3.Police Reform & Modernization – Illegal Drugs
Up the road a truck load of law enforcement officers came to Andrew Brown Jr.’s home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina to arrest him for drug dealing. Then the police shot him in the head as he attempted to flee. Police jumped in front of the car and shot him multiple times while he had no gun and his hands were on the steering wheel as seen in news reports video footage.
What did the murder of Mr. Brown change? It changed absolutely nothing in preventing illegal drug use? To change we need to start by modernizing the platform that brought us here. The incarcerations, deaths by police and murderous drug gangs began with the Controlled Substance Act signed into law in 1970 by Richard Nixion The law regulates legal and illegal drugs. In 1981 President Ronald Reagan advocated criminal punishment over medical treatment for illegal drug use.
Just what are illegal drugs? WedMD lists bath salts, cocaine, ecstasy, flakka, heroin, krokodil, LSD, marijuana, LSD, methamphetamines, mushrooms, salvia, and spice as illegal drugs. According to WebMD, the risk of an overdose is not knowing how strong the drugs are or what is added to them. These drugs can cause violence, paranoia, agitation, hallucinations, psychosis, racing heart, high blood pressure, chest pain, panic attacks, dehydration, kidney failure and death.
The drug laws calling for punishment over medical treatment the past 50 years have done nothing but increase overdose deaths, incarceration and homicides. Overdose deaths since 1999 number more than one million people have died and in 2021 more than 106,699 drug overdose occurred in the United States. An estimated 30,000 deaths have resulted from police violence between 1980 and 2018 related to the so-called drug wars.
War on drugs resulted in law enforcement use of no knock warrants.. Incarceration rose from 50,000 in 1960 to 400,000 in 1997 and today 85% of the 2 million persons are incarcerated for crimes involving drugs Incarceration costs $50,000- $80,000 to imprison one person. Consequently, we are paying according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 81 Billion dollars a year for mass incarceration (prisons, jails, parole, probation) in the United States. This does not include the costs of policing, court costs and costs paid by families to support incarcerated loved ones which is estimated to be $100 billion.
We can develop new strategies and new outcomes for the reduction and elimination of illegal drug use in this country. Fifty years of ineffective policies and laws have destroyed lives and neighborhoods, We can formulate action that has a specific outcome.
We need to modernize by adapting Portugal”s effective methodology for illegal drug use which treats addiction as an illness. In Portugal while most drugs are still illegal, use has been decriminalized and persons are fined and not sent to jail. Drug users are helped to get off drugs with treatment and education/employment. There is also a full force illegal drug use prevention education program for young people.
This country can stop police killings and the killing of police particularly during drug arrests. We need new investigative tools and tactics for illegal drug trafficking which eliminate the need for no-knock warrants. We must repeal lethal force laws and mirror Norwegian police which have no police killings and no killings of police. We can start by developing new tools for the protection of police and non-lethal tools for the capture and arrests of suspects. We can expand police training from 21 months to 3 years. There is a correlation between length of training and non-lethal policing.
We can state the outcomes we want from illegal drug use policies and tactics. All stakeholders must work to reduce the overdose deaths by 95 percent and to reduce incarceration by 90%. We can work to provide tests for fentanyl, the primary cause of overdose death, just as Narcan is used to stop deaths. We can use dermal patches to gradually decrease a person’s addiction to drugs. We can provide mobile units to crawl the streets and visit schools relentlessly bringing drug prevention programs.
To stop these horrific tragedies happening in our nation relating to drugs all sectors of society must collaborate to bring innovation and modern even futuristic tactics to stop the deaths and decrease incarcerations.
P.C.Pride formerly a Research Librarian/Media Specialist worked in Public, Special and University Libraries; worked as a reporter and Editorial Assistant for two newspapers; worked in urban city Economic Development as an Administrative Analyst, thereby evolving into a solution journalist who researches and writes on innovative and unorthodox approaches to addressing today’s conflicts, controversy, and issues. Contact: pcopride@gmail.com
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