American Civil Liberties Union

Heads up: mandatory, suspicionless drug testing is not just about violating your Fourth Amendment rights anymore...

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.

Voters in Washington state, along with those in Colorado, made history on Election Day by passing laws that legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana for adults 21 and over. Washington's law, Initiative 502 (I-502), passed with an 11-point margin, sending a clear message that the public is ready for a change in policy.

As of today, possession of an ounce or less of marijuana is legal under Washington state law. During a year-long rulemaking process that will end next December, the State Liquor Control Board will create a tightly regulated system that licenses the production, processing, and selling of marijuana. Marijuana will be sold in standalone stores very similar to Washington’s old hard alcohol stores. Private entities licensed by the state will produce, process, and sell marijuana, and it will be taxed at each step along the way.

In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war, couched in terms that suggested that the onslaught of attacks would target and eliminate the presence of drugs in our country. But the so-called War on Drugs, it turned out, was given a deceiving title. Nixon had instead initiated a full-fledged war on the American people, one that has continued in full force for more than four decades, systematically targeting, punishing and marginalizing hundreds of thousands of our citizens – predominately people of color and in poverty. In recent years, critics of this misguided war have become increasingly vocal, spurring an outpouring of calls to end the government’s harmful, needless and costly battle on American citizens. Now, the tragic complexity of this failed war has been captured on film by director Eugene Jarecki in his award-winning documentary, The House I Live In, making its debut in theaters this Friday. The film compellingly documents the wasteful War on Drugs from numerous critical angles by bearing witness to the stories of prison guards and prisoners, judges and police officers, and the families left behind after their loved ones were thrown in prison.