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Matt Sutton (202) 556-3291
Today, the Drug Policy Alliance announced the launch of a major new initiative--Uprooting the Drug War--with the release of a series of reports and interactive website that aim to expose the impact of the war on drugs beyond arrest and incarceration. The project is designed to engage activists across sectors and issues in understanding and dismantling the ways in which the war on drugs has infiltrated and shaped many other systems people encounter in their daily lives--including education, employment, housing, child welfare, immigration, and public benefits.
"Even as there is growing momentum for treating drug use as a matter of personal and public health, the systems on which we would normally rely to advance an alternative approach are infested with the same culture of punishment as the criminal legal system and have operated with relative impunity. Today, we expose those systems and their role in fueling drug war policies and logic that compound the harms suffered by people who use drugs and people who are targeted by drug war enforcement," said Kassandra Frederique, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Ending the drug war in all its vestiges is critical to improving the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. But, this is not DPA's fight alone, nor even that of the broader criminal legal reform movement--it is a collective and intersectional fight that must happen in partnership with allies both within these systems and outside of them. It will take all of us, because the drug war impacts us all. Only through creating awareness of the drug war's insidious impacts across sectors can we begin to disentangle it and the culture of criminalization it promulgates from our lives."
The goal of the new initiative--a natural extension of DPA's decriminalization advocacy work--is to collaborate with aligned movements and legislators through meetings, webinars, convenings, and organizing to explore the ways the drug war has infected the systems and institutions that are at the core of their policy advocacy and create momentum for concrete policy proposals that begin to end the drug war in all its forms.
The project, which lives at UprootingtheDrugWar.com, includes analysis of six different systems through first-hand stories, data spotlights, and reports that take a deep dive into how drug war policies have taken root and created grave harm in the fields of education, employment, housing, child welfare, immigration, and public benefits. Each report explores the history of how the drug war is waged (or enforced) in each system, as well as the underlying assumptions of drug war policies, through an examination of federal and New York state law. In addition to the reports, six 'Snapshots' provide a brief overview of how drug war punishment and logic show up in these systems at a national level and make policy recommendations that would begin to extract the drug war from these systems. Finally, the site offers six 'Advocacy Assessment Tools,' which give partners and legislators the opportunity to evaluate drug war policies and practices in their own community so they can take action to uproot the drug war locally.
Education
"Harsh disciplinary policies and increased police presence, fueled in part by the war on drugs, have led to the criminalization of youth in schools, especially youth of color. Underlying this criminalization are assumptions propagated by the drug war that students who possess drugs or commit other policy violations cannot be good students; do not deserve an education or support; and must be removed before they disrupt other students' learning." On the contrary, "emphasis on enforcement and punishment creates an adversarial relationship between students and school officials and undermines the role that schools should play for students: a safe place for learning and support. Denying education to students, primarily students of color, for drug possession and other policy violations leads to negative consequences, including increased unemployment, income inequality, costly health problems, and incarceration." - Excerpt from the Education Snapshot
Employment
"Policies stemming from the war on drugs exclude millions of people who use drugs or who have criminal convictions from employment and its associated benefits. These policies disproportionately impact people of color, who already face additional barriers to employment. The underlying assumptions of these policies are that people who use drugs cannot perform their jobs; any drug use is problematic and indicates a personality flaw; and a criminal conviction should permanently bar employment opportunities." On the contrary, "employment provides a means to support oneself and others and connections to coworkers and the community. Ensuring access to employment is a crucial way to reduce poverty. Not being employed can lead to negative health effects and is strongly associated with increased rates of substance use and substance use disorders." - Excerpt from the Employment Snapshot
Housing
"Policies that stem from the war on drugs deny housing to many based on misguided ideals of deterring people from using or being around drugs. Underlying these ideals are the assumptions that people who use drugs and their families do not deserve housing; cannot be good tenants or neighbors; and punishing them will persuade others not to use drugs. On the contrary, harsh penalties that remove and restrict people from housing contribute to the very negative outcomes the drug war supposedly seeks to prevent: harm to children, reduced education and employment, and deteriorating health (including increased drug use and overdose death)." - Excerpt from Housing Snapshot
Child Welfare
"The war on drugs has provided a key tool to perpetuate family separation, especially against parents of color. According to drug war logic, any drug use - even suspected - is equivalent to child abuse, regardless of context and harm to the child. The underlying assumptions are that parental drug use automatically harms children; parents who use drugs cannot be good parents; the foster care system can provide better care for children; and it is better to remove children from their parents than to provide support to improve the situation." On the contrary, "Separating children from their parents often leads to the very harms from which these policies purport to protect. Removal from parental care is associated with long-term mental health problems, smoking, poverty, lower educational attainment, and use of public assistance. Placing the blame on individual parents and drugs offers an easy scapegoat that detracts from focusing on structural issues like racism, poverty, and lack of supportive services." - Excerpt from Child Welfare Snapshot
Immigration
"For over one hundred years, certain classes of immigrants have been falsely associated with drug use and activity. The underlying assumptions behind this reasoning and resulting policies are that immigrants, particularly immigrants of color, are dangerous, undesirable people who bring drugs into the country that harm U.S. citizens (read: white U.S. citizens); people who use drugs need to be removed from our communities and, when possible, country; and an immigrant cannot be a good community member if they use drugs or have a criminal record. This mentality has helped to create the world's largest immigrant exclusion, detention, and deportation apparatus." On the contrary, "law enforcement has disproportionately focused domestic enforcement of the drug war in Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities, including immigrant communities, and international enforcement in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America, which has helped solidify assumed connections between immigrants and people of color with drugs and crime. In turn, increased deportations, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, and expanded enforcement of and incarceration for immigration offenses has reinforced these connections in the public's eye. A great irony is that the U.S.'s international drug policy contributes to violence and instability in Latin American countries that drives many people to immigrate to the U.S." - Excerpt from Immigration Snapshot
Public Benefits
"The war on drugs provided a rationale for states to limit access [to public benefits] in the name of deterring drug involvement. The assumptions behind this rationale are that some people deserve help while others do not (i.e., people who use drugs do not deserve basic necessities); people are just trying to game the system and squander public money (e.g., the "welfare queen" stereotype); and people who use drugs are not and cannot be responsible community members." On the contrary, "By denying benefits that can help people out of poverty, our policies may actually contribute to increased substance use disorder rates, in addition to negative health and education outcomes that contribute to generational poverty. Public benefits also help people reduce the risk of returning to jail or prison after incarceration. The war on drugs has limited access and deterred many people from accessing public benefits that could help support their families and improve health, safety, and wellbeing." - Excerpt from Public Benefits Snapshot
The full Uprooting the Drug War series of reports can be found at UprootingtheDrugWar.com.
The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation's leading organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
(212) 613-8020"Climate change clearly warmed the Gulf waters that fueled Milton's development, likely supercharging its rapid intensification and making this hurricane much more dangerous."
As Floridians raced to prepare for and escape the path of Hurricane Milton, an analysis published Monday showed that high sea-surface temperatures fueling the monstrous storm's rapid intensification were made between 400 and 800 times more likely by the climate crisis.
The research organization Climate Central noted that Milton, which is expected to make landfall in the populous Tampa Bay metropolitan area on Wednesday night, is a "historically powerful" storm that has "undergone extreme rapid intensification over sea surface temperatures warmed by climate change."
Sea-surface temperatures in the area where Milton has developed "are at or above record-breaking highs," Climate Central observed, conditions that have allowed the storm to quickly become what the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC)
described as an "extremely serious threat to Florida," a state still reeling from the destructive Hurricane Helene.
"Climate change clearly warmed the Gulf waters that fueled Milton's development, likely supercharging its rapid intensification and making this hurricane much more dangerous," said Daniel Gilford, a meteorologist at Climate Central. "Fossil fuel pollution is amplifying this threat."
As New York Times climate reporters Raymond Zhong and Mira Rojanasakul explained Monday, "For a year and a half now, the upper layer of the world's oceans has been at or near its hottest temperatures on record."
"The seas absorb most of the extra heat that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases trap near Earth's surface," the pair wrote. "So the same human-caused forces that have been bringing abnormal heat to towns, cities, and landscapes are helping to warm the oceans."
Milton exploded from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just over 24 hours—intensification that scientists Jeff Masters and Bob Henson called "a spectacular and ominous feat." The storm has since weakened slightly to a Category 4 as it moves across the Gulf of Mexico, but it is still expected to be devastating.
"It is very likely that Milton will be a highly destructive hurricane costing over $10 billion for Florida—and Milton could end up placing among the costliest U.S. hurricanes on record, depending on the eventual details of landfall," they wrote Monday. "The risk is also high that Milton will be very deadly if people in low-lying areas do not heed evacuation orders and flee the hurricane."
Many Florida counties are under voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders as Milton barrels toward the state just days after Helene ripped through the region, wreaking deadly havoc across six states.
"Some of the same communities ravaged by Helene are now facing this new threat. Millions of Floridians may be asked to evacuate," the American Red Cross said in a statement. "Helene and Milton are both examples of how extreme weather is becoming more frequent and intense. In this case, meteorologists say Helene's intense and far-reaching rainfall—which extended hundreds of miles from the coast—can be attributed to the climate crisis. And Milton is already the third-fastest rapidly intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic, according to more than 40 years of data from the National Hurricane Center."
The Associated Pressnoted late Monday that "as evacuation orders were issued, forecasters warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot (2.4- to 3.6-meter) storm surge in Tampa Bay."
"That's the highest ever predicted for the region and nearly double the levels reached two weeks ago during Helene," AP reported, citing a spokesperson with the NHC.
"We don't have to guess what another Trump presidency will bring, Georgians and millions more are living it."
Just a week after Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney struck down Georgia's six-week abortion ban with an "absolutely epic ruling," the state Supreme Court on Monday reinstated House Bill 481, demonstrating what's at stake in next month's U.S. elections.
In a 6-1 decision, the Georgia Supreme Court granted a stay sought by Republican state Attorney General Christopher Carr. The so-called Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act took effect again at 5:00 pm on Monday. The high court left in place the judge's decision to block prosecutors' broad access to abortion patients' medical records as the case proceeds.
"It is cruel that our patients' ability to access the reproductive healthcare they need has been taken away yet again," said Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of Feminist Women's Health Center, in a Monday statement. "Once again, we are being forced to turn away those in need of abortion care beyond six weeks of pregnancy and deny them care that we are fully capable of providing to change their lives."
"This ban has wreaked havoc on Georgians' lives, and our patients deserve better," she continued. "The state of Georgia has chosen to subject our community to those devastating harms once again, even in light of the deadly consequences we have already witnessed. We will keep fighting to protect our patients, their health, their rights, and their dignity—in the clinic, in the Capitol, in the courts, and in the community."
The state and national ACLU, the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Georgia-based law firms have challenged H.B. 481 on behalf of Jackson's group as well as multiple providers and organizations including Planned Parenthood Southeast and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.
"Today's ruling is an egregious example of how far anti-abortion lawmakers and judges will go to strip Georgians of their fundamental rights," stressed Jaylen Black, vice president of communications and marketing of Planned Parenthood Southeast. "As our state and region have been battered by Hurricane Helene and chemically polluted air quality, they're focused on causing more harm rather than prioritizing time-sensitive recovery efforts. At every turn, they choose to put their own agendas above our health and well-being."
The Georgia law—which prohibits abortion after cardiac activity can be detected, which is before many people even know they are pregnant—is one of several strict bans that have been enacted or allowed to take effect since the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing majority reversedRoe v. Wade in June 2022.
Reproductive freedom has been a key topic of the 2024 election cycle, at all levels of politics, including and especially the presidential contest. Former Republican President Donald Trump has bragged about appointing half the justices who overturned Roe but also unsuccessfully tried to distance himself from the most extreme abortion bans.
Meanwhile, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly stressed her support for reproductive freedom and attacked her opponent for his role in rolling it back, including in a speech in Georgia last month and a Sunday appearance on Call Her Daddy, a podcast whose primary audience is younger American women.
During Harris' September speech, she paid tribute to Georgia women whose deaths health experts have said were "preventable" and the result of the state's six-week abortion ban. Critics of the high court's new ruling also pointed to their deaths.
"Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists. Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer," asserted SisterSong executive director Monica Simpson. "Denying our community members the lifesaving care they deserve jeopardizes their lives, safety, and health—all for the sake of power and control over our bodies. This decision is unconscionable, especially after the loss of Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, two Black women who would be here today had this ban not been in place."
"This ban is rooted in white supremacy and intensifies an already dire situation in Georgia, where Black women are more than twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications compared to white women, largely due to the absence of Medicaid expansion, a shortage of OB-GYNs, and a healthcare system rife with inequities since its founding," she continued. "Despite all evidence that this ban is killing us, the court sided with those more interested in limiting our access to care than seeing us live and thrive."
Simpson declared that "now, we need everyone to turn their pain into action and vote with these issues in mind this November."
Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, also responded to the Georgia high court's ruling by emphasizing the importance of electing Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, next month.
"Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died because of this abortion ban," she
said on social media. "We fight back in their memory and the countless other women across the country who have their freedoms at risk. 29 days until we elect repro champions to fix this mess starting with VP Harris and Gov. Walz."
"Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure."
Balancing grave concerns over the Biden-Harris administration's support for Israel's yearlong assault on Gaza against the dire prospects of a potential second administration of former Republican President Donald Trump, a group of 25 U.S. Islamic clerics on Sunday urged American Muslims to "consider the broad picture" and vote for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
"We are all heartbroken and in deep pain over the war in Gaza and the escalation in Lebanon. We stand with the global-wide outcry to immediately stop the continued genocide against the Palestinian people," the religious leaders, who include numerous imams, wrote in a letter to Muslim voters. "The collective conscience, inherent soul, and sense of justice of all humanity [are] assaulted, disturbing the peace of all. We are all one in our frustration to the point of anger."
"What's popular is not always right and what's right is not always popular. In our estimation, the present-future benefits of voting for Vice President Harris far outweighs the harms of the other options."
"We are taught by our beloved Prophet Muhammad to 'resist becoming angry,' for it eats up goodness and overrides rational thinking," the letter states. "Our lives in these United States of America are not in a vacuum, and as such the election choices, the decisions that we make are not either. They don't just affect us, but all American citizens for years, maybe decades to come."
"We are to be future-oriented, strategic, and rational rather than just focus on the present," the clerics asserted. "Thus, it is an imperative that we elect leaders who have committed to a cease-fire, an independent Palestine, stabilizing our democracy, and who stand with our community."
The letter continues:
In assessing the candidates for president, for us it's not the lesser of two evils. For us, as people of faith, specifically as Muslims, it's the measure or estimate (Qadar) of the Harm (Sharr or Darri) and the Benefit (Khayr or naf'ee). When faced with a choice, we are expected to carefully assess the potential benefits and harm involved, prioritizing actions that bring better and minimize negative consequences...
What's popular is not always right and what's right is not always popular. In our estimation, the present-future benefits of voting for Vice President Harris far outweighs the harms of the other options. Let's consider the broad picture in addition to the one in our immediate vision.
Turning their attention to Trump, the clerics said that "our community is in pain, but we must also remember that we cannot allow our country to return to Jim Crow America, this is not a reality our community can afford."
"Knowingly enabling someone like Donald Trump to return to office, whether by voting directly for him or for a third-party candidate, is both a moral and a strategic failure," they stressed. "Particularly in swing states, a vote for a third party could enable Trump to win that state and therefore the election."
"In 2016, Trump won Michigan by merely 11,000 votes mainly because of votes cast for third-party candidates. This enabled Trump to inflict great harm on our communities and country in numerous ways," the letter says. "Trump is funded by pro-settlement donors who support Israeli annexation of the West Bank, he has promised to give [Israeli Prime Minister Bemjamin] Netanyahu what he needs to 'finish the job' in Gaza, and even promised to deport pro-Palestinian students and activists who he refers to as 'jihadists.' Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, has promised to turn Gaza into 'lucrative beachfront properties.'"
"Given his well-documented history of harming our communities and country, as well as what he has promised he will do to Muslims and Palestinians should he return, it is incumbent upon us not to allow our high emotions to dictate our actions to our detriment," the clerics argued.
Trump's anti-Muslim animus far predates his presidency. In 2011 he said the U.S. "absolutely" has a "Muslim problem." While campaigning in 2016 he said that "Islam hates us" and that it is "very hard" to differentiate between "radical Islam" and the entire Muslim faith.
As president, Trump ordered multiple bans on people from predominantly Muslim countries. The U.S. Supreme Court—three of whose right-wing members were appointed by Trump—upheld a version of the ban. On the international stage, Trump followed through on his campaign promise to "bomb the shit out of" the so-called Islamic State and "take out their families." Thousands of civilians were killed in U.S. attacks on seven predominantly Muslim nations, matching the number of countries bombed by former President Barack Obama and exceeding the six nations attacked during the presidency of George W. Bush.
"We cannot turn our backs on our diverse Muslim community at home and those abroad who are impacted by U.S. policies in our moment of pain and anger," the letter contends. "And we have a responsibility, an amana, not to place our community in harm's way."
The clerics said that Harris and her Democratic running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, "see a new way forward and are not going back."
"We stand with moving forward," they concluded, "and call on other imams and our communities to move forward with us."
The letter stands in stark contrast with the stance of Abandon Harris, a swing state, Muslim-led coalition that says it seeks to hold the Biden-Harris administration "accountable for the Gaza genocide." The campaign endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein on Monday.
While the Uncommitted National Movement—a coalition of pro-Palestine, peace, and progressive groups that urged people to vote "uncommitted" in Democratic primaries in a bid to pressure the Biden administration to push Israel for a Gaza cease-fire—is not endorsing Harris, the group stressed that it opposes Trump and that voting third-party "is a mistake."