Monthly Archives: June 2021

Within the United States, the momentum for drug policy reform continues to accelerate. At least one in three people in the United States live in states where the recreational use of cannabis is legal. Several bills have been submitted to Congress tolegalize cannabisand todecriminalize all drugsat the federal level. The focus on ensuring social justice, racial equity, resisting corporate capture, and reparations for communities harmed by the war on drugs is a more recent and very welcome phenomenon. In addition, harm reduction now features among the top drug policy priorities of the new administration, with a new $30 million fund dedicated to scale-up services.

The winds of change are blowing in the United States. But it would be a travesty for the United States to promote progressive reforms at home while imposing repressive and inhumane measures elsewhere.

As the arch-enforcer of the war on drugs, the United States now has the moral and political responsibility to proactively promote drug policies that are grounded in health and social justice, and above all in human rights.

This would mean moving away from providing international funding and political cover for the harsh enforcement of disproportionate drug laws, the militarization of drug control, aerial spraying and forced eradication, discriminatory policing practices, forced treatment programs, drug courts, and mass incarceration.

But it also means promoting positive reforms, discussing reparations for communities that have suffered the brunt of repressive drug control to the international level, fully recognizing the ancestral rights of Indigenous communities worldwide, and endorsing and funding life-saving harm reduction services both at home and abroad. These are not unrealistic fantasies, but real and concrete policies that are already being adopted in some U.S. states, often with overwhelming popular support.

On June 26, 2021,thousands of activistsaround the world mobilized for the 9thSupport. Dont Punish Global Day of Actionand rejected the traditionally self-congratulatory message of theUNs World Drug Day. They united with one clear, strong, and urgent message: it is time to end the war on drugs. Fifty years after Nixons administration strengthened heavy-handed international prohibition through UN drug treaties, with devastating consequences, the current U.S. presidential administration has an opportunity to begin to right the wrongs of history and start a real conversation on dismantling the global prohibition regime.

Read more from the original source:

How the United States Fueled a Global Drug War, and Why It Must End - Open Society Foundations

Over four years after her sons were killed in government anti-drug operations, Llore Pasco called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to pursue its probe on the Duterte administration's bloody drug war.

On Maki Pulido's 24 Oras report, Pasco said she was willing to wait as long as it takes to get justice for her sons Juan Carlos Lozano, who died in Diliman, Quezon City during an August 10, 2017 anti-drug operation, and Crisanto Lozano who was killed in Diliman, Quezon City in a May 12, 2017 police operation.

"Para po talaga makamit po natin ang hustisya kahit ito po ay tumagal pa, laan po kaming maghintay," Pasco said.

(To finally get justice, we'll wait however long it takes.)

The ICC earlier urged alleged victims of President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs to submit their views, concerns, and expectations which will be used for the consideration of ICC judges, who will decide on a possible full investigation into the controversial anti-drug campaign.

It was former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda who urged the ICC to conduct a full-blown investigation into the supposed crimes against humanity committed in Duterte's drug war.

Her successor ICC prosecutor Karim Khan is expected to take over once the international court allows an investigation into the anti-drug campaign.

Security issues

However, unlike Pasco, some families of drug war victims were hesitant about testifying against the government's drug war probe because they feared for their safety, according to an expert from New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW).

"They are facing tremendous security issues. Marami sa kanila takot lumabas, takot magsalita," Carlos Conde, HRW senior researcher in the Philippines, warned.

(A lot of them are scared about exposing themselves, are frightened to speak up.)

Lawyer Kristina Conti of the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL) said they are going to areas where there are drug war victims to help them submit their views and concerns to the ICC.

She said other groups are also making similar efforts to submit allegations of inhumane acts in the drug war such as vigilante killings and illegal detentions.

Jurisdiction remains

Retired ICC Judge Raul Pangalangan, meanwhile, said despite the Philippines' withdrawal from the Rome Statute in March 2019, the ICC still has jurisdiction and may proceed with its investigation.

"The court maintains jurisdiction even after withdrawal, it retains jurisdiction over all crimes committed in its territory while it is still a member of the Rome statute," said Pangalangan.

Malacaang, however, said it was confident that ICC prosecutors would not be able to build a case for crimes against humanity against Duterte because the government will ignore the proceedings.

The ICC can do whatever it wants, but there is a chamber of ICC which already said na huwag na mag-imbestiga kung walang cooperation ng state [don't push through with the investigation if the state won't cooperate], said presidential spokesperson Harry Roque. Consuelo Marquez/DVM, GMA News

View original post here:

Mother of 2 killed drug suspects urges ICC to pursue war on drugs probe - GMA News Online

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Mim Shafer, head of the health department at Mission High School in San Francisco, and a teacher of three health classes, was disappointed with the school districts drug-prevention curriculum. She felt it was stuck in a Just Say No model from the 1980s, failed to acknowledge the differences between types of drugs, and didnt prepare teenagers for real life scenarios in which drug use occurs.

We teach a really radical sexual health curriculum, we have this awesome, body-positive way we teach nutrition, she says. How come its in a district where were accessing all this radical, engaging curriculum that our drug and alcohol unit is like, please just dont do this?

In 2019, Shafer was asked if she wanted to volunteer her class for an experimental curriculum one that went beyond prevention and taught teens how to minimize the harm of drug use, including recognizing an overdose and administering naloxone. She jumped at the chance.

Two years since the pilot ended, Shafer is still teaching the curriculum and says her students find it more engaging. Its very conversation-based, and I think theres a lot of very cool ways that students get to sort of follow other interests, she says, including student projects looking at the war on drugs, looking at state-by-state zero tolerance laws and exploring drug myths.

Beginning in 2019, five schools in the San Francisco Unified School District became among the first in the nation to adopt a drug curriculum for teenagers based on the principle of harm reduction. The 15-lesson curriculum, Safety First: Real Drug Education For Teens, was published by the non-profit Drug Policy Alliance and, after incorporating feedback from the 2019 SFUSD pilot, was published for free on its website.

The curriculum was designed as an antidote to abstinence-based and preventive curricula popularized in the 1980s and which still proliferate. Rather than just saying no, Safety First focuses on the history of drug policy, the physical and social effects of different drugs on the brain, and potential consequences for use, covering alcohol, illicit and prescription drugs, as well as casually used drugs like caffeine. It also teaches kids how to independently research drugs.

While the curriculum advises teenagers that abstinence from drugs is the safest approach, it advises students on minimizing potential negative effects. It also provides historical background about the war on drugs and its disparate impact on mostly poor Black and Latino communities.

The designer of the curriculum, Marsha Rosenbaum, is a long-time executive at Drug Policy Alliance, and lessons extend on the themes of her widely read 1998 op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, written as a letter to her son upon entering high school. In the letter Rosenbaum tells her son that rather than trying to scare him into not using drugs she would, tell you a little about what I have learned, hoping this will lead you to make wise choices.

She began developing Safety First into a full classroom lesson plan in 2016. DPA piloted the curriculum in a single classroom at Bard High School in New York in 2018 and in Spring of 2019 it was piloted at five schools in SFUSD.

Sasha Simon, who has overseen the Safety First curriculum since 2017 and now works for DPA as a consultant, says that SFUSD was chosen because the school already has a less punitive drug policy, directing students to outside resources instead of penalizing them for drug use. The five schools Simon and DPA chose for the pilot were also chosen for their racial diversity and because many students were low-income, in contrast to the student body of their first successful pilot at Bard High School, whose students are whiter and more affluent.

Simon says the district was taking a financial risk by opting into Safety First; In California, its easier for schools to adopt drug curricula with an abstinence or prevention-centered approach, because the programs are eligible for state grants. Through the states Tobacco Use Prevention Education program, Californias county offices of education received $5.4 million of grants for preventive tobacco and drug curricula in the 2019-2020 school year. Simon says that while SFUSDs prior curriculum was eligible for this funding, Safety First is not.

Cheryl Nelson, a teacher on special assignment in SFUSD who was a liaison between Drug Policy Alliance and the district, says she spoke to many teachers who were frustrated with the districts previous drug curriculum. (Nelson added she was not speaking as a representative of the school district but rather speaking to her personal experience with drug education curricula.)

Teachers would say to me, Im lying to the students, so much of the drug curriculum asks teachers to stand there and not implement best practices, she says. It felt not true, judgmental, archaic, she says of the curriculum.

Steven Sussbaum, a researcher who was the creator of SFUSDs previous drug curriculum, Towards No Drug Abuse, or TND for short, defended the curriculum to Next City, saying it had shown preventive effects for hard drug use in 7 of 7 randomized controlled trials between the years 1992-2012. He says that the program has remained timely because the effects are replicated over a long period of time.

We do revise the TND curriculum slightly to keep up with the times, either regarding information on our website or in the manual to the extent that we maintain the evidence-base, Sussbaum wrote in an e-mail.

While searching for funding to write a new drug curriculum, Nelson was put in touch with Rosenbaum at DPA, who was developing the Safety First lesson plan. Nelson offered feedback, and DPA eventually asked her about piloting the program in SFUSD schools.

Erin Hiltbrand Hall was one of the teachers Nelson reached out to about teaching Safety First in 2019. She teaches at Balboa High School, where the student body is about 50 percent Asian-American, 30 percent Latinx and over 60 percent qualify for free or reduced lunch, a program for low-income households. It was always kind of difficult to find something that was relevant to students that didnt contribute to stigma, she says.

(Sussbaum, who developed the TND curriculum, told Next City he is not blind to addiction stigma concerns, and sent a study he authored this year on addiction stigma.)

Hall says Safety First was more relevant to her students than the old curriculum. Were certainly not encouraging teenagers to use drugs, but theres the reality that people are curious and they try and do things for a number of reasons, Hall says. If we can provide teenagers with factual information where they can make the best decision for them and their body, I think thats fantastic.

Shafer, at Mission High School, says the students have wildly different reactions to the curriculum. Her students are 90 percent students of color, about 50 percent of whom are Latinx, and 80 percent are eligible for free and reduced lunch.

Thirty 14 year olds have very different life experiences and very different levels of familiarity, she says of a typical class. Theres definitely kids who talk about narcan, talk about fentanyl right away, Shafer says. Theres kids who are like, drugs are bad so Im just not going to use them. She says the students would also integrate pop culture into the conversations, like the year the students related the lessons back to the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why.

While abstinence-based and preventive approaches are still the norm in high schools, even the dominant drug prevention campaign of the 1980s has had to shift focus to a less rigid approach after studies showed it was not successful at prevention. Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E, a once ubiquitous program from the era that partnered with police departments, recently adopted a new curriculum, still aimed at preventing drug use, although it is now more interactive than before.

D.A.R.E. opposes marijuana legalization, and classes are still led by police officers, despite criticism that this approach is inappropriate in schools where teenagers have had negative experiences with the criminal justice system.

In an e-mail, Ashley Frazier, Director of Curriculum at D.A.R.E., disputed the characterization of the program by DPA, saying it is not an abstinence program, and does not require or suggest the pledging of any oaths, to police officers or anyone else, a reference to a claim made on DPAs website.

To claims that D.A.R.E. is out of touch, Frazier says, what seems out of touch is the idea that all kids experiment with drugs, which is not borne out by any large sample data. Most kids dont use drugs. She says that most D.A.R.E. participants are fifth graders, and It just isnt a great audience for harm reduction efforts. Those are better aimed at population (sic) who are experiencing or at high risk of experiencing substance use disorder. A request for data on how many D.A.R.E. participants are teenagers was not returned, but there are lesson plans on the D.A.R.E. website for middle school and high school students.

Frazier says that rather than abstinence, D.A.R.E. is now aimed at, learning to assess their context, identify potential risk, weigh the potential for negative consequences, and make decisions that align with the future they want.

But Simon says many health curricula have changed their branding yet still arent thinking past prevention. Most health education policies are written with abstinence in mind, or minimally with prevention in mind, or preventing at all costs, she says. Even if thats not whats directly stated, that is absolutely the goal.

Simon says that the focus on decision-making that D.A.R.E. has recently adopted is limited, as the only decision students are prepared for is to say no. If youre looking for a million ways to say no, what happens when they say yes? Simon asks.

Safety First doesnt use prevention as a metric. Instead, it focuses instead on drug knowledge and critical thinking, and says an evaluation showed students media literacy had improved; teens were less likely to believe that only one online resource was enough to understand the use of a drug, Simon says.

Shafer says the focus on research skills is one of the salient points of Safety First. They know to vet articles when they find them, she says. Shafers students also have a personal connection to the material, as Marsha Rosenbaums now adult son, Johnny, leads a surf club at the high school. Rosenbaum made a visit to the school to talk more about the letter she wrote to her son twenty years ago.

And Shafer says she hasnt gotten pushback from parents. I havent heard much from parents other than the standard, Im so glad youre talking to them about this, she says.

This article originally appeared at Next City and is published in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Exchange

Read more:

'Safety First' Drug Education Program Acknowledges the Failings of 'Just Say No' - The 74

MANILA, Philippines With the Duterte administration vowing not to cooperate, it will be challenging for the International Criminal Court to investigate the alleged crimes against humanity committed during the course of the war on drugs in the Philippines, but a human rights lawyer said that hurdle can be conquered.

Hindi siya magiging balakid sa pagpapatuloy ng imbestigasyon, Center for International Law fellow Ross Tugade told Philstar.com in an interview. Kailangan lang maging creative ang Office of the Prosecutor at resourceful na rin sa paggamit ng ebidensya na na-submit na sa kanila leading towards the request to open an investigation on the drug war.

(It wont be an obstacle to the investigation. The Office of the Prosecutor just has to be creative and resourceful in using evidence that has been submitted to them leading towards the request to open an investigation on the drug war.)

Tugade said what the ICCs OTP can do is to rely on submissions from relevant sources or interested parties who would give it evidence which would support charges which could be filed before the international tribunal.

The OTP, then led by Fatou Bensouda, requested last June 14 that the ICCs pre-trial chamber allow a full investigation into the Duterte administrations war on drugs, which according to government data has left 6,117 dead as of April 30.

While a probe has yet to be authorized, President Rodrigo Duterte said last week his administration will not cooperate in a possible investigation into the countrys deadly drug war and that he will only face a Philippine court with a Filipino judge.

The Philippines withdrew in 2018 from the Rome Statute the treaty that established the ICC after Bensouda launched a preliminary examination into the war on drugs.

Tugade said this means that the Philippines can no longer be compelled to hand over whoever will be ordered arrested by the ICC. But it does not mean that the investigation would no longer continue.

Aandar pa rin siya under the Office of the Prosecutor, yong opisina na ngayon ay ino-occupy na ng bagong prosecutor, si Karim Khan. Siya ang magda-direct ng investigations tungkol sa drug war before the ICC, she said.

(The investigation will continue under the Office of the Prosecutor, the office which is now occupied by a new prosecutor, Karim Khan. He will direct the investigations about the drug war before the ICC.)

The push of the ICCs OTP for a full-blown investigation into the drug war has sparked hope among the families of those killed during its course.

Sobrang masayang-masaya, kasi parang nagkaroon kami ng pag-asa sa laban namin na to. Hindi lang sa laban ko, kundi sa laban ng lahat ng mga biktima ng pamamaslang dito sa Pilipinas, said Jane Lee, whose husband was killed in March 2017.

(I was very happy because we found hope in our battle. Not only in my battle, but also the battles of all the victims of the killings here in the Philippines.)

But the road toward a possible conviction before the ICC is long and arduous, which is why Tugade said the public must manage their expectations.

Kailangan nating bantayan ang proseso at kailangan rin nating, siguro, maging patient doon sa buong process sapagkat ang ICC ay isang korte na maaring magdesisyon pabor sa mga biktima o pabor sa mga akusado pagkatapos nitong tingnan ang ebidensya na ipepresenta before it, she said.

(We need to be vigilant about the process and we also need to be patient with the whole process because the ICC is a court that may decide in favor of the victims or in favor of the accused after it has looked at all the evidence presented before it.)

Lee hopes, however, that they would not be denied justice.

Hindi naman nila mababalik yung buhay ng mga mahal namin sa buhay. Sa totoo lang, kahit na anong hustisya yong makamit namin, hindi yon mapapantayan yong sakit, hindi mapapantayan yong hirap na dinanas namin, yong torture, she said.

(They wont be able to bring back the lives of our loved ones. In reality, any kind of justice wont would not be enough to compensate for the hurt, the pain, the torture that we experienced.)

She continued, Kaya yong hustisya na kaya na lamang ibigay, sana huwag nang ipagkait pa sa amin.

(I hope that the justice that can be given would not be denied to us.)

Continue reading here:

ICC probe into 'drug war' can proceed without government cooperation lawyer - Philstar.com

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today with a deadly scourge striking down people at an alarming rate. No, its not COVID; its drug overdoses. Over 92,000 people died from overdoses in the United States in the 12-month period ending in November the most since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began keeping track over two decades ago. Many experts cite two factors for the surge in deaths: the pandemic and the increasing availability of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. This all comes as the nation marks 50 years since President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs June 17th, 1971.

We begin todays show with someone who lost her sister to an overdose just as the pandemic was starting. Maya Schenwar joins us from Chicago, where she works as editor-in-chief of the news website Truthout. Her sister Keeley died of a drug overdose in February 2020 at the age of 29. Mayas piece about her death is just out; its headlined My Sister Died of an Overdose. Defunding the Police Might Have Saved Her. Maya is the co-author of Prison by Any Other Name and author of Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesnt Work and How We Can Do Better.

Maya, welcome to Democracy Now! Our condolences on the death of your sister. The story you tell is heartrending. Tell us the story of Keeley, how she lived she is also a mother and how she died.

MAYA SCHENWAR: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

You know, my sister Keeley was, as you said, a wonderful mother, a writer, an animal lover and a friend. And she died last year, thanks to a long cycle of criminalization. Keeley was incarcerated for the first time when she was 15. And for the next 14 years, she was just cycling in and out of jail and prison, as well as alternatives, like electronic monitoring and drug treatment. And the things that she was arrested for were always related to her addiction, even when they werent drug charges. So, she would go to prison. She would become even more deeply traumatized, because thats what prison does it traumatizes people. And she would emerge with even fewer opportunities and options. And then she would just go back to heavily using heroin to help deal with that pain.

And I want to point out real quick: So, heroin, in a vacuum, just like any other drug, is not the problem. People, I think, can use most stigmatized drugs and be OK, you know, even the most stigmatized drugs like heroin. But people are not supported in using drugs and being OK, because theyre criminalized.

So, while Keeley was incarcerated, horrible things happened to her, like anyone whos locked up. She experienced violence that was perpetrated by guards. She experienced the daily violence that everyone experiences of strip searches and medical neglect, and really just being called by a number instead of by your name. And also she experienced giving birth to her baby while she was incarcerated, and a prison guard was just sitting there watching her give birth.

And when Keeley returned to using heroin after her time in prison or a mandated treatment program, each time, she was at a much greater risk of overdose. And this is something I really want to emphasize. This is true for so many people who use drugs who are released from prison. So, within the first couple of weeks after being released, someones risk of overdose is almost 13 times higher than it is for the rest of the population. And thats partly because your tolerance for the drug is lower, because you havent been using.

So, last year, my sister was in a drug treatment program, a drug court program, so a mandatory treatment, and it was based around abstinence, not using the drug, and so her tolerance was reduced. And she was also very scared of being rearrested, because she knew that that would mean returning to prison and being separated from her daughter again. And so she was avoiding seeking any kind of medical help, because it could mean police involvement. So, at that point [inaudible]

JUAN GONZLEZ: Maya, I wanted to ask you, in terms of

MAYA SCHENWAR: Yeah.

JUAN GONZLEZ: When she was out of prison, what kind of medical or therapeutic help did she receive during those periods of time? And also, youve said that her interactions with police made her situation worse, not better. If you could talk about that, as well?

