure that advanced few of the claims that presidents, members of Congress, law enforcement officers, and state and local politicians sought to make. The illegal drug trade flourished under prohibition; Adults of all ages and adolescents had access to illegal substances. Substance use disorders flourished and policy makers’ efforts to protect public health were completely undermined by policies that focused disproportionately, if unsuccessfully, on public safety.

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It is time for an American president to seriously consider a broad policy change to disrupt the United States’ handling of drugs.

Despite its dramatic political failures, the War on Drugs was hugely successful in one area: the institutionalization of racism. The drug war was based on racism and xenophobia. As I wrote Marijuana: A Brief History, was the historical basis of drug policy in the United States to vilify African American, Native American, immigrant from Asia and Mexico, and other groups, and to incite White America against everyone. Michelle Alexander and numerous others have effectively highlighted how the American criminal justice system, from arrest to trial, to incarceration, to post-release conditions, disproportionately punishes people of color and creates a cycle of harm in their communities.

We know that the design and enforcement of American drug laws have been racist in intent and in practice. The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act penalties imposed for possession of crack cocaine (a substance mainly used by poor and minority users) that were 100 times higher than for possession of cocaine powder (a substance used more frequently by wealthier, white users). And during Congress 2010 reduced that the inequality in penalties ranges from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1 and in In 2018 President Trump signed a law Because this change was made retrospectively, thousands of low-level offenders were excluded from the revitalization due to a loophole. And in 2021 the US Supreme Court refused to expand retrospective efforts to re-convict these low-level offenders.

In addition, research shows that black and wW.Hite Americans use cannabis around the same frequency. Black Americans, however, are more than 3.6 times more likely Arrested for a cannabis offense as wW.Hit Americans. And even in states that have reformed their cannabis laws, the institutionalization of racism in the enforcement of the drug war by the police force continues, as blacks in these jurisdictions are more than twice as likely to be arrested for cannabis offenses than whites. And while cannabis crimes have declined sharply in these states, the effects of these remaining arrests and convictions are being felt on an overwhelming scale across Black and Brown America and indigenous communities.

The 2018 law mentioned above has been known as the First Step Act. This label was appropriate in that it described the long road to broader criminal law reform and community justice that the war on drugs had targeted for decades. And in his State of the Union Address 2019, President Trump praised the bill becoming law by stating that it addresses the express racism in the American criminal justice system. He noticed:

“This legislation reformed criminal laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African American community. The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the opportunity to re-enter society as productive, law-abiding citizens. Now states across the country are following our lead. America is a nation that believes in redemption. “

President Trump was right that America believed in salvation, but only in theory. It seldom promotes salvation in practice. Every president of the 20thNS and 21NS Centuries helped, in a sense, perpetuate a drug war with a “crowning achievement”: the systematic damage to minority communities in America with intent and malice. Proponents of the ban, whether they be presidents or other elected officials, lawyers, law enforcement leaders or ordinary citizens, are wrapped in a mystical cloak of “child protection” and “community safety”. In reality, this hypocrisy has merely tried to protect white children (one failed attempt) and protect white communities (another missed goal).

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If prohibitionists cared very much about children and community safety, they would look at what the war on drugs has done to black and brown children and communities and be sick. You would see families split, young people (especially young blacks) dreams ruined and future opportunities limited, communities rocked by gang and police violence, systematic underinvestment while overcontrolling cities, and dozens of other disastrous consequences due to their failed drug Guidelines. Prohibition advocates from Main Street to Pennsylvania Avenue should consider how the drug war has harmed certain American communities and shrink, but instead ignore reality and refuse to propose legitimate alternatives.

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It is time for President Biden to surrender the reality of his role and the role of his colleagues and predecessors in the further development from the drug war. He must consider major reforms – some that will Cooperation between Congress and others that can be implemented through action by the executive – who deal with drug policy in a thoughtful and sensible way, rather than in an anachronistic and heartless way. Mr Biden needs to recognize that drug reform decisions – pardons, criminal reform policies, expansion of mental health and addiction services, cannabis legalization, police reform, prison reform, community reinvestment – should not focus on whether these reforms are free. Mr Biden has to compare whether these reforms are a political improvement on the status quo: ban.

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Too often, elected officials, political analysts, lawyers and citizens hide behind the cowardice to highlight the challenges drug reform can potentially bring while refusing to boldly ponder the sweeping failures and harms perpetuated by current politics will. Mr Biden can no longer do what he and his predecessors did: stand by and wait for a perfect policy to replace the unmitigated failures of the war on drugs. A significant part of the electoral coalition that led Mr Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination and eventually to the White House were blacks, Latinos and Native Americans, who were most harmed by the war on drugs.

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Part of this solution needs a hug from. be comprehensive reform of criminal law that works to bring justice into a system that for centuries has disproportionately punished people of color, poor, uneducated, people with no personal or political connections, and anyone else in our society who has gotten into trouble. Drug reform – and cannabis reform in particular – must be at the forefront of the President’s efforts to pursue the kind of justice that has escaped so many for so long.

Legalize cannabis, focus wider drug reform efforts on public health policy rather than inhuman criminalization, prioritize law enforcement agencies on violent crime rather than petty crime, coordinate intergovernmental efforts to harmonize criminal law reform through legislative and executive efforts, and reinvest in the communities our government has targeted and persecuted , are a prerequisite for President Biden to be the humane and justice-minded president he marketed himself to in the 2020 campaign.

Eight months after taking office, Mr. Biden is faced with an embarrassing reality regarding drug policy. Donald Trump, the received only 8% of the black votes in 2016, as President, did more to change drug policies and mitigate the effects of the drug war on communities of color than Joe Biden, who won 87% of the support for Black in 2020.

Just as this president took the bold step of ending America’s second longest war in Afghanistan, so should he take the equally bold step of ending America’s longest war: the war on drugs.

This article originally appeared on Brookings’ How We Rise blog and was republished with permission.