Monumental sea change to end "war on drugs" may signal a Pelican Bay Hunger Strike success
Days after official end of the historical Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike of 7000 prisoners, peacefully refusing food in up to 16 prisons for over three weeks due to racist-based inhumane treatment, and one day before the International Day of Solidarity honoring those prisoners for their peaceful protest, The Balitmore Sun has called on the public Sunday to stand with NAACP's call to end the discriminatory "drug war," the source of the nation's most pressing yet ignored civil and human rights violation, torture in prison solitary confinement units.
The "War on Drugs" has led to the United States being the nation with highest documented incarceration rate in the world, prisons in which torture is inflicted daily, and Black communities devasted, leaving 1 in 15 Black adults in America behind bars. (See: War on drugs or war on blacks and poor people?, Dupre, D., Examiner, March 4, 2010; and "Why legalize marijuana with Prop 19?")
Although NAACP began its resolution process in June, only days after the California prisoner hunger strike officially ended, NAACP passed its resolution Tuesday calling for an end to the war on drugs.
Sunday, The Baltimore Sun asks its article title, "NAACP says it's time to end the drug war; what about you?"
Referring to the conservative NAACP, Leonard Pitts for the Balitmore Sun writes, "For that group, then, to demand an end to the drug war represents a monumental sea change... The nation's oldest — and most institutionally conservative — civil rights organization recognizes the failure of treating addiction as a law enforcement issue."
The Balitmore Sun quotes NAACP President Benjamin Jealous's statement issued Monday, "These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America."
Last year, due to racial disparities in drug policy enforcement, leading to prisons filled mainly with Peoples of color, NAACP's California chapter backed Proposition 19 ballot to legalize marijuana, a ballot measure that failed. As reported by CBS News, last month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy urged governments to end criminalizing marijuana. The 19-member Commission, including former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz, and former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, called the global war on drugs a failure.
CBS News' Sharyl Attkisson reported that the federal drug control budget has increasingly grown over the past four decades to over $15 billion a year.
"Contrary to the conventional media narrative, the "Drug War" story is not a people with problems story," stated Laura Flanders of Grit TV Sunday as reported in The Nation.
"It's a policing and power story that reminds us that racism's not a figment -- and it just might hint at what high-unemployment America could come to look like -- for all of us."
NAACP highlights that African Americans are 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same drug-related offense than their white counterparts.
Due to the war on drugs, the prison industry is booming even more than the justice system. "With only five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. houses twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners in its 50 billion dollar a year industry with California leading," as highlighted in the Examiner article, "7000 Calif. prisoners' hunger strike to end their torture, a historical event."
Once NAACP's board of directors ratifies the resolution in October, its 1,200 chapters will be urged to organize campaigns to advocate for ending the war on drugs.
Meanwhile, Baltimore Sun concluded Sunday, "It is time to concede what has long been apparent: You cannot jail people out of wanting what they want. But you just might be able to treat and educate them to that purpose."
"Granted, that will require a paradigm shift some of us will find difficult to get our heads around. But if the NAACP can do it, you and I have no excuse."
In prisons across the United States, torture is being inflicted on approximately 100,000 inmates in solitary confinement according to veteran human rights defenders, James Ridgeway, Jean Casella and Andy Worthington.
On Monday, August 1, families of prisoners, human rights defenders and peace groups demanding an end to prison injustice and cruel and inhumane treatment are standing in solidarity with the California hunger strikers for an International Solidarity day. More informaiton on this day of action is available by visiting prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com and emailing prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity@gmail.com or sf@worldcantwait.org.
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