End the failed war on drugs – Gainesville Sun

Nathan Crabbe| Opinion editor

Americas longest war needs to finally come to an end.

No, not the war in Afghanistan, although U.S. military involvement there has thankfully been winding down after nearly two decades.

Im referring to another massively expensive and ultimately futile effort by the federal government. Nearly 50 years ago, President Richard Nixon declared an all-out offensive on drug abuse that would come to be called the "war on drugs."

The declaration ushered in an era of mass incarceration that failed to prevent drug abuse, instead devastating communities that it was supposed to help. In recent years reformers have thankfully moved to decriminalize drug possession and properly treat addiction like a public health issue.

Reforms have been made to marijuana laws across the country, with marijuana fully legal for adults in 11 states and legal for medical purposes in 34 states. Now Oregon is going further with a drug decriminalization measure that voters passed in November and took effect Feb. 1.

The measure reclassifies the possession of small amounts of drugs including cocaine and heroin as a civil violation punishable by a $100 fine, which offenders can avoid by agreeing to a health assessment. It also directs more funding to drug treatment.

At the same time, the federal government appears poised to change its approach as well. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in December to decriminalize marijuana on the federal level, which leaders of the newly Democratic Senate recently indicated they support.

Here in Florida, similar changes are unlikely (unless voters force the issue, like they did in legalizing medical marijuana by passing a 2016 ballot measure). The state Legislature did legalize industrial hemp in 2019, which had the unintended consequences of causing prosecutors to drop marijuana cases because labs and drug-sniffing dogs couldnt tell the difference.

Alachua County and Gainesville commissioners have long advocated for local reforms, with mixed success. Former State Attorney Bill Cervone pushed back against their attempts to decriminalize pot possession and instead created his own pre-arrest deflection program, which allows his office to keep certain low-level offenses out of the criminal justice system.

But Cervone and the city of Gainesville were unable to agree on a memorandum of understanding on the program, leaving the task to his successor, Brian Kramer. After city commissioners expressed frustration about the situation at a recent meeting, Kramer wrote a letter questioning why the agreement has been held up and saying that he was open to expanding the program.

No one should be jailed or face other criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of drugs. Expanding the local pre-arrest program is a good step, as long as determining who is eligible is being done equitably.

But local, state and federal officials need to go even further and ensure that addiction is treated as a public health matter rather than a criminal justice issue. The war on drugs has wasted enough money and lives.

Nathan Crabbe is The Suns opinion and engagement editor.

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End the failed war on drugs - Gainesville Sun