By Meghan Groob, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 5:03pm
Washington and Colorado made big news on Election Day last year when residents voted to legalize small amounts of recreational marijuana – could the federal government be next? Last week, two bills were introduced in the House of Representatives aimed at resolving the difference between laws in states like Washington and Colorado and federal law.
Two recent elections, a New York judge’s personal plea, a new state law and a new public opinion poll demonstrate that a seismic national shift has occurred in political attitudes toward medical marijuana. This cascade of developments dramatically illustrates just how far we’ve come since California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, and it indicates that our collective compassion is eroding the once-ironclad political will to deny an effective medicine to our sick fellow citizens.
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.
By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 2:16pm
Patricia Spottedcrow of Oklahoma made headlines in 2010 when she was sentenced to 12 years in prison for her first criminal offense: the sale of a $31 bag of marijuana to an undercover informant. The senseless severity of her sentence caught the attention of advocates who quickly moved to support Spottedcrow, spawning a grassroots uprising that led to a highly unusual decrease in her sentence and, ultimately, to her early release on parole.
By Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel, ACLU Center for Justice at 11:19am
President Obama is the first sitting president in recent history to speak out against criminal justice policies that hurt inner city and rural communities. This is a big deal.
By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 11:47am
Olympics season is upon us, and there’s no shortage of news in which the United States is heralded as the global frontrunner. Beyond athletics, America tends to pride itself on being innovative and forward-thinking on many issues of law and policy, professing to set an example for the rest of the world. But when it comes to our stagnant approach to drug policy, other countries have surpassed us repeatedly by leaps and bounds. From Portugal to Switzerland to Guatemala, it’s as if the rest of the world aced a public health class that the United States skipped because it was too busy fighting a failed, costly “war on drugs.”
U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske has his work cut out for him. A revealing recent interview suggests he favors a more treatment-based approach to drug policy than his predecessors, but he has no illusions about the daunting task of de-stigmatizing addiction and aligning America’s drug policies with the extensive evidence that a public health approach will serve our country far better than the failed War on Drugs. It’s great that the national discussion about drug use and addiction is changing course, even among high-powered folks like Kerlikowske, but our laws and practices have many miles to go to catch up with the trends in conversation. Fifty percent of our federal prisoners – and almost 20 percent of state prisoners – are incarcerated for drug offenses. And this isn’t just cracking down on “hard” drugs - Marijuana arrests accounted for more than half of all drug arrests in 2010. All of this has a disproportionate and devastating impact on Black Americans, who are three times more likely to be arrested for a marijuana offense even though whites use marijuana at a higher rate. So the question is: can the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) follow through on Kerlikowske’s newfound enlightenment?
Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.
