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 And because of my vacation, I missed the July DRUG POLICY DISCUSSION GROUP. But Iave it on good authority that our speaker, Jimmy Ochs—Program Director at the Dallas County Judicial Treatment Center located in Wilmer, Texas—gave an excellent presentation,  and that a “lively” discussion followed. Kudos to our speaker and Dr. Marvin Dulaney for making it happen! Mark your calendar for our next meeting Thursday, August 19. Details will follow.

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Two days after returning from Hawaii, I spoke at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, sharing the stage with Raul Caetano, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., Dean, UT School of Public Health, Dallas Regional Campus. The program was hosted by John Z. Sadler, M.D., Daniel W. Foster School of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Ethics and Health Policy in the Department of Clinical Sciences. I want to thank the students and faculty for a warm reception; welcome our first Project RETHINK Network members from UT Southwestern; and thank my good friend John Fullinwider for the invitation. 

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You probably know by now President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law yesterday, reducing the mandatory minimum sentence for a federal conviction of crack cocaine possession from 100 to 18 times that of people convicted of carrying the drug in powdered form .

Despite the fact that more than 66% of those who use crack cocaine are White, in 2006, 82% of those convicted and sentenced under federal crack cocaine laws were African American. When you add in Latinos, the percentage climbs above 96%. Astonishing.

 The NAACP worked very hard in support of the new law and views its passage as a huge success. We congratulate them on their work because we understand that the entrenched support for the drug war  assures that even a small advance will be highly contested and difficult to win. Still, it must be said that it is disappointing that the disparity was not removed entirely, as there is no justification for anything less than equity in this instance. Secondly, if policymakers believe that crack cocaine is somehow instantaneously addictive, then how can they justify locking up anyone in the throes of addiction (a medical problem)  instead of sending such a person to treatment, which is far less costly, more effective and more humane? And finally—since drug trafficking can be correctly described as a problem of supply and demand—where is the evidence that locking up nonviolent drug users has any sustainable impact on the supply or demand for drugs? These are critical questions that speak to the heart of what is not only wrong, but unconscionable about our drug policy.  

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Have you read Joy in the Morning? A friend from my church asked me to sign a copy of her book today. And like so many others, her first comment was, “I couldn’t put it down!” She continued, “Your book was such a blessing to me. Thank you so much for writing it.”

You can purchas my new book www.joystrickland.com or www.amazon.com

Be Blessed

Joy Strickland, CEO, Mothers Against Teen Violence

I have just finished reading Dr. Gabor Mate’s bestselling book entitled In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts – Close Encounters with Addiction. There is so much excellent information in this book, especially for someone (like me) who has no first-hand experience or understanding of addiction. It would be interesting to know how much Texas legislators—the people responsible for making laws that directly impact addicted citizens’ lives—actually understand about the causes of addition and how familiar they are with the most recent research…But I digress…

As we continue to RETHINK drug policy, we understand that harm reduction – an approach that reduces the harm caused by addiction—is an important consideration in the context of public health policy.

As Dr. Mate suggests, syringe exchange programs (SEPs) are an important harm reduction strategy. SEPs ensure that injection drug users who cannot or will not stop injection drugs have access to sterile syringes and proved a means to safely dispose of used syringes. In addiction, SEPs often provide a range of preventive health services, referrals to substance abuse treatment, and mental health services.

Studies show that SEPs do not encourage drug abuse and that drug users will use sterile syringes if they can obtain them. Seven major government-funded reports agree that drug use does not increase with access to sterile syringes.

The National Institutes of Health indicates that an impressive body of research has shown a reduction in risk behavior as high as 80%, with estimates of a 30% or greater reduction of HIV as a result of needle exchange programs.

Finally, these programs are cost-effective. At 97 cents per syringe, the cost to prevent a case of HIV has been calculated at $4,000 to $12,000, compared to $190,000 to treat a person infected with HIV.

Considering the benefits, the question becomes: Why is Texas the only state in America without a syringe exchange program?

I will be commenting on the failures of the War on Drugs and proposing changes to our drug policy that support public safety and public health.

If you would like to respond to my commentary, click on “comment” below, then click on “logged in” to log in and leave a comment.

Thank you!…Joy Strickland

Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia has proposed legislation that would create a commission to look into the failures of our justice system and explore how we can reshape our nation’s drug policy. Sound familiar?  

It should.  Sen. Webb’s legislation is very similar to  the bill that Project RETHINK has proposed in Texas: House Bill 1812.

There is an outstanding article in Sunday’s Parade Magazine on the legislation, which makes many of the points that you have heard here from  Project RETHINK. Sen. Webb was also on the Dianne Rheem Show this morning (3/30/09). I encourage you to read the article (it’s not very long) and go to our blog and comment. Here’s the link to the article:   

http://webb.senate.gov/email/incardocs/parade_jimwebb.pdf

                Question:  What do you think about Sen. Webb’s proposal?

Joy Strickland

Question: What does it say about our justice system that some people go to prison for drug possession while others go on Oprah, or simply go on with their lives? 

