Monthly Archives: January 2020

What Is the "War on Drugs?"

The "War on Drugs" is a general term used to refer to the federal government's attempts to end the import, manufacture, sale, and use of illegal drugs. It's a colloquial term that does not refer in any meaningful way to a specific policy or objective, but rather to a series of anti-drug initiatives that are vaguely directed towards the common goal of ending drug abuse.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower began what The New York Times then called "a new war on narcotic addiction at the local, national, and international level" with the establishment of an Interdepartmental Committee on Narcotics on November 27, 1954, which was responsible for coordinating executive branch anti-drug efforts. The phrase "War on Drugs" first came into common use after President Richard Nixon used it at a press conference on June 17, 1971, during which he described illegal drugs as "public enemy number one in the United States."

1914: The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act regulates the distribution of narcotics (heroin and other opiates). Federal law enforcement will later incorrectly classify cocaine, a central nervous system stimulant, as a "narcotic" and regulate it under the same legislation.1937: The Marijuana Tax Act extends federal restrictions to cover marijuana.1954: The Eisenhower administration takes a significant, albeit largely symbolic, step in establishing a U.S. Interdepartmental Committee on Narcotics.1970: The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 establishes federal anti-drug policy as we know it.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 55% of federal prisoners and 21% of state-level prisoners are incarcerated on the basis of drug-related offenses. This means that over a half million people are presently incarcerated as a result of anti-drug lawsmore than the population of Wyoming. The illegal drug trade also sustains gang activity, and is indirectly responsible for an unknown number of homicides. (The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports describe 4% of homicides as being directly attributable to the illegal drug trade, but it plays an indirect role in a much larger percentage of homicides.)

According to the White House's National Drug Control Strategy Budgets, as cited in Action America's Drug War Cost Clock, the federal government alone is projected to spend over $22 billion on the War on Drugs in 2009. State spending totals are harder to isolate, but Action America cites a 1998 Columbia University study which found that states spent over $30 billion on drug law enforcement during that year.

The federal government's authority to prosecute drug-related offenses theoretically stems from Article I's Commerce Clause, which grants Congress the authority to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes"but federal law enforcement targets drug offenders even when the illegal substance is manufactured and distributed only within state lines.

According to an October 2008 Zogby poll of likely voters, 76% describe the War on Drugs as a failure. In 2009, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer use the phrase "War on Drugs" to refer to federal anti-drug efforts, the first administration in 40 years not to do so.

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Key Facts About the War on Drugs

In 1969, Richard M. Nixon declared that drugs were Americas number one enemy as his administration officially launched what would be known as the U.S. war on drugs.

As heroin use was on the rise, primarily among returning Vietnam War veterans, the Nixon administration focused most of its resources on that particular narcotic, especially to reduce crime linked to drug use. On the treatment side, Nixon created the first federal methadone program (see Treating Heroin Addiction), and dedicated 75% of the total drug budget to treatment and rehabilitation.

In 1970, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 was created and became the main legal foundation for drug regulation in the U.S. It consolidated all previous laws regulating the production and distribution of narcotics, stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and any other chemical substance considered to have a potential for abuse. To enforce the Act, a new agency was created in 1973, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), into which the former BNDD was merged.

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Nixon and the Start of The Drug War (1969-1974 ...

In 1974, Gerald Ford became president after some of the most difficult years in our countrys history.

In addition to Watergate and President Nixons resignation, the Vietnam War had divided the country for more than a decade. While millions of Americans served in Southeast Asia, many others protested the war at home some of them by evading the draft. Ford wanted to find a way to bring the country back together. Just a few weeks after he took office, he announced a plan to bind up the nations wounds.

For the young men convicted of draft evasion a felony during the Vietnam War, Ford promised, Im throwing the weight of my presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency.

Ford gave those young men an opportunity to apply to a Clemency Board, a small group appointed by the president who would decide whether to erase that felony from the mens records. Now, many of the Democratic candidates for president want to follow Fords model for a new group of people in federal prison: those convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.

In this episode, The Impact looks back on President Fords clemency plan through the lives of two men: one who fought in Vietnam and served on the Clemency Board, and one who evaded the draft. We explore how the Board transformed their lives and what it might mean for a new generation of young people behind bars.

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A plan to reverse the war on drugs, from the Vietnam War era - Vox.com

Should service members be issued a "War on Drugs" medal recognizing the role the U.S. military has played in combating global drug trafficking over past five decades? One petitioner believes they should.

The petition calls for the president of the United States, in this case, Donald Trump, to issue an executive order that establishes the "War on Drugs Service Medal" as a "total force" military award that recognizes all service members from 1971 to the present. The White House petition was created by Thomas Marriott, who dedicated the effort to his father, Lt. Col. John Thomas Marriott II, according to the campaign's website.

When asked how such an award would, or could be created, the Pentagon directed Task & Purpose to Volumes 1-4 of Department of Defense Manual 1348.33, writing that those hundred-plus pages have "the language."

However, the public affairs office did note that "most are established by Law and/or Executive Order," and that this specific petition "has not been discussed at the Pentagon."

So, that's something.

Marriott's petition, and the accompanying website, appear earnest, and the military has certainly played a significant role in taking on drug traffickers across the globe, from providing training and support to allied militaries, to drug interdiction operations like that time a Coastie showed off his brass balls by leaping atop a speeding narco-submarine in the middle of the ocean.

However, as much as we here at Task & Purpose love the idea of getting a new piece of chest candy, we're also growing a little tired of endless wars.

In light of that, we came up with a list of 11 other awards we'd like the Pentagon to consider making official, beginning with...

Operation Enduring Clusterfuck Campaign Medal: For all those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early days who are now realizing that this shit is never going to actually end.

Belligerence In Uniform Award: Awarded to E-4s and below who spent four years or more getting chewed out for having 3+ inches of hair on their heads.

Valorous Hands-In-Pockets Medal: Given to those who in the face of overwhelming odds refused to remove their hands from their pockets while getting knife-handed by a squad-sized element of staff non-commissioned officers.

Twentynine Palms/Fort Irwin Service Ribbon: In recognition of the selfless sacrifice made by those poor souls who endured a non-deployable duty assignment to Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, or Fort Irwin National Training Center, in California.

