Pubdate: Wed, 07 May 2014
Source: Philadelphia Daily News (PA)
Copyright: 2014 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Contact: http://www.philly.com/dailynews/about/feedback/
Website: http://www.philly.com/dailynews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/339
Page: 15
Note: The Daily News occasionally runs editorials from other sources. 
This first appeared in the Seattle Times.

DECLARE PEACE

The War on Drugs Failed. Let's Reform the Laws & Empty Some Cells

FINALLY, the U.S. government is waking up to the realization that it 
cannot jail its way out of a drug problem. President Obama's 
Department of Justice last year stopped making the problem worse, 
easing mandatory-minimum sentencing in some cases.

In April, it offered a relatively narrow window for retroactive 
review. The department laid out criteria for a new and welcome 
opportunity for inmates who have served at least a decade for 
low-level, nonviolent offenses to apply for clemency.

Decades of adherence to failed war on drugs policies has helped make 
the U.S. the world's largest jailer, with only 5 percent of the 
planet's population but 25 percent of its inmates. Of the nearly 
217,000 federal inmates, half are incarcerated for drug crimes, 
according to the Bureau of Prisons. Yet, drug usage has risen 2,800 
percent since the war on drugs began in 1971.

That absurd juxtaposition has forced cities and states, led by 
Washington and Colorado, to form a controlled revolt against 
marijuana laws, the low-hanging fruit of drug-policy reform.

But the federal government, until recently, has mostly ignored the 
clamor. Congress in 2010 finally ended a disparity in cocaine 
sentencing laws that sent mostly African-American users of crack to 
prison for two years longer, on average, than mostly white users of 
powder cocaine. Congress, locked in dysfunction, hasn't made that law 
retroactive, or done anything else toward meaningful drug reform.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are making an endrun around 
the legislative branch by turning to clemency, the tool of the executive.

How far they are willing to go is an open question. Criteria for this 
clemency initiative are vague, requiring no "significant" criminal 
history and "demonstrated good conduct" in prison. Used broadly, 
about 7,000 or more inmates could be freed. Expect fewer.

In the meantime, Congress remains wedded to failed drug policies.

Members of Congress should wake up and realize that drug sentencing 
reform is a populist issue: More than half of Americans favor 
legalizing marijuana. And the issue is increasingly a bipartisan 
affair. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a likely GOP presidential candidate, 
advocated to "shut prisons down" at the recent Conservative Political 
Action Conference. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Mike Lee, 
R-Utah, are co-sponsors of the Smarter Sentencing Act, which would 
make retroactive the 2010 crack cocaine sentencing fix.

Obama and Holder, the first African-Americans to hold either job, 
speak eloquently about communities of color hollowed out by the 
racially disproportionate effect of the war on drugs. Good for them 
for leading. They shouldn't be alone.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom