Finding A Way To End The War On Drugs – FOX Illinois

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WRSP)

More than two million people are incarcerated in the U.S. today. That's compared to less than half a million people back in the 1970's. Fox's Esther Kwon reports on why some say the war on drugs is to blame.

A message tonight that we need to start fighting the war on drugs in a different way, and that a war on drugs, is really a war on people. Retired Major Neill Franklin is the Executive Director of LEAP, the Law Enforcement Action Partnership. He was Tuesday night's speaker and is working on ending the war on drugs. Franklin says people who misuse drugs should be getting treatment - not locked up in prison.

Some people attending the discussion said change starts with the young people who feel like they have nowhere else to go.

"I'd love to see a way to include them in our lives and make them a working valuable asset because they have so much to offer, and they don't know it," said Springfield residents Donald and Janice Lobb.

Major Franklin said, "At every corner in society, we can see the harms from the war on drugs. Is there a country, is there a state, is there a city on this globe that doesn't have the war on drugs? The answer's no."

One of the topics brought up on Tuesday night was prohibition. Franklin and attendees say that if it didn't work for alcohol, it's not going to work for drugs.

Some solutions that were brought up were getting treatment for drug addicts, rather than locking them up in prison, and making drug issues a public health issue, not criminal justice.

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Finding A Way To End The War On Drugs - FOX Illinois