Intergalactic Defense Ribbon: Awarded to the first enlistees of the Space Force.

Knife Hand Action Badge: Awarded to non-commissioned officers who perfected the knife-hand when counseling junior soldiers.

Meritorious Barracks Legal Ribbon: Awarded to junior soldiers who display prominent legal knowledge without having any type of law degree.

Terminal Lance Corporal Achievement Award: Awarded to enlisted Marines upon second promotion to Lance Corporal following a loss of rank due to non-judicial punishment. Gold Oak Leaf clusters denote additional awards.

The Content Wars Award: Awarded to any and all former U.S. service members who record at least 10 video rants in the driver's seat of their truck within the first month of separation. Recipients are eligible for 'V' devices if the truck is moving.

National Military Base Housing Ribbon: Awarded to service members (and their families) who endured and survived asbestos, mold and faulty wiring while living on any military installation.

E-4 Mafia Unit Citation: Awarded to members of an Army battalion where 90% of specialists are absent from mandatory morning PT, working parties, and are a constant presence in the smoke pit.

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There's a petition calling for a 'War on Drugs' medal. Here are 11 other awards also worth considering - Task & Purpose

The vaping epidemic was one of 2019's biggest health and policy stories. The really bad news is yet to come.

Over the past year, a media narrative emerged that any given American could be maimed by a Juul. Government officials also piled on.

Just this week, Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams tweeted, "@CDCgov reports a total of 2,602 hospitalizations and 57 deaths associated with e-cigarettes and vaping lung injuries. A single death or hospitalization is one too many!"

Lawmakers have tripped over themselves to impose sweeping bans on flavored vapes (and in some cases, all vapes).

And that's all fed back into public opinion. A YouGov-Economist poll released last week showed 67% of US adults respondents supported banning flavored vapes. Even smokers the group whose lives could be saved by switching from tobacco cigarettes to nicotine vapes mostly support such bans, with 56% of respondents who identified as smokers giving their approval.

But there is one important aspect of this issue that has been buried: Just about everyone's understanding of the "vaping epidemic" is completely wrong.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention toned down its blanket recommendation against all vaping, instead targeting its recommendation against THC vapes. But it might not be possible to correct the resulting mass ignorance that is laying the groundwork for a new drug war.

Much like the failed war on drugs, the results of vaping prohibition will almost certainly include black markets flooded with dangerous and substandard products, the overcriminalization of at-risk groups, and, very likely, increased cigarette smoking.

Drug wars start with prohibitions, and prohibitions start with panic. Look no further than the "Reefer Madness" propaganda of the 1930s and the grand failure of alcohol prohibition which was in part the result of a moral panic over the influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants around the turn of the 20th century.

In the case of the vaping panic, two different crises have been mistakenly conflated, with nuance completely stripped from the discussion.

The rash of lung illnesses and the 59 confirmed deaths attributed to vaping were one catalyst for the panic. What was less publicized was when the CDCfinally confirmed what the readily available data already showed: The "epidemic" of vaping-related illnesses was almost entirely confined to black-market THC cartridges containing vitamin E acetate.

But it's too late to unring the panic bell.

The Food and Drug Administration has banned nearly all flavored vapes. Some cities have banned vaping entirely. The race to pile on new prohibitions is a bipartisan effort. And while vape-panic diehards will point to the small percentage (about 10 to 15%) of patients who said they vaped nicotine products only, there's reason to suspect such self-reporting comes with a margin of error.

As Bruce Barcott noted on the cannabis-news site Leafly, THC is still federally criminalized, and it remains illegal for recreational use in most US states. That comes with a stigma, and as a result, Barcott said "shamed and embarrassed patients probably lied to their doctors."

Barcott wrote that such "socially desirable reporting" has been studied by social scientists, including Dana Hunt. In her 2015 study of adults who had tested positive for marijuana, only 84% were willing to own up to their drug use. And that was after they had been presented with the results.

The second panic catalyst was the context-free reading of the rising rates of nicotine vaping among young people.

According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the percentage of high-school seniors who vaped in the previous 30 days more than doubled from 11 to 25.4% between 2017 and 2019.

Developing brains and bodies becoming addicted to nicotine physiologically one of the hardest drugs to quit is a serious concern. Big Tobacco, which after trying to destroy the vaping industry is now a major investor in it, has a well-documented history of marketing to minors and lying about the effects of its product. It is not to be trusted. These concerns are valid.

However, there's a rarely reported caveat. Fewer teens are smoking cigarettes than at any time since such statistics have been recorded.

In 1976, 28.8% of high-school seniors said they were regular smokers. Even in 1996, well after everyone knew smoking was deadly and high-school health classes relentlessly drove the point home by showing teenagers photos of black lungs, 26.6% of 12th graders still smoked daily.

By 2018, just 3.6% of high-school seniors smoked, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That is a remarkable public-health victory.

Unfortunately, all anyone is interested in is the scary out-of-context stat that teen vaping is up, which is how you get panic-stoking graphics like the one produced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey, adorned with the slogan "Vaping is as safe as skydiving without a parachute."

That level of science-denying fearmongering is straight out of the early days of the drug war and a threat to public health.

Media framing is crucial as well. Distressingly, too many journalists are engaged in a dangerous form of groupthink and fail to question the preconceived wisdom.

To cite an example (but not to single it out), aPBS article published this week reported the largest single-year drop in cancer deaths ever 2.2% between 2016 and 2017.

But rather than exploring whether the increase in nicotine vaping, a smoking-cessation tool, had anything to do with fewer Americans being diagnosed with cancer, the article inexplicably asks, "Could vaping e-cigarettes lead to a rebound in US lung cancer deaths?"

The author paraphrased a medical expert at the American Lung Association as saying, "It is too soon to know if e-cigarettes will cause cancer" which is another way of saying there's no scientific evidence vaping causes cancer. From there, the article launches straight into a rehash of the basic stats on the vaping illnesses and teen-vaping rates.

It's almost like the narrative writes itself. The problem is the narrative happens to be wrong, and it's already producing nasty consequences.

Prohibition leads to the opportunity for a black market. Brian Snyder/Reuters

The "legislate first, consider the evidence later (maybe)" ethos was exemplified by 2020 Democratic candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders in a recent speech.

"I think we shut down the industry if they're causing addiction and if the evidence is that people are getting sick as a result of inhaling a lot of bad stuff," Sanders said earlier this month at a town hall. His campaign quickly walked the severity of that statement back, but the sentiment remains the predominant one in US politics.

What's less discussed amid the vaping panic are stories like what's going on in Texas high schools.

The Texas Tribune last month reported some high-school students in the state were facing felony charges and expulsion as part of the sweep to tamp down on the "epidemic."

In the 2018-19 school year, nearly 20,000 Texas students faced suspension or expulsion for nicotine-vape possession. A stunning 1,600 faced felony controlled-substance charges for possessing THC vapes.

This is what the beginning of a new drug war looks like.

When substances are banned, they don't go away; they get more expensive and more dangerous. And the laws that forbid them are enforced at the barrel of a gun.

Public Health England says nicotine vaping is 95% safer than smoking, which kills about half a million Americans per year. With numbers that stark, the idea that vaping nicotine is the public-health scourge of our time suggests a classic moral panic in a distinctly American style.

The "vaping epidemic" is the wrong way to frame what's happening: It's a vaping panic. When the damage is tallied, it could very well prove to be one of the grossest cases of media malpractice and political opportunism of the modern era.

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The vaping panic is looking eerily like the start of a new drug war - Business Insider

The former chief police enforcer of Philippine president Rodrigo Dutertes deadly war on drugs will be charged with corruption for allegedly protecting officers linked to the narcotics trade, the justice department has announced.

Oscar Albayalde resigned in October after serving as the Philippines police chief for more than a year, having presided over an anti-narcotics crackdown that left thousands of drug suspects dead.

The episode that led to his sudden fall from grace cast an unwelcome light on a drug war that is popular with Filipinos but has faced international criticism over allegations that police were summarily executing suspects.

The justice department said prosecutors found probable cause to charge Albayalde for not punishing officers accused of failing to account for 163kg of drugs and about US$517,000 seized from a drug raid.

A justice department statement said 13 other police officers would be charged with drug offences, corruption and taking bribes for their role in the operation in Pampanga province, north of Manila.

Albayalde has repeatedly denied having protected the officers or profiting from the seized drugs. In a statement he welcomed the case as an opportunity to clear his name: Finally, I will have my day in court.

The charge levelled against him carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

The raid took place in November 2013 when Albayalde was Pampangas police chief.

Allegations of police graft and abuse are not rare in the Philippines. Duterte twice ordered police to stop the anti-narcotics campaign because of allegations of corruption and murder by officers.

In January police said they had killed 5,552 suspects in anti-drug operations since Duterte came to office in June 2016.

Human rights groups allege the real number is four times higher and say the killings are a crime against humanity. Prosecutors at the international criminal court have launched a preliminary probe of the campaign and the United Nations top rights body voted in favour of an in-depth review.

Although the drug war is overwhelmingly backed by Filipinos, critics say it targets the poor and leaves the rich and powerful untouched while reinforcing a culture of impunity.

Excerpt from:

Former Philippines police chief and drug war enforcer to be charged with corruption - The Guardian

The war on drugshas been a multi-national priority... but we forget about drugs and war. A variety of drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines and opioids are used to enhance the ability of soldiers to fight, control civilians or even take over countries.The use of drugs in warfare pre-dates Napoleons era going back to conflicts in ancient Greece when opium was the drug of choice to soothe armies following their defeat. In the 19th century, Britain went to war with China in an attempt to protect its trading interest in opium.

Using psychoactive drugs in the arena of war shouldnt really surprise us, given the psychological state required for a soldier to be willing and able to inflict harm on another. Some drugs facilitate the psychological state required to do this. Physical fighting requires stamina;amphetamines provide artificial energy and as a result are a popular choice of drug.

The methamphetamine pillPervitin was used by the Nazis in the Second World War to extend the time soldiers were able to fight. Pervitin had the added benefit of helping soldiers manage the stress of war. These stimulants were an essential part of the tactic known as blitzkreig,or lightning speed, aimed at overwhelming the enemy with a swift offensive that produces disorganisation in the opposing forces. The Nazi army thus managed to sweep through Poland, Holland and France without suffering major casualties.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

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Chemical conflict: We might want a drugs-free world but wars and soldiers depend on them - The Independent

CONTROVERSIES on Dutertes drug war do not only sprout from the human rights activists protests grounded on the sanctity of life but also from the issues arising from the manner the war on drugs is carried out. A different raison detre flows not only from the theists but also from the atheists. Popular among these atheist human rights activists are the arguments bearing resemblance with the logic of Anton Chekovs The Bet and Thomas Paines Rights of Man. The former says that one cannot give back life once it is taken away while the former argues on founding a peaceful and orderly society from a fair and just way. Chekov shows us the philosophic examination between life imprisonment and capital punishment (in the case of President Dutertes war on drugs: rehabilitative justice or extrajudicial killing?) without appealing to something metaphysical like the existence of an almighty being who orders the societys repressive state apparatuses through the countrys elected president. To say that the authority decides and/or God provides is already outdated as the Progressive school of thought in history debunks the Providential. A clearer take on the Presidents war on drugs cannot be done in a personal view without dealing with the material condition where one can see the real consequences by looking beyond the comfort zone. Following Thomas Paine, a popular political revolution is permissible in a situation where the state no longer promotes and protects the natural rights of its citizenry. How can the state assure the citizens natural rights (recognized by both philosophy and the Constitution) if the founding of a peaceful and safe society is the unjust killing of its citizenry? Through the Marxist lens, it is a class war, i.e. President Dutertes war on drugs is a war against the poor (though there are rich victims they happen to be derailed in the political journey.) The self-serving power is not the source of determining the definition of natural rights.

Another controversy arises from the Machiavellians questioning the fate of Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Lim, Peter Co and other drug personalities. The first is a confessed drug dealer. The second is identified by PDEA and the PNP. The third is a convicted drug lord. A more controversial fact is the duration of silence for three months after the dismissal of the case against these three and more than 15 others. Dramatized with the punching of the Malacaang wall, who bought the story after Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre was appointed to the SSS board. A juicer controversy before General Albayalde is five police generals linked by President Duterte to the drug syndicate. What happened? The answer is a litany of controversy, e.g. Philip Salvadors sister, Usec. Martin Dios brother-in-law, the two Faeldons, Richard Tan...

A specter is haunting the Presidents war on drugs and the specter is controversies.

As to the President as an instrument of the Almighty, what else should I say? Its the 21st century! (Noe Santillan)

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Tell it to SunStar: My take on Dutertes drug war - Yahoo Philippines News

Securing the United States-Mexico border through a massive border wall was one of President Donald Trumps major campaign promises in 2016. This week,it was reportedU.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials have seized nearly 5,000 pounds of marijuana at the border between Nov. 1, 2018 and Oct. 31, 2019. The only problem for Trump was CBPs seizures happened at Americas Canadian border.

Ever since Canada legalized recreational cannabis nationwide, the volume of cannabis moving across the border into the United States has jumped significantly. Last year, CBP officials caught 2,214 kilograms (4, 881 pounds) in illegal marijuana. The figure represents a 75% increase from the year previous, when CBP officials seized 1,259 kilograms (2,775 pounds) in illicit cannabis. But CBP officials downplayed the significance of the statistics. Instead, they pointed the recorded individual seizures year to year: 3,917 incidents following Canadian legalization and 3,139 in the year prior to legalization.

Although the CBP recognizes an increase in marijuana seizures and incidents, seizures and incidents normally vary from year to year, CPB spokesman Kris Grogan told CBC. Instead, Grogan calls the increase in volume a small uptick more than anything else.

Experts point to possible confusion in the law for those crossing the border into states with legal marijuana like Michigan or Washington. Some may mistake that because its legal in both places, its okay to cross the border with cannabis. But because its a national border, federal rules and penalties apply.

In addition, University of Ottawa drug policy expert Eugene Oscapella said the increase in volume could be explained by a different problemCanadas black market problem. Many Canadian provinces experienced shortages, complications, or higher prices when it came to buying marijuana following legalization. Within the first six months of legalization, 79% of all cannabis sales still occurred underneath the table,according to Statistics Canada.Those black market producers who cant find buyers in Canada may be trying to move their goods elsewhere, theorized Oscpella.

Theres the possibility that if they lose the Canadian market, that theyll focus more effort on shipping itto the United States, places where it is still illegal, or to other countries for that matter,Oscapella told CBC.

But I dont know that weve been successful enough in getting people to shift to the Canadian legal market, that its really dented the profits of criminal organizations significantly here.

As far as the US-Mexico border,a Cato Institute reportfound that state marijuana legalization has stopped drug smuggling more successfully than Trumps border wall. Using government data, the report concludes that smuggling has fallen 78 percent over just a five-year period, which coincided with state-level marijuana legalization.

State-level marijuana legalization has undercut demand for illegal Mexican marijuana, which in turn has decreased the amount of drug smuggling into the United States across the southwest border,the paper reads.

TheFreshToast.com, a U.S. lifestyle site, that contributes lifestyle content and, with their partnership with 600,000 physicians via Skipta, medical marijuana information to The GrowthOp.

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Donald Trump is securing the wrong border against the War on Drugs - The GrowthOp

Sometimes a book comes along and, after it is absorbed into the culture, we cannot see ourselves again in quite the same way. Ten years ago, Michelle Alexander, a lawyer and civil-rights advocate, published The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. This was less than two years into Barack Obamas first term as President, a moment when you heard a lot of euphoric talk about post-racialism and how far weve come. The New Jim Crow was hardly an immediate best-seller, but after a couple of years it took off and seemed to be at the center of discussion about criminal-justice reform and racism in America. The book considers not only the enormity and cruelty of the American prison system but also, as Alexander writes, the way the war on drugs and the justice system have been used as a system of control that shatters the lives of millions of Americansparticularly young black and Hispanic men.

As part of an hour-long examination of mass incarceration for The New Yorker Radio Hour, co-hosted this week by Kai Wright, of WNYC, I caught up with Michelle Alexander, who is now teaching at Union Theological Seminary, in New York.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When The New Jim Crow came out, a decade ago, you said that you wrote it for the person I was ten years ago. Take me back to those times and to the work you were doing for the A.C.L.U. What were you finding out?

That would have been twenty years ago from today. It was just as I was beginning my work with the A.C.L.U. I was well aware that there was bias in our criminal-justice system, and that bias pervaded all of our political, social, and economic systems. Thats why I was a civil-rights lawyer: I was hoping to finish the work that had been begun by civil-rights leaders who came before me. I had a very romantic idea of what civil-rights lawyers had done and could do to address the challenges that we face.

My impression back then was that our criminal-justice system was infected with racial bias, much in the same way that all institutions in our society are infected to some degree or another with racial and gender bias. But what I didnt understand at that time was that a new system of racial and social control had been born again in America, a system eerily reminiscent to those that we had left behind.

In fact, I was heading to work my first day at the A.C.L.U. directing the Racial Justice Project when I happened to notice a sign posted to a telephone pole that said, in bold print, The Drug War Is the New Jim Crow. I remember pausing for a moment and scanning the text of the flyer and seeing that a small, apparently radical group was holding a meeting at a church several blocks away. They were organizing to protest racial profiling, the drug war, the three-strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and police brutality. The list went on and on. I remember thinking to myself, Yeah, the criminal-justice system is racist in a lot of ways, but it doesnt help to make comparisons to Jim Crow. People will just think youre crazy. And then I hopped on the bus.

So it was really as a result of myself representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality, and investigating patterns of drug-law enforcement in poor communities of color, and attempting to assist people who had been released from prison as they faced one closed door and one barrier after another to mere survival after being released from prison that I had a series of experiences that began what I have come to call my awakening.

What was that awakening like? What were you seeing in your work so that the scales were falling from your eyes?

