Today, in testimony before the Full House Judiciary Committee on CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN THE OPIOID ABUSE CRISIS, Robert Patterson, Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, stated in an answer to Rep. Cohen that the DEA is not using resources locking-up marijuana and other drug users:
“DEA doesn't expend its resources on users of marijuana. And quite frankly, I'm not sure what state is. I think that you see even in states were it remains illegal, I don't see a huge enforcement presence. That's a good conversation to have, but I hear this statistic all the time, that there's mass incarceration of users, not just a marijuana, but of drugs in general, and I don't see it.”
Looks like the Patