U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-St. Louis, introduced legislation last week that would end incarceration for people caught possessing drugs for personal use — the same week President Richard Nixon declared his war on drugs 50 years ago.
The congresswoman spoke about the bill in a Zoom meeting prior to its introduction along with co-sponsor Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-New Jersey.
The bill is titled the Drug Policy Reform Act (DPRA) and was drafted in partnership with the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). Along with ending the threat of incarceration for possession of drugs, it would also make it so the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — rather than the Justice Department — would be responsible for classifying drugs, with the intent being to shift that role to a health-centric model.
In addition, HHS would establish a commission on substance use, health and safety to determine the benchmark amounts for drug possession and recommendations for preventing the prosecution of individuals possessing, distributing or dispensing personal use quantities of each drug.
“Fifty years, fifty years — that’s how long our government has waged a war not on drugs but on people,” Bush said.
“That’s the thing about wars, people fall victim to state violence — Black, brown and Indigenous people, women, children, our immigrant community. Breonna Taylor’s life was robbed from her fiancé, her family and community because of the daily and devastating consequences of the war on drugs.”
Watson Coleman noted that Nixon’s top adviser John Ehrlichman admitted in the 1990s that the war on drugs was an effort to go after the administration’s two strongest political enemies: the antiwar left and Black people.
“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman told Harper’s magazine in 1994. “We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Watson Coleman said around 20 million Americans struggle with substance abuse disorder every year, meaning nearly every American has been touched by drug abuse directly or indirectly.
“The war on drugs was never about helping people, it was about criminalizing them,” Watson Coleman said. “That’s what we are trying to correct today.”
In addition, Bush said nearly 60% of all drug overdoses in Missouri happen in St. Louis, calling it a tragic public health outcome that has only worsened than during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The economic stability of our carceral state depends on this misguided and racist policy,” Bush said. “We are here to say no more, it’s time, we fund life not destruction. As a nurse, I’ve seen firsthand the harm these policies have had on my community. St. Louis continues to suffer as a result of substance use disorders and not simply because we lack adequate resources. It’s not that simple. But because people fear being criminalized, stigmatized and locked up for substance use.”
In addition to decriminalizing drug possession and assigning drug classification to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the bill proposes a number of other policy changes:
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Automatically expunge and seal records within one year of the bill’s enactment.
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Provides relief for people currently incarcerated or on supervision for certain drug convictions.
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Reinvests funds to support programs
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Promotes evidence-based drug education
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Prohibits the denial of employment or termination based on a criminal history for drug possession
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Explicitly prohibits drug testing for individuals to receive federal benefits
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Prevents drug use charges/convictions from being held against an individual in order to receive SNAP/TANF, housing assistance and other federal benefits
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Prevents individuals in the U.S. from being denied immigration status due to personal drug use
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Prevents individuals from being denied the right to vote rand restores voting rights to those who have been impacted in the past
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Ensures individuals with drug convictions can gain access to drivers’ licenses
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Prohibits the use of civil asset forfeitures related to personal drug possession cases
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Improves research on impact of drug criminalization and enforcement
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Funds data collection and transparency on all available data related to enforcement of drug laws
Bush and Watson Coleman were joined on Zoom by Queen Adesuyi of DPA; Major Neill Franklin of Law Enforcement Action Partnership; and Dr. Mary T. Bassett of Harvard University.
“The economic stability of our carceral state depends on this misguided and racist policy. We are here to say no more, it’s time we fund life not destruction.” — U.S. Rep. Cori Bush