Well, there were a number of incidents. It was partly beginning to collect data and trace patterns of policing. It was coming to see how the police were behaving in radically different ways in poor communities of color than they were in middle-class, white, or suburban communities. I mean, this wasnt a shock to me in any way, but the scale of it was astonishing: seeing rows of black men lined up against walls being frisked and handcuffed and arrested for extremely minor crimes, like loitering, or vagrancy, or possession of tiny amounts of marijuana, and then being hauled off to jail and saddled with criminal records that authorized legal discrimination against them for the rest of their lives. I mean, witnessing it and interviewing people one after another had its impact on me.

But there was one incident in particular that really kind of rocked my world. It involved a young African-American man who was about nineteen, who walked into my office one day and forever changed the way I viewed myself as a civil-rights lawyer and the system I was up against. He walked in my office carrying a stack of papers a couple of inches thick. He had taken detailed notes of his encounters with the police over about a nine-month period: every stop, every search, every time he had been frisked or someone he was riding with had been stopped, searched, or frisked. He had names of officers, in some cases badge numbers, names of witnessesjust an extraordinary amount of documentation.

At the time, I was interviewing people for a possible class-action suit against the Oakland Police Department. We had already filed a major class-action suit against the California Highway Patrol, alleging racial profiling in their drug-interdiction program, and we had launched a major campaign against racial profiling in California, and we were looking to sue other police departments, as well. And we had set up a hotline number for people to call if they had been stopped or targeted by the police on the basis of race. Within the first few minutes of us announcing this hotline number on the evening news, we received thousands of calls, and our system crashed temporarily. So I was spending my day interviewing one young black or brown man after another who had called the hotline.

This mans story was so compelling. I thought, Wow, maybe we have finally found our dream plaintiff. I start asking him more questions. Hes sharing more details and information. And then he said something that made me pause: Did you just say youre a drug felon?

We had been screening people for criminal records when they called our hotline number. We would ask them a bunch of questions about their experience with the police. We sent a form for them to fill out. And one of the questions was: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? We believed we couldnt represent anyone with a felony record because we knew that, if we did, law enforcement would be all over them, saying, Well, of course were keeping an eye on the criminals and stopping and harassing them. This isnt about race. Its about us cracking down on the criminals.

And we knew we couldnt put someone on the stand as a named plaintiff in a class action alleging racial profiling if they had a felony record, because we'd be exposing them to cross-examination about their prior criminal history and turning it into a mini-trial about a young mans criminal past rather than the police conduct.

So wed been screening out people with felony records, and this young man hadnt checked his box. Im looking at him, saying, O.K., youre a drug felon. Are you telling me youre a drug felon? And he gets very quiet and stares down at the table and then finally looks up and says, Yeah, yeah, Im a drug felon. But let me tell you what happened. Police planted drugs on me, and they beat up me and my friend. And he starts telling me this long story about how hed been framed and drugs have been planted on him. And I just start shaking my head. I said, Im sorry, I cant represent you with a felony record. And now hes trying to give me more details and explain more about that case. And I keep telling him, Im sorry, I just cant represent you. And he becomes more and more agitated and upset. And then, finally, he becomes enraged, and he says, Whats to become of me? Whats to become of me?

And he starts explaining that hed just taken the plea because he was afraid of doing the time. They told him that if he just took the plea, you just walk out with just felony probation. And he said, But whats to become of me? I cant get a job anywhere because of my felony record. Do you understand? I have to sleep in my grandmas basement at night. I cant even get into public housing with a drug felony. Its, like, how am I supposed to take care of myself? How am I supposed to take care of myself as a man? Hes, like, I cant even feed myself....Do you know I cant even get food stamps because of my drug felony? Good luck finding one young black man in my neighborhood they havent gotten to yet. Theyve gotten to us all already.

What was so provocative about the handbill that you first saw on the telephone pole, and in what became the title of your book, is that it flew in the face of what politicians said their motivation was for things like the crime bill in the mid-nineties, during the Clinton Administration. In other words, they said they were passing this legislation because crime rates were so high and drugs were out of control. What youre saying, what that handbill said, is no, in fact, this is the establishment of a means of social control of young black and brown men in particular. How conscious was that? How would you argue that it was a conscious decision to establish a successor, in a sense, to Jim Crow, and what came before Jim Crow?

There were mixed motives. One of the things that I laid out in the book was the history of the Southern strategy, the deliberate political strategy of divide and conquer, of using get tough racial appeals in order to appeal to poor and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who were fearful of and resentful of the progress that had been made by African-Americans since the civil-rights movement, who feared that they now had to compete for limited jobs in the era of deindustrialization with black folks. They were resentful of affirmative action.

Fearmongering and scapegoating was at the heart of the Southern strategy, which used racially coded and not so coded political appeals defining black and brown men in particular as the enemy, as criminals, as drug users, as superpredators, in order to appeal to poor and working-class white voters in the South and flip those blue states to red. That Southern strategy fuelled the get tough movement, helped to birth the war on drugs, and was in part about turning the clock back on racial progress to a time when white folks didnt have to compete on equal terms with black and brown folks.

But its also the case that racial stereotypes are a result of really racist media portrayals of drug users during the crack epidemic, which created conscious as well as unconscious stereotypes in law enforcement and the public at large. This helped to fuel this notion that we should get tough on them, the racially defined Others.

So the drug war was in part a politically motivated strategy, a backlash to the civil-rights movement, but it was also a reflection of conscious and unconscious biases fuelled by media portrayals of drug users. Those racial stereotypes were resonant with the same stereotypes of slaves and folks during the Jim Crow era.

A lot of people think of mass incarceration and get tough policies as the result of right-wing politics. But in what ways have liberals also played a part in this history?

I view liberals as equally guilty of birthing the system of mass incarceration as right-wing conservatives. President Bill Clinton escalated the drug war that had been originally declared by President Richard Nixon and then escalated by Ronald Reagan. Clinton escalated the drug war beyond what many of his Republican predecessors ever dreamed. And he did so in part to prove that he could be tougher on them, the black criminals, than his Republican counterparts.

I think it must also be acknowledged that there were black politicians and black communities calling for tough responses to rising crime in inner-city communities that were suffering from economic collapse. But its important to draw a distinction between black politicians and black communities that were desperate for intervention as factories closed and disappeared, and work disappeared, as William Julius Wilson described so powerfully in his book When Work Disappears. There was a period of time when hundreds of thousands of jobs vanished practically overnight in poor black communities, and they suffered depression and economic collapse. Crime rates rose and people were desperate for a meaningful, quick response.