Joy Strickland

In my opinion violence happens because people don’t have answers.  Sometimes, I think, people in desperate situations feel they don’t have anywhere to turn for help and they give up. I think people who can’t find the answers, turn to violence in frustration.  My second grade teacher, Mrs. Casterner, once said, “Violence is not the answer. Getting help is.” I agree. 

As a teenager I know that we need to have a sense of identity and we need attention. It could be that people who feel lost and forgotten may turn to violence.  My mother says, “A child will get the attention he or she needs, be it good or bad attention.”  If a kid feels that no one cares him and he’s not getting the attention he needs, he may do stupid things, not really thinking of the consequences until it’s too late.  And drugs can be a dangerous part of violence because they create a false sense of reality.  Most teenagers say that they turned to drugs because it made them forget about the problems for which they did not have answers.

If I have a friend who needs help or a shoulder to cry on, then I need to be there.  If a friend tells me that she is going to commit a crime or an act of violence, then I should try to talk her out of it and see that she gets help.  I should try to help her get the answers she seeks and show her that I care. 

The biggest way that we can all help is by talking to our friends about how violence affects us. Then they can tell their friends and soon the whole world will be talking about how violence is not the answer.  Remember, big or small, violence affects us all.  

Violence is not the answer

It is not the key

Violence does not open doors

 It only hurts you and me

Then what?

You did the crime, now you have to do the time

All for what?

You were too afraid to turn the other cheek

To afraid to ask for the help you seek

Violence is not the answer

You have options; you have choices

Use your head

Think before you leap

Don’t do something you will regret

Don’t feed into the madness

We all have problems

It’s how we solve them that makes us unique

Violence is not the answer

Help is what you seek

Stop the violence; be unique

Big or small, violence affects us all.

Mothers Against Teen Violence

As a violence preveniton advocate, I believe that every child deserves a safe and supportive home, school and community. My organization is one among many across America doing all that we can with limited resources, to prevent violence in our communities.  Prevention strategies such as mentoring and conflict resolution are effective and necessary, but they are only part of the solution. Personal responsibility must be balanced and supported by a rational and effective national drug policy.

     Enacted during the Nixon administration nearly forty years ago, the so-called War on Drugs was designed to reduce supply and diminish demand for certain illegal drugs deemed harmful or undesirable by the United States government. While the motivation may be laudable, the drug war has never worked as intended and it can be argued that it has had unintended consequences, undermining the health and safety of our citizens, especially our children.

     Federal spending on the drug war totalled $1.65 billion in 1982. According to the U.S. government, the combined cost of drug war execution plus adjudication and incarceration totaled $57.5 billion in 2005. Since the drug war began, we have not only seen an increase in supply and demand for illegal drugs, but we have also witnessed an increase in related crime and incarceration rates. And innocent victims—law abiding citizens—have been the collatoral damage of turf wars waged by rival gangs in many urban communities.

     In 1973, there were 328,670 arrests logged in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for drug law violations. In 2006, that number rose to 1,889,810 of which 82.5% (1,559,093) were for possession of a controlled substance. Only 17.5% (330,717) were for the sale or manufacture of a drug, 43.9 per cent were for marijuana, and 39% were for marijuana possession alone, shattering the myth that the drug war primarily targets drug smugglers and king pins. We cannot separate the rise of the prison industrial complex from our outdated an irrational drug laws.

     In 2005 the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that nationwide, over 800,000 adolescents ages 12–17 sold illegal drugs during the 12 months preceding the survey. In a survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 25.4% of students had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug by someone on school property.

     Despite over $7 billion spent annually towards arresting and prosecuting nearly 800,000 people across the country for marijuana offenses,  in 2005 the Monitoring the Future Survey reported that about 85% of high school seniors find marijuana “easy to obtain.” That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.

     By some estimates as many as 250,000 people die every year from the proper use of prescription drugs. I am not aware of one signle death directly caused by marijuana. Furthermore, we pay $25,000 per year to send a drug user to prison where he will likely have access to the same drugs for which he as been incarcerated.

     If we can’t keep drugs out of prisons, it is irrational to expect that we can keep them off our streets. It is equally irrational to lock up an individual because of what he chooses to put in his own body.

     Drug addiction is not a moral issue. It is a medical problem requiring medical intervention. But if news reports are any indication, it is easy to believe that the rich and famous go to rehab for illegal drug use while the poor go to jail. This disparity is the real moral issue, serving to undermine respect for our laws.

     Judge James P. Gray asserts in his book How Our Drug Laws Have Failed, that in order for the war on drugs to be successful, the law of supply and demand would have to be repealed. People who want controlled substances will find a way to get them. And as long as there is sufficient demand, someone will find a way to meet the demand. The drug war keeps the prices for the targeted substances artificially high; assuring that drug trafficking remains an incredibly profitable venture. Due to the fantastic sums of money flowing from the illegal drug trade, elected officials, police officers and prison guards (to name a few) have been known to fall prey to drug abuse and trafficking.

     I have never used illegal drugs, nor do I advocate their use. But I believe the time has come to change these laws and policies because the evidence supports the fact that our drug laws have failed us. These laws have not reduced demand and cannot reduce supply enough to make a dent in drug trafficking. The substances targeted by the drug war need to be decriminalized and controlled. We need to spend our resources on prevention, education, and treatment—strategies that actually work.