08/24/2019
From Nicholas Kristoff: “America’s half-century war on drugs was a catastrophe: It resulted in mass incarceration and left as many Americans with arrest records as with college degrees, it accentuated racial inequity, it devastated America’s family structure, and it had no deterrent effect. One American still dies every seven minutes from a drug overdose, and 2 million American kids are living with someone with an illicit drug dependency. It’s time to stop dealing with narcotics as primarily a law enforcement issue and instead approach it as a public health problem. It’s a disgrace that only one-fifth of drug users get treatment, which pays for itself several times over.”
The one fifth is optimistic. Most of the numbers I’ve seen range more in the 10% range, especially if you take underreporting into consideration. Like Portugal’s stunningly effective drug policies, I’m hoping Seattle’s new policing policies (to not arrest people for possession of any drug—just to confiscate the drug) will contribute to at least one way of making this mess better and less harmful to society.