But it would be wrong, in my view, to say that mass incarceration was supported by black communities. Black communities have organized for and demanded many large-scale interventions to address economic inequality, crime, educational inequality over the years. And it has only been in the area of crime that our nation has been willing to respond with massive investments in police, prisons, mass surveillance.

You were writing this book as Barack Obama was starting out his Presidency. Did his election make it harder for people to hear your argument at first? In fact, your book did not really take off the way it did for a little while.

Yes, thats absolutely right. Many people think that The New Jim Crow was an instant best-seller.

But it took a couple of years, right?

Yes. People didnt want to hear that we were still locked in a cycle of racial progress, backlash, retrenchment, and reformation of systems of racial and social control. It seemed much more likely that we were in an era of post-racialism, a time of color blindness, or at least on our way towards that Promised Land. I spent a couple of years on the road pretty much non-stop, speaking to small crowds and churches and groups of students and activists, really desperate to sound an alarm and to help people to see that, no, we are not free of our racial history. Our nation has, in fact, done it again. We have birthed a system of mass incarceration unlike anything the world has ever seen. Millions of people have been relegated yet again to a permanent second-class status in which they are stripped of basic civil and human rights, including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. It wasnt a message people were eager to hear, but I think it is much easier to see today, ten years later, that our nation is not yet free of its racial history, and that we continue to create new systems of racial and social control.

Decades ago, politicians were promising to build prison walls and new prisons. Today, politicians are promising border walls and the same politics of divide and conquer, fearmongering, and scapegoating that helped to give rise to the get tough movement, and the war on drugs is being used to fuel anger and resentment towards immigrants and mass deportation and mass detention.

While you were writing this book, your husband was working as a federal prosecutor. Did you have disagreements on the ideas that you were laying out? How did you discuss this with somebody so close to you?

My husband and I kind of came to these issues from very different perspectives. I had been working for years as a civil-rights lawyer. When we got married, he decided to become a federal prosecutor. While we both shared a commitment to racial and social justice, it was very difficult for me to accept that he was working for justice on the inside. We definitely had different disagreements over the years. But I also found him to be a very helpful reader. He has always given insightful and useful feedback on my writing and has been incredibly supportive of my work over the years, and so Im grateful for that. I think it has been helpful in many ways for me to be challenged in my thinking by someone who has seen through the eyes of law enforcement.

Theres been no shortage of books about race and mass incarceration. Why do you think it was your book that captured the public in the way that it did, and still does?

I think the book was published at the right time. Our nation was reeling from an economic crisis that was forcing former get tough true believers to take a hard look at the system of mass incarceration. Former governors who had been calling for harsh mandatory minimum sentences and had been fierce drug warriors were suddenly realizing that it was not possible to continue to expand this massive prison state without raising taxes on the predominantly white middle class. And so suddenly people were beginning to ask questions and to be open to the possibility that perhaps this race to incarcerate had been misguided.

At the same time, the uprisings in Ferguson, Missouri, forced a conversation about race and our criminal-justice system that our nation had been determined to avoid for a very long time. The activism and the organizing and the passion and heartbreak that flowed from the killing of Trayvon Martin, the killing of Michael Brown, the deaths of Kalief Browder and Sandra Bland opened up a space where people began searching for answers regarding how we got to this place.

I know from your new preface to the tenth-anniversary edition that you got thousands of letters from people who wrote you about the book, many from people who were formerly incarcerated. What were they telling you?

Yeah, it has been overwhelming, over the years, to receive thousands of letters. Im embarrassed and sad to say that I havent been able to read all of them. Some people have written just thanking me for the book and for speaking a truth that they may have been trying to speak in their own communities.

Theres also a lot of people writing me from prison, begging for help. Those are the most heartbreaking letters to read because, often, not only am I not able to help them but theres no one who I can recommend who can. There is just not available legal support for people who are in prison trying to fight their charges or reduce their sentences.

In the preface you wrote for the tenth-anniversary edition, you kept coming back to this idea of Everything and nothing has changed. Whats changed, and what hasnt? Are we better off now than we were a decade ago, when your book was first published?

Well, certainly, in some ways, on the surface, it appears that everything has changed. When my book was first published, President Obama had just been elected. It seemed that we were on the right path: still had a long way to go, but were headed in the right direction. At least, that was the sentiment that was shared by many, many people. It seemed as though this dream of a multiracial, multi-ethnic, egalitarian democracy was within our reach, and there was an incredible amount of hope for positive change. And yet we were also living in a time of tremendous denial.

As I wrote, a system of mass incarceration had been born in America, a system of racial and social control that turned back much of the racial progress we thought we had made, and people were unwilling to talk about it and to face it. Criminal-justice issues werent even really on the radar of civil-rights organizations at that time, with the exception of the A.C.L.U. and some work on racial profiling that was beginning to be done by the N.A.A.C.P. and other organizations. When the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in 2008, sent out a letter listing the most pressing issues on civil rights, criminal-justice issues didnt even make the list. And when, in 2009, the Congressional Black Caucus sent out a list of a couple dozen issues that might be of concern to black communities, criminal justice didnt make the list. This was just as the drug war was raging and the race to incarcerate was going full bore. And so there was a way in which we were asleep and in denial.

Today, that has changed. The election of President Trump has completely decimated whatever fantasies we had that we are living in a post-racial America. We now can see that systems of racial and social control are alive and well, not only due to the uprisings in Ferguson and the many, many publicized police killings of unarmed black people and the growing movements to end mass incarceration. Weve also come to see how yet another system of racial and social control has been born in this country, the system of mass deportation and mass detention. So we have this paradox in which, on the one hand, it seems that everything has changed, yet the politics of white supremacy have remained largely unchanged during the Obama years. Now we are forced to reckon with racial realities that we had long attempted to avoid, and I think we are finally beginning to see how the politics of divide and conquer, the politics of racial scapegoating and fearmongering, have been used again and again.

