Brett Montague, Guest columnist Published 5:00 a.m. CT Aug. 1, 2020

DEA data obtained by The Washington Post showed the opioid prescription boom from 2006 to 2012. Montgomery Advertiser

The average citizen today can see problems associated with issues like overcrowded prisons, police-community relations, and racial economic disparities.

This is largely due to the global pandemic in our midst. Make no mistake about it though; these issues are both long-standing and highly interwoven problems that need to be given attention by leaders everywhere. However, there is a fourth area of needed reform that, if tackled, would bring about tremendous progress towards solving these other challenges.

Brett Montague(Photo: Submitted/Special to Clarion Ledger)

We need to fundamentally rethink how we deal with drugs and drug use.

Consider this first just as a matter of practicality.

America first adopted its national policy of drug prohibition in 1914, and catapulted its passage by waging a "War on Drugs." This war was based on the idea that we could end drug use, eliminate drugs from the world by outlawing them, and then crime would fall throughout North America. But after 106 years, drug use and addiction rates today are as high ever, and the illegal drug market today is greater than a $500 billion a year industry, according to the Washington Post.

Opinion: My son died of an opioid overdose. We must change our approach to save lives.

This fact alone plainly shows that the outright prohibition of a substance neither squashes demand, nor eliminates the drug supply.

Over the past year, I have spent time with various mental health professionals, pharmacists, judges, law enforcement officers, and elected officials alike regarding our drug laws. We discuss things like Harm Reduction initiatives, what prohibition does, and what regaining a real law and order control of the drug trade in the long run means. The atmosphere is always open, because virtually everyone knows we have to change our one-size-fits-all criminal approach to drugs, but many valid questions and concerns still remain. The most common objections I get are:

I know that along the path of my own journey, I have wrestled with these same exact concerns. If you study this stuff though, and take the time to think in earnest about the groups in question here our children, addicts, and law enforcement there is no way around the fact that America's kids and cops, alike, are unduly exposed to vast amounts of harm caused by drug prohibition. After all, as the War on Drugs continues, we have unknowndealers selling vast amounts of unknown substances to unknown users all over the place. They don't ask for I.D. And if a rival gang moves in, the only competitive advantage they have is violence.

To be certain, this is going to be hard to wrap our head around, much less embrace. We have all constantly been told that the only way you can control a drug is to prohibit it, and that if we ever reverse course, chaos, crime, and a scourge of death will promptly ensue.

We can kid ourselves no longer! We are losing over 185 Americans daily to overdose, according to the CDC, and nearly 1 million young African American men are currently in America's prisons, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Law enforcement's capacity to truly protect and serve has suffered. Let's end our criminal approach to drugs. Let's end it for good.

Brett Montague, a Hattiesburg native who is a drug policy reform advocate, served as event coordinator for the End It For Good summit last year in Hattiesburg.The summit was held to discuss the opioid crisis and how drug policy impacts local communities. To contact him, email brettbam.716@gmail.com.

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Drug addiction a mental health issue: Lock-em-up mentality not the answer - Hattiesburg American