Pubdate: Wed, 31 Mar 2010
Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
Copyright: 2010 HuffingtonPost com, Inc.
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Author: Sting
Cited: Drug Policy Alliance http://www.drugpolicy.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Drug+Policy+Alliance

LET'S END THE WAR ON DRUGS

Whether it's music, activism or daily life, the one ideal to which I 
have always aspired is constant challenge -- taking risks, stepping 
out of my comfort zone, exploring new ideas.

I am writing because I believe the United States must do precisely 
that -- and so, therefore, must all of us -- in the case of what has 
been the most unsuccessful, unjust yet untouchable issue in politics: 
the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs has failed -- but it's worse than that. It is 
actively harming our society. Violent crime is thriving in the 
shadows to which the drug trade has been consigned. People who 
genuinely need help can't get it. Neither can people who need medical 
marijuana to treat terrible diseases. We are spending billions, 
filling up our prisons with non-violent offenders and sacrificing our 
liberties.

For too long, the War on Drugs has been a sacrosanct undertaking that 
was virtually immune from criticism in the public realm. Politicians 
dared not disagree for fear of being stigmatized as "soft on crime." 
Any activist who spoke up was dismissed as a fringe element.

But recently, I discovered just how much that's changing--and that's 
how I came to speak out on behalf of an extraordinary organization 
called the Drug Policy Alliance.

I learned of DPA, as they're known, while reading what once might 
have been the unlikeliest of places for a thoughtful discussion of 
the Drug War -- the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal.

It featured an op-ed that dared to say in print -- in a thoughtful, 
meticulous argument -- what everyone who has seriously looked at the 
issue has known for years: the War on Drugs is an absolute failure 
whose cost to society is increasingly unbearable and absolutely unjustifiable.

The author of that piece is a former Princeton professor turned 
activist named Ethan Nadelmann, who runs DPA. I was so impressed by 
his argument that I began reading up on the group.

Their work spoke directly to my heart as an activist for social 
justice -- because ending the War on Drugs is about exactly that.

For years, the Drug War has been used as a pretext to lock people in 
prison for exorbitant lengths of time -- people whose "crimes" never 
hurt another human being, people who already lived at the margins of 
society, whose voices were the faintest and whose power was the least.

Civil liberties have been trampled. Law enforcement has been 
militarized. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars -- dollars 
denied to urgent problems ranging from poverty to pollution -- have 
been spent. People who do need help with drugs have been treated as 
criminals instead. Meanwhile, resources to fight genuine crime -- 
violent crime -- have been significantly diminished.

And in exchange for all this, the War on Drugs has not stopped people 
from using drugs or kept drugs from crossing the borders or being 
sold on the streets.

To me, it all adds up to a clear message of exactly the sort I've 
always tried to heed in my life: It's time to step out of our comfort 
zone and try something new.

That's where DPA comes in. Their focus is on reducing the harm drugs
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake