Building a Movement to End the War on Drugs: Our Vision and Commitments for Action

Resolution submitted to the People’s Movement Assemblies

of the US Social Forum 2010 -- Detroit, Michigan

People’s Movement Assembly:

The War on Drugs: How the criminal justice system became

an institution of racial oppression and what we must do about it.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010 -  1-5:30pm

Another World is Possible

Another US is Necessary

And a Movement to End the Drug War is Happening!

Problem:

The drug war policies kill, both through violence and neglect, harming all our communities. The drug war expands and justifies the police state and is a war on communities, especially communities of color. The drug war is the new Jim Crow -- a tool of oppression and a system of racial social control directly linked to the legacy of slavery. The drug war leads to, or contributes to, striking racial disparities in nearly every social system: while people of all classes, ethnicities and races use and sell drugs at basically the same levels, poor people and people of color are arrested and locked up much more often than the wealthy and white. The drug war uses the “criminal” label to disfranchise whole communities, restricting full civic participation. People with a conviction are pushed out in every sense: incarcerated, kicked out of school, fired from their jobs or unable to get jobs at all, uninvited from their churches, held in detention centers and deported, barred from voting, excluded from receiving financial aid, public assistance and public housing.  The drug war harms young people, who are taught junk science and abstinence-only education, while zero tolerance policies contribute to the schools-to-prison pipeline. The drug war undermines individual and cultural sovereignty, criminalizing some religious practices and personal exploration.  The drug war is tied to failed foreign policy, destabilizing sovereign governments like Mexico, providing cover for US military intervention from Columbia to Afghanistan, and is regularly tied to the war on terror and, now, the emerging war on immigrants.

The drug war is a war on people, families, and communities, and this war must end immediately.

Our Visions and Goals:

-         A world where respect and dignity are valued and promoted, and non-stigmatizing language is used, for all people -- regardless of their past or current drug use, or their past or current involvement in the criminal justice system.

-         A world where every human being can exercise their full human and civil rights, and institutional racism and systems of racial social control are eliminated. 

-         A world where drug use is approached as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue, including providing human services instead of a jail/prison cell for those who need help and promoting disease prevention in all our policies.

-         A world where our drug policies are guided by harm reduction principles and practices.

-         A world where our criminal justice policies move from a punitive model to a restorative justice and transformative justice model.

-         A world where people directly impacted by policies are directly involved in the creation of those policies.

-         A world where comprehensive, honest, reality-based drug education is practiced in our schools, our organizations (including social justice organizations), and our communities.

-         A world where the U.S. does not use its military might to invade other countries under the guise of the drug war or any other guise.

-         A world where marijuana is legalized and the resulting revenue streams are prioritized for reinvestment in communities devastated by the drug war for programs like education, housing, job training, transportation and healthcare.

Our Proposed Actions and Strategies to Achieve these Visions and Goals:   

-          We propose convening a national day of action against the drug war in 2010, where we will expand organizing across movements and through intersectional political actions.

-         We propose taking action on language, specifically working to eliminate use of terms “offender”, “felon”, “junkie” and “druggie” in our organizing, materials, and conversations. We further propose to use instead the terms “formerly incarcerated person” and “person who uses drugs”.

-         We propose reaching out to our state legislatures, asking them to introduce legislation making marijuana legal and prioritizing reinvestment of the revenues into communities targeted by the drug war, especially low-income communities of color who have suffered disproportionate arrests and criminalization under marijuana prohibition.

-         We propose providing trainings on civil & human rights – including “know your rights” trainings -- to those people we work with, especially to young people and those criminalized by drug war policies.

-         We support creating initiatives in school districts to apply beyond-zero-tolerance programs (restorative justice) and to seek making school data publicly available to challenge disparities and inequities.

-         We ask our allies in other movements for justice to consider the impact the drug war on their issues, and involve people directly impacted by the drug war in leadership development.

-         We propose to convene again, either in person or by conference/video calls, to  continue discussion and debate, share victories and lessons, build further intersectional coordination across movements, and to develop shared strategies for building the movement to end war on drugs, which is truly a war on people and communities.

This resolution was generated through a collective process called the People's Movement Assembly.  This PMA was co-sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance, The Ordinary People’s Society (TOPS), A Better Way Foundation, Families for Freedom, Voices of Community Advocates and Leaders (VOCAL), A Better Way Foundation, Black Rose Communication/Indian Voices, Grand Rapids Red Project, and the National African American Drug Policy Coalition-Detroit. Approximately 60 people from a diverse range of organizations attended the PMA. This resolution articulates the problem, our shared vision, and proposed actions/commitments as articulated by the PMA participants in a collective process.