MAYA SCHENWAR: Yeah, absolutely. So, while she was out of prison, she would occasionally receive some support. She tried to be engaged in medication-assisted treatment, which has proven to support people with heroin addictions. But so much of the treatment that she experienced was based around surveillance and policing. And this is something that we see with many, many people who are criminalized and also use drugs, because its inside of the criminal legal system, so we see substance use as a problem that is within the criminal system even if were not sending people to jail.

And so, when people are sent to a mandated drug treatment center, when treatment is mandated, the research shows that thats not actually effective in helping people recover. And also we have to think about, ethically, you know, whether we should be putting people in a position where theyre mandated to do certain things with their bodies and their minds.

And so, Keeley was always surveilled. And she was not able to do the things that many of us are able to do to create a meaningful life. You know, she wasnt given opportunities to pursue her interests, to be with her family in a sustained way. Many of these treatments actually separated her from her family and confined her, just like prison.

And then, the thing I mention often about policing and the role that it played in her death was she became so afraid of being rearrested. And this is a very common fear among people who use drugs, and particularly among marginalized people who use drugs Black people, Indigenous people, trans people, people with disabilities and mental health diagnoses. You know, police are targeting them very, very heavily, so its a warranted fear. And so, seeking any kind of medical attention, particularly calling 911, can put you at risk for police contact, and that can lead to a return to incarceration. So, even when, in theory, there are options available and people say, Well, why didnt you seek help? its like, Well, you know, why would you seek help if the threat of punishment and torture and trauma is just hanging over your head every single second of the day?

JUAN GONZLEZ: And I wanted to ask you in 2019, Keeley was sentenced to two years in drug court. Explain what that means. And what happened to her after that?

MAYA SCHENWAR: Yeah. So, drug court is a diversion. So, the idea is that someone will be diverted either pretrial or sentenced to treatment instead of prison. And this option has grown substantially in popularity over the past few years. And its something that Biden has heavily promoted. Its often a thing that generates bipartisan enthusiasm.

But what people arent acknowledging is its still criminalization. So it still involves arresting people. Just arrest is a trauma. Its within the criminal legal system, which is built on foundations of white supremacy, and so its still targeting people of color, targeting Black people. Its still operating within a mindset of surveillance, so drug testing people constantly. Its still operating within a model of abstinence, which we know is not actually the best way to help people survive.

And so, even though we know all these things, were endorsing this program, I think, because partly, because its so hard to break out of this punishment mindset. And we need to challenge ourselves and say, What are we doing? Why are we supporting criminalization at the expense of peoples actual survival and ability to find support and ability to find resources?

You know, I think one really sad thing about all the money that is going into drug policing and drug courts and all of these resources, not only are harming and killing people, but, like the defund police movement has brought up again and again, what could we have if we diverted those resources and spent even more resources, as well, on things like housing and education and noncoercive healthcare and mental healthcare and more recreational opportunities and the arts and ways for people to live meaningful and livable lives and have all kinds of options to support their survival? Thats where we should be directing our energy.

AMY GOODMAN: Maya, Id like to go back to June 2014, when your sister, Keeley Schenwar, participated in a panel discussion in Chicago on breastfeeding and incarceration. Keeley read a poem she wrote for her baby daughter while she was incarcerated. Keeley gave birth while she was in prison, was taken away from her newborn daughter only after 24 hours with her.

KEELEY SCHENWAR: It took me over a month to start writing. Its so hard for me to think about all Ive already put you through. Nurses give me updates when the counselors here let me call. They say youre almost 10 pounds, starting to feel better, and that you love your baths.

Im not the one that holds you when you cry or the one that you look at when you open your eyes. It kills me to know that the reality is Im not a part of your life. I brought you into a world full of great things that are surrounded with pain, that which you already know too well, and I have no choice but to let you handle it all on your own and without a mother.

I guess youre not alone. It doesnt make sense or, it doesnt matter, nothing about this feels right. Although I know you wont remember this, I cant help but wonder if you feel the emptiness I carry day and night without you close or anywhere in sight.

I know my handwriting is sometimes sloppy, but its late, and Im writing in the background of the dim prison hallway lights. Im about to miss your first Halloween, just as Ive missed these last two months. I wish none of this was I wish none of this was true, but deep inside, really underneath a whole lot, I know I need to tell you nothing but the truth, which also includes that I love you. Ill spend the rest of my life making this up to you.

AMY GOODMAN: Thats Keeley Schenwar back in 2014. I am so sorry, Maya, how difficult this is for you, which makes it all the more brave for you to have written this piece in Truthout and to tell your sisters stories and her truths. As we talk about her baby being taken away from her so quickly, can you talk about her terror to get help because she was always afraid shed lose her baby, that theyd take her baby from her, and what you think needs to happen now, and if Cori Bushs new resolution, that she just introduced into Congress, the Peoples Response Act, which would send unarmed, trained professionals to respond to mental health and substance abuse crises instead of police, would make a difference?

MAYA SCHENWAR: Yes. Thank you, Amy. Thank you for playing that poem. I am overwhelmed. The poem is so beautiful. But it shouldnt have had to be written.

Tearing a mother away from her newborn baby is one of the most violent acts in the universe. And its perpetrated by our legal system. And I think when we think about the terror of Keeley and so many mothers and parents who use drugs and, more generally, who are criminalized, we have to think about this double punishment, the fact that not only are they under threat of being put into torture chambers prisons but also theyre under threat of this deep, deep, wrenching punishment of being torn away. And, of course, for Keeley, that was also the trauma of actually being pregnant and giving birth behind bars.

And when we look forward and think about, Well, what can be done? I think the number one thing we need to be thinking about is end criminalization and policing. And, you know, this might sound like something were doing away with instead of introducing, but I think its generative, because criminalization and incarceration are traumatizing and torturing people, and theyre also putting us in the mindset that this is all we can do, that this is our go-to solution. Well, you cant actually administer treatment through a system like that. And as weve discussed, police are actually making it less likely that people are going to seek emergency help when they really need it.

And so, I think that, within that, we also need to look at some of the other demands that are being made by organizers working to defund the police and to defend Black lives. And I think that Cori Bushs legislation does encompass some of that. We need to be fueling resources toward priorities that affirm life, and that includes housing, education, food, healthcare. These things would absolutely reduce overdoses, in addition to all the other many benefits they would have and the ways in which they would build toward creating a more flourishing and meaningful and equitable society. And I think creating nonpolice emergency responses is definitely something we should be funding and fueling. I believe Cori Bushs bill actually puts funding into existing programs, which is good, and we also need to be lifting up and funding and supporting all of the mutual aid efforts and the efforts that have actually been created by people who use drugs to support people in their survival, come up with creative harm reduction techniques and actually bring those to the community.

And I think that, in addition I just want to say real quickly that actually legalizing drugs, and doing that in a way thats informed by racial justice, that grants reparations to people most impacted by the drug war, that also has to happen, too, as were talking about all these issues with people dealing with contaminated drugs, people dealing with overdoses when they didnt even realize what amount they were taking. So I think its all of these things together, with a mindset of freedom and supporting people in their survival, a mindset of healing and liberation, instead of the idea that you can confine and surveil and police people into so-called recovery.

AMY GOODMAN: Maya Schenwar, I want to thank you so much for being with us. Again, this is a conversation we will continue. Maya is editor-in-chief of Truthout. Her sister Keeley died of a drug overdose in February 2020 at the age of 29. Mayas piece about her death is just out. Well link to it. Its headlined My Sister Died of an Overdose. Defunding the Police Might Have Saved Her. Maya Schenwar is co-author of Prison by Any Other Name and author of Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesnt Work and How We Can Do Better.

Next up, well speak with Democratic Congressmember Nikema Williams of Georgia about her Abolition Amendment to end forced prison labor. Well also talk with her about voting rights and infrastructure spending. Stay with us.

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Maya Schenwar's Sister Died of an Overdose. She Says Defunding the Police Might Have Saved Her - Democracy Now!