Some of the scholars who have been in dialogue with you about your book have taken issue with your focus on the war on drugs and nonviolent drug offenses. John Pfaff, in his book Locked In, says that only about sixteen per cent of state prisoners are serving time on drug charges, and very few of themmaybe about five or six per cent of that groupare both low level and nonviolent. And what he and the other scholars are saying is, even if you released all the people in prisons who were there for drug offenses, nonviolent drug offenses, that would not put a real dent in the prison population.

Well, thats absolutely right. It is true that roughly half of the people who are held in state prisons today have been convicted of offenses that are labelled violent, and that a small minority of people in prison today have been labelled drug offenders. But one of the main points of The New Jim Crow is that it is a profound mistake to think of the system of mass incarceration as simply a system of prisons.

There are twice as many people on probation or parole today as are locked in prisons or jails. When people think about the system of mass incarceration, they typically just think about whos in prison at any given moment. But what I hope to draw peoples attention to is that this system of mass incarceration is actually a system of mass criminalization. It is a system that criminalizes people at very young ages, often before theyre old enough to vote. It labels them criminals and felons, and then strips them of basic civil rights, the very rights supposedly won in the civil-rights movement. And this happens even if youve been sentenced only to probation.

So when people look at prison statistics and say, Oh, well, most people who are in prison are there for violent offenses, so our primary concern must be violent crime, or they think, Oh, well, this prison system is really about responding to violent crime, they get it very wrong.

About five per cent of people who are arrested every year have been convicted of violent crimes or charged with violent crimes. People who have been convicted of violent offenses typically get much, much longer sentences than people who have been convicted of nonviolent crimes like drug offenses. And, therefore, they comprise a much larger portion of the prison population. However, ninety-five per cent of those who are arrested and swept into the criminal-justice system every year have been convicted of nonviolent crimes. And the largest category of arrests are drug arrests. That was true in 2010, and its true today.

The war on drugs has been a primary vehicle for sweeping people into a criminal-justice system, branding them criminals and felons, and then relegating them to a permanent second-class status for life. That doesnt mean we should be unconcerned about violent crime or the harm that it does to communities, nor should we be unconcerned about the extremely long sentences and inhuman treatment that people often receive being caged. But what it does mean is that we have to stop thinking about the system of mass incarceration as simply a prison system.

Michelle, lets talk about the cages in general. There have been calls in recent years for prison abolition. And I wonder what you make of the prison-abolition movement. Ill ask you what Angela Davis asks in the title of her famous book from 2003, Are Prisons Obsolete?

I think prisons are absolutely obsolete. I hope that one day our nation will look back on this practice of putting human beings in literal cages, often treating them worse than we would treat a dog at the pound, sometimes locking them in solitary confinement for decades, allowing them little or no access to sunshine or human contactI hope that one day we will look back on this practice with as much shame and horror as we view the practice of slavery, or the practice of cutting off limbs and hands of thieves. I hope that we find much more humane, constructive ways of responding to the real harms of violence and of crime than subjecting people to deliberate humiliation, stigmatization, suffering, and caging.

We can do better than this. In my experience, most folks understand that caging people and then stripping them of basic civil and human rights upon their release isnt productive. In fact, its more likely to encourage criminal behavior in the future and make it more difficult for people to survive on the outside without resorting to crime. Its likely to traumatize people in ways that will be harmful to themselves, to their families, and to their communities. Most people understand that when you talk about drug abuse or drug addiction. People understand that it is much more productive for people to get drug treatment rather than be in a cage. But when it comes to violence, people have a much more difficult time imagining that there are solutions beyond inflicting violence and caging people.

But Im so encouraged by the work of restorative- and transformative-justice advocates today who are challenging us to think about ways of responding that are more humane and more effective, both for survivors as well as for those who have committed acts of violence.

What do you envision specifically as an alternative to cages, to prisons, to jails? Is there a place in the world that has a justice system that you can point to and say, We definitely should move toward something more like that?

Well, theres been a lot written in recent years about systems in Norway and Germany that are much more humane than the system of caging that we have in the United States. I would really encourage people to read Danielle Sereds book Until We Reckon, specifically about a program that she operates in New York City called Common Justice. Common Justice is a restorative-justice program that provides alternatives to incarceration for people who have been convicted of or who are facing charges for violent offenses. And whats interesting about what she has found in the program is that ninety per cent of survivors of violent crime, when given the option of participating in a restorative-justice program, or the opportunity to confront the person who has caused them harm and to devise a plan for that person to try to make up for what they have done in some way, choose to participate in a restorative-justice program rather than to pursue criminal charges and incarceration. This kind of flies in the face of the research that suggests that survivors of violent crime always want people locked up and the key thrown away. In fact, it turns out that survivors of violent crime and the people who have committed harm can come together in many cases, far more often than we imagine, and together develop fair solutions for responding to the harm thats been caused.

One of the things that is standing in the way of such reform is the fact that a huge number of prisonsseventy per cent, in factare located in rural communities and go a long way in bolstering the economies of these communities. I mean, the fact is that prisons are a big source of income for many people living around them. And you make this very clear.

The profit motive is significant. And very often people think about the profit motive simply in terms of private prisons making money off of caging human beings. However, as the book Prison Profiteers, edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright, points out, there is a very large range of corporate interests that make an enormous amount of money off of our prison systemeverything from private health-care providers to Taser-gun manufacturers to companies that are now creating these electronic monitors, G.P.S. tracking systems for people when they are released from prison or jail.

E-carceration, you call it.

Yes. One of the things that worries me most today is the emergence of e-carceration, or digital prisons, as some activists refer to them. Many people are now being forced to wear electronic monitors, G.P.S. tracking devices, upon release from prisons and jails. These devices will limit peoples range of movement, confining them to their homes or to their neighborhoods, sometimes making it impossible for them to go to work or pick up their children from school. These tracking devices send off alarms to police departments if people travel out of their designated zones. In many ways, these tracking devices are creating entire neighborhoods that are under a kind of lockdown, as an electronically enforced kind of virtual concentration camp, where large percentages of the population are confined to small areas.

But what do you say to people who argue that these technological solutions are more humane than prisons and jails?

