[the victims]

The prison population in the United States is, by far, the highest per capita in what we call the "free world," and I believe it has now passed all the tyrannies too. More than 1.8 million Americans are imprisoned at this moment. The rate per hundred thousand of our citizens in prison in 1985 was 313; in 1998 it was 645 – more than double. From 1926 through 1970, the prison population was relatively stable at 300,000. In the last 30 years it has increased six fold.

It is estimated that a male child born this year to an African American family has a 1 in 4 chance of going to prison in his lifetime. In an Hispanic family, the chance that a son will be imprisoned is 1/6; in a white family, the likelihood is 1 in 23. A black male is three times more likely to go to prison than to go to college. While the number of African Americans in prison for violent and property crimes decreased from 1990-1996, the black prison population increased by 12,852. Why?

Although only 11% of the drug users in this country have black skin, 37% of those arrested for drug crimes are black. 42% of those in federal prisons for drug crimes are black, 60% of those in state prisons for drug crimes are black.

The United States of America has spent $250 billion in what we call the "War on Drugs" since 1980. The proposed drug war budget for 2001 is $19.2 billion, and that does not include the cost of the incarceration of those whose lives have been ruined by that war. Our drug czar is claiming success because teen age drug use fell from 11.4% in 1997 to 9.9% in 98, but he doesn't mention that it was only 9% when he took office.

In 1998, there were 1,559,100 drug arrests. 38% of those were for the possession of marijuana; 25% were for the possession of cocaine or heroin; 11% were for selling drugs.

In recent months we have read terrible stories about the corruption of police forces with a division in Los Angeles having manufactured evidence to convict people of drug crimes; undercover members of a drug force in New York massacre unarmed innocent men.

Here is a sadly not unusual 1996 story from Michigan:

Lansing area drug investigators mistakenly stormed the townhouse of an East Lansing minister two weeks ago. The Rev. Barbara Edgecombe was bruised and shaken when at least six police officers entered her home, forced her to the floor, and then searched her new residence on Compton Court at 6:45 am on November 20. She was asleep as teams of police officers spread across the community to arrest more than 20 accused drug traffickers indicted by a tri-county grand jury.

Police thought a man wanted on three felony drug charges still lived at the minister’s address. There was a knock on Edgecombe’s door that morning, and she got out of bed expecting to see a familiar face. "I assumed it was a parishioner who had a major emergency," Edgecombe . . . said Wednesday. "I just opened the door and there were six or seven uniformed armed officers standing on the doorstep." The officers said they were looking for a man she didn’t know.

"I said no such person lives here. I said, "What’s going on here?" They said, ‘He’s armed and extremely dangerous. Get down.’ I was backing away and starting to get down when a police officer pushed me on my back to make me lie flat on the floor," she said.

Edgecombe, who is being treated for breast cancer, raised her head form the floor and asked police to "please close the door. It was cold. I said, ‘I’m in chemo and I don’t want to get chilled.’ An officer pushed my face down on the carpet and didn’t close the door."

The police gathered in her living room after realizing that the man wasn’t there. "They continued to question me as to where the person was," Edgecombe said. "I explained that I moved in here October 2 and I had no idea who he was. I was totally bamboozled."

Rev. Barbara Edgecombe was more than just "bamboozled" – a trip to the hospital revealed that her back had been badly bruised and sprained by the rough treatment she had received during the early morning ambush. The head of the Narcotics squad returned later that morning to assess property damages to her apartment and to apologize for the "unfortunate mistake."

His explanation for the raid? That the element of surprise is critical to successful drug busts, that they try to "take every step but from time to time, something like this happens." The implication, of course, is that these unfortunate and occasional infringements are the price we lawful citizens have to pay if we want to "win the war."

But for Barbara Edgecombe, the issue of police accountability cannot be dismissed, noting that she "doesn’t want to see this happen again to me or anyone else."

Barbara Edgecombe is, by the way, a Unitarian Universalist minister. Think what might have happened had she not been white.

There is, indeed, a war going on. We call it a drug war, but in truth it is a war against the American people, against our system of justice, and against minorities.

[mea culpa]

I find it hard to believe that none of the 475 sermons I have delivered in my 21 years in this pulpit has addressed this issue. That is particularly strange because drug abuse was one of my major concerns during my first ministry, and it was of a far lesser magnitude at that time.
I began my ministry in Bedford, Massachusetts in 1965. During my second year, I addressed the subject of the use of marijuana by students in our high school. I saw this as a religious and not as a legal concern - religious in the sense that we needed to address why it was that talented students were choosing to turn on in order to tune out during a critical period of their lives. The police called the next day to get names from me, which, of course, I declined to provide. The local newspaper did an article on my sermon, since it was news, and the police insisted that there was no drug use in our high school and I didn't know what I was talking about. Two years later, they brought in undercover agents in an operation which culminated in a middle-of-the-night gestapo-style raid in which they arrested 56 kids in Lexington and Bedford. The undercover agents had bought liquor and engaged in sex with underage teens in order to ingratiate themselves with the teen culture. Several of the kids who were arrested were members of our youth group. The police went around Bedford telling people that my awareness of the drug use was proof that I was a major supplier. I tried to organize our local clergy to address the police policies, but after an initially positive response, my colleagues decided that what we really needed to do was bring in Young Life to get the kids on the straight and narrow. I am pretty sure that some of the other ministers were subjected to intense pressure to back off from the confrontation with the police.

