This is an appeal to mothers who have seen first hand the devastation of the drug war.
Please join together now and lead the charge to end drug prohibition, just as a previous generation of mothers did to end to alcohol Prohibition in the 1930s. Now is the time to demand an end to the pointless and punitive criminalization of people who use drugs -- whether they are our children or our neighbor's children -- and the needless violence and death caused by the illegal drug trade.
We're starting that movement in San Diego.
Mothers, family members and people in recovery gathered in San Diego yesterday evening to bring focus to our country's failed drug policies and the damage they've done to our families. The rally and vigil kicked off a statewide campaign to stop the overdose deaths, mass incarceration and prohibition-related violence that are the result of our country's punitive and discriminatory drug policies.
We are joining together because we see, from our own families' experiences, that the war on drugs is doing much more harm than good.
As the drug war rages on, our loved ones' drug problems are neglected. Prevention, harm reduction and treatment programs are tiny and getting smaller as funding is cut. More than 26,000 lives are lost to the preventable tragedy of accidental drug overdose every year in the U.S., making accidental drug overdose the leading cause of injury-related death for people between the ages of 35-54 and the second-leading cause of injury-related death for young people. This crisis now claims more lives each year than firearms, homicides and HIV/AIDS.
Instead of actually addressing our loved ones' drug problems, the country spends billions to incarcerate them for nothing more than drug possession. Over 1.8 million people were arrested on a drug charge in the U.S. in 2008 alone -- 1.4 million of them for possession, not sales, manufacturing or trafficking. Nearly half of all drug arrests in 2008 were for a marijuana violation. Thanks in large part to the drug war, one in 32 American adults is either incarcerated, on parole or probation or under some other form of state or local supervision.
What's worse: they are never forgiven. When they come home, they face life-long exclusions, including the permanent loss of educational and employment opportunities, as well as public housing, food stamps and, in many states, the right to vote. Ultimately, what we see in our families is that addiction may be easier to overcome than a criminal record.
At the same time as our children are needlessly suffering and dying in the U.S., Mexico has ramped up its own U.S.-inspired drug war to the detriment of families there. Since 2007, prohibition-related violence has exploded in Mexico. Over 22,700 people have been killed in the last three years in the ongoing battle with drug cartels, which may generate as much as 60 percent of their profits from the marijuana trade alone. Unfortunately, this battle shows no signs of slowing.
Mothers must speak up now and demand that the U.S. and Mexico end this failed war on drugs -- a war waged on our families - and instead invest in a health-centered approach to drug use.
In California, moms have a major opportunity to end mass arrests of our children and to fight prohibition-relation violence by passing an initiative in November this year to decriminalize marijuana and regulate it like alcohol. With one vote, we can dramatically reduce drug arrests in this state and take massive amounts of profits away from drug cartels.
Together, mothers can end the neglect and destruction of the drug war. We have to. Our families and our children are at stake.
We don't have to start from scratch. Eleven years ago, a group of parents in San Diego founded A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment & Healing) to advocate for therapeutic drug policies. In over a decade, we've worked hard to expand access to drug treatment and opportunities for treatment instead of incarceration. We've learned that moms -- and dads and others who care -- can achieve great things together, including the passage of Proposition 36, California's landmark treatment-instead-of-incarceration law, in 2000.
It's time to demand more and we need your help. Join us.
Gabriel Sayegh: Smart Solutions to Overdose Can Save Lives
Efficacy
PO Box 1234
860 657 8438
Hartford, CT 06143
efficacy@msn.com
www.Efficacy-online.org
"THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON"
Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit
501 (c) 3 organization founded in 1997. Your gifts and donations are tax
deductible
How about instead of blaming the law for their child's mistake they focus on why their kids are taking drugs?
My problem is when parents blame me for their kids getting arrested, claiming I "should be arresting real criminals" or "stop picking on my child." A parent's permissive attitude towards their child's drug use is setting their kids up for problems with later on in life.
I think that you're being bigoted and exclusionary against other criminals.
Thieves, rapists, murderers, ect are VIOLENT offenders who pose a danger to others. No one is arguing in favor of easing those penalties. OBVIOUSLY violent offenders need to be put away. Drug abusers can be dealt with without criminal justice.
And in the case of marijuana, there is usually no need to deal with them at all. They are HARMLESS and pose no threat to anyone..... obviously
We treat no other disease this way; where is OUR morality as a people?
http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/mccorkle/mccorkle2.html
Inside prison I came to know so many like me. But unlike me, so many of them were virtually forgotten. I can't imagine having successfully put my life together without the support of my family--had I gone back into my same life with only my old drug-using buddies as "friends" I would have been doomed to the cycle of recividism that marks the majority of CA felibs.
There is a prison/industrial complex that plays a crucial role in perpetuating the culture of crime and punishment. Rural California depends on their prisons for unemployment, as do many states. If the political pressure they exert is not confronted, the War on Drugs will continue. Healthcare reform is a crucial element to resolving this; this is the only job many guards can find that provide it.
the war on drugs is a war on capitalism.
the war on drugs is a war on individual freedom
the war on drugs is a war on states rights
the war on drugs is a war on the american way of life.
First the internet replaced talk radio
as the cesspool of misinformation
now it is Fox News
"when the truth is found to be lies"
jefferson airplane
"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), U.S. President.
Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives
The numerous health benefits of Cannabis are well researched, and it is no secret that big-pharma does not want Cannabis legalized so they can sell their many worthless, expensive and really dangerous drugs that kill tens of thousands annually, to a captive population. The ability of Cannabis to fight and reduce the symptoms of many diseases and conditions, including cancer, MS, and PTSD among many more has been long known, but suppressed. Cannabis is one of the safest remedies known with no known side or adverse effects.
http://americanmarijuana.org/Guzman-Cancer.pdf
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=748
http://www.thc-ministry.net/cannabinoids.html
When society allows the freedom of adult use of tobacco, alcohol, sale of deadly pharmaceutical drugs and many other activities that threaten life and health, it is an outrage that otherwise law-abiding people stand to have their lives and those of their families ruined by these absurd, dangerous & wasteful laws. We must demand an end to the lies, continued waste of billions annually, the pre-meditated abuse by law-enforcement, the inability to safely treat disease, and enjoy a pleasant, relaxing recreational herb, possess it and grow it for personal use.
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/23/thread23715.shtml
Legalization of Industrial Hemp (IH) could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in many sectors, from safe/effective medicines, to cloth, paper, oils, construction materials, animal/human food products, plus many, more, & energize our economy. IH doesn’t require the tons of chemicals to grow like cotton does & continued prohibition is a great waste whose time to end has come, all we need is more truth, vision, & the political courage and will to stand-up to those who benefit from continued prohibition, like the pharmaceutical, wood-based paper, petrochemical & cotton industries.
http://www.votehemp.com/overview.html
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/v5-284.html.