Well, certainly, most people, myself included, would rather have an electronic monitor, a G.P.S. tracking device, attached to my ankle than to be sitting in a literal cage. However, I find it very difficult to call a system of e-carceration and the emergence of digital prisons progress. Progress would be decriminalizing our communities, not subjecting them to new, high-tech forms of surveillance and control.

It is entirely possible that, in the years to come, as private corporations begin investing more and more moneybillions of dollars are now being invested in the electronic surveillance of people who have been criminalizedthat we will have entire communities and neighborhoods that are trapped in digital prisons. It will be cheaper to surveil and control millions of people electronically than through old-fashioned brick-and-mortar prisons.

So I dont think we should celebrate the rise of electronic monitoring as a step in the right direction or progress. A step in the right direction would be massive investments in education, drug treatment, health care, and job creation, in trauma support in the communities that have been devastated by the war on drugs and mass incarceration.

We all know that the safest communities are not the ones that have the most police, the most prisons, or the highest percentage of people on electronic monitors under constant surveillance and control. No, what creates safety in our communities are good schools, plentiful jobs, quality health care, and a thriving social fabric.

The racial disparities in prisons over the last decade have actually declined. Is there any reason for hope in that?

Its absolutely a positive development that racial disparities have declined to the extent that it means that we are relying less and less on criminalization and incarceration of all people, including people of color.

I worry about those who focus primarily on racial disparities in our criminal-justice system as a measure of injustice. In fact, there is some research that suggests that racial disparities have narrowed in part because more white people have been incarcerated or saddled with criminal records as a result of the opioid epidemic, or because, as some people have argued, many Latinos are being mislabelled as white in our criminal-justice system, distorting the data. But I wouldnt celebrate that kind of progress. The goal here is not to subject people of all colors to unnecessary suffering. The goal ought to be to view and treat all people of all colors with dignity, humanity, compassion, and concern.

However, there is also significant evidence indicating that racial disparities have narrowed in large part because many states, New York included, have moved away from many of the harsh drug-war policies that resulted in enormous racial disparities in incarceration and conviction rates. And that is cause for celebration.

I think, again, we have to make sure that were not simply addressing symptoms rather than underlying causes. True progress depends on us caring and demonstrating care, compassion, and concern for poor people, and people of color, and being willing to invest in their well-being and their health and their education and their thriving rather than simply in their punishment and in their control.

All the front-runner candidates for the Democratic nomination support some form or another of criminal-justice reform. Do you have a favorite among them?

No, I am not endorsing anyone at this time.

But, on this issue, is there anybody who seems particularly advanced or to your liking?

Well, I would have to say that I have found Elizabeth Warrens and Bernie Sanderss criminal-justice platforms to be very encouraging. Theyre taking a comprehensive approach to criminal-justice reform and not simply tinkering with the machine by promising to reduce sentencing, for example. Meaningful criminal-justice reform requires taking a very holistic view and insuring that people who are released from prison have meaningful opportunities for education and access to health care and drug treatment and mental-health treatment and support, and that there is a strong commitment to taking the profit motive out of incarceration entirely. And, you know, viewing criminal-justice reform through a racial-justice lens. So I am encouraged that virtually all of the Democratic candidates have stated a willingness to embrace criminal justice-reform to some degree. But for me, personally, Im less interested in the reform of our criminal-justice system than its transformation. I think we must reimagine the meaning of justice in America, not simply reform our existing criminal-justice institutions. I think that work depends on building and organizing and the engagement of our communities. We cant simply look to our politicians to have the answers

Finally, I hope you dont mind if I ask you what seems to be a personal professional question. Your main teaching post has been at an institution that has religion and faith at its center, the Union Theological Seminary. Does that choice represent a change in your thinking on criminal justice or in your own life?

After spending many years working as a civil-rights lawyer and then as a legal, academic, and policy advocate, I became frustrated with the very narrow scope of acceptable discourse in those spaces. As I see it, the crisis of mass incarceration is not simply a legal or political problem to be solved, but its a profound spiritual and moral crisis, as well. And it requires a reckoning, individually and collectively, with our racial history, our racial present, and our racial future. Many academics and lawyers are reluctant to face or engage in this reckoning, in part because it seems so big, so overwhelming. Lawyers are accustomed to defining problems in legal terms so that they can solve them. Academics want to study problems. Legal academics want to study problems in a very narrow and often data-driven way, without really asking the deeper questions around, Who are we in relationship to one another? What does justice mean?

And I have found, much to my surprise, that, in progressive seminaries like Union Theological Seminary, there is or there seems to be much greater enthusiasm for wrestling with those deep moral questions of the meaning of justice in a nation forged through genocide and slavery, a multiracial, multiethnic nation that is struggling to overcome its racial history. What does it mean to do justice in this context, in this moment in time?

And I jokingly, although its not so much of a joke, tell people who just say to me, I want to go to law school, I say, Well, law school is a place where you learn the rules of the game and how to play it. But it isnt a place where people think deeply about justice. And I cant say thats true for every law school, but its true for too many of them. And Im just grateful that Ive had the opportunity to be affiliated with Union Theological Seminary, which has such a long history of taking questions of justice very seriously and approaching them not just from a legal or political perspective but from a deeply moral one.

Does this mean that religion and faith-based traditions have become more in the center of your thinking and research and writing and your own personal evolution?

Yes, absolutely, although I dont consider myself a religious person. Im probably more of a spiritual but not religious person. But, yeah, I think, ultimately, these questions are about: What does it mean to be in the right relationship to one another? Who belongs in a community, in a nation? How should we treat the least advantaged? What do we owe to one another? How do we repair harm? What does it mean to face irreparable harm in a constructive and responsible way?

Are these questions at the center of a next book?

Yes, they are. Im working on a book that is very different from The New Jim Crow. Its much more personal, and its about my journey going from a liberal civil-rights lawyer who was tinkering with the machine, and believed that we could somehow get to the Promised Land if we just filed the next best lawsuit, or met with the governor, or organize the right number of people for the next protest, to someone who now believes that much more revolutionary change is required, and its not simply a political revolution. A moral and spiritual revolution is also required of us now.

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Ten Years After The New Jim Crow - The New Yorker