There is something so knee-jerk liberal about campaigning for the liberalization of drug laws, that I have distanced myself from the issue over the years. Rationally, I know without a shred of doubt that the approach our government has taken toward drug use has been destructive. The "cure" has been far worse than the illness and has exacerbated the situation. But I have not dealt with it because it has felt as if it was too stereotypical to address it, and that it would diminish my credibility. The fact is that, as the statistics with which I began make clear, drugs have diminished as a law enforcement issue within the white community – to the best of my knowledge, none of our kids has been arrested on drug charges in the two decades I've been here. It has been easy to back off. It’s not "our" problem.

I've also backed off because of the ambiguity of my position on the issue. While I don't believe the use of recreational drugs should be a matter of police action, that does not mean that I am not concerned about it. I think it is a lousy idea for teenagers to drink or smoke, and I don't consider drug use a wonderful alternative, although it is less injurious than the other two. (Estimates are that in 1998: smoking killed 390,000 people; alcohol 80,000; second-hand smoke 50,000; cocaine 2,200; heroin 2,000; aspirin, 2000, and marijuana 0.) For me, the primary concern is the role of escape in the life of an adolescent. I have seen too many kids whose progress seemed to be de-railed by drug use. It may well be that the drugs were the symptom and not the cause - had it not been the drugs, maybe it would have been something else, but I don't know. What I do know from abundant evidence is that our legal system makes the whole matter worse than it would otherwise be.

[drug policy history]

A look at the history of our drug policies is appalling. In 1875, opium was outlawed largely because of concern that white women were being led astray by Chinese men in opium dens. In the early part of the century there was concern about what the newspapers referred to as "cocainized niggers." The rumor was that African American men got superhuman strength from the use of cocaine and were engaging in the wholesale raping of white womanhood. In 1937, Congress passed the Marijuana tax act. In retrospect, it appears to have been motivated by concern that Mexican laborers were taking jobs away from US citizens, and they liked marijuana. It was ostensibly just an act to regulate marijuana and to provide for the licensing of its sale - but no licenses were granted. The American Medical Association opposed the legislation. Then, during the debate, it was reported that the AMA had switched its position and the bill passed. The AMA had not.

There has been blatant lying throughout the history of our drug policy. There have been repeated scientific panels which have found, virtually every time, that the scare tactics which have motivated government policies have not been based on any science. Medical issues have been transformed into criminal issues.

During the Prohibition era, what had been a declining use of alcohol increased when it was made illegal, and organized crime found a niche on which to profit greatly. The rates of murder and violent crime soared. When Prohibition ended, the crime rate went back down.

It is abundantly clear that the illegal status of drugs has not succeeded in making drugs hard to obtain. We are told than even junior high school kids in virtually every city in America can get almost any drug they want in minutes. We spend a fortune on trying to stop the production of drugs, and we succeed virtually not at all – they are cheaper than ever before. We try to cut off the distribution networks, and that has virtually no impact on the supply. We put users in jail, and they learn disrespect of the system and gain training in crime and we all pay the price.

It is one of the bizarre pieces of history that during the Nixon administration, when drugs first became a major concern, there was a heavy emphasis on treatment instead of punishment. It was the Reagan administration that reduced the proportion of funds used for treatment, and there has never since been as much treatment available. Drugs are viewed as a criminal - not a medical problem. Not since the Nixon administration has a physician been responsible for guiding our policies.

[Religious Leaders for a More Compassionate Drug Policy]

In another one of those increasing co-incidences, after announcing my subject for this week, I received an e-mail that was sent to all UU ministers from the Rev. Howard Moody, a prominent liberal mainline protestant minister and the co-ordinator of a group called "Religious Leaders for a more Just and Compassionate Drug Policy. The list of the advisory board members reveals prominent clergy and ethical leaders from many traditions.

The organizations goals and purposes state:

We deplore excessive use of drugs which leads to substance abuse but we seek through education and action:

To affirm the value and dignity of all who use drugs of whatever kind. They too are children of the divine. We deplore their demonization and marginalization by the media and the larger public

To expose the unjust and discriminatory penalties against those involved with illicit drugs.

To inform our congregations of, and to protest the devastating impact of our present drug laws on African Americans and their communities.

To call for a less coercive approach to both treatment and punishment of those involved with illegal drugs. Addiction is more of a health problem than a criminal act.

To advocate a set of strategies for substance users and service providers to reduce harm done to drug users, their loved ones, and their communities, and which would help them to gain access to information and tools to improve their health.

[blinders]

I believe this is one of those instances in which we have simply not been sufficiently aware of the true impact of things of which we have been but dimly aware. We know we are paying for all those new prisons and we have accepted that they are needed to protect us from dangerous criminals. The new prisons are mostly necessary because of the locking up of people who have committed the victimless crime of drug use. There is a strong industry now going in America based on the construction and the staffing of prisons. Remember that there is incontrovertible evidence that the major source of drugs to people in prisons is the guards who are working there. So much for deterrence.

Interestingly, the whole issue of our drug policy is suddenly being debated because of the request for massive funds for intervention in the civil war in Columbia. Allegedly, the money, $1.7 billion, will be used against drug dealers. I truth, it will be used to strengthen the military which means it will be used against the poor in the countryside. There has been heavy lobbying in favor of the money by the helicopter manufacturer and the chemical companies which are involved in Columbia. As a side effect of the debate over the military support, however, the whole question of our destructive drug policy has, finally, come under debate. The support bill has passed in the house, but debate is now ahead in the Senate.

Friends, what I am asking of you is precisely what the coalition of religious leaders has asked me to ask of you: please become more informed about what our nation’s drug policies are doing to the fabric of our society - consider the impact on the African American community of the imprisonment of so many of its young people for the victimless crime of drug use. Consider what is being done in other countries that are far more enlightened than ours in response to the real challenges that drugs present. Consider, and then let’s decide how we can, together, seek to address this issue.

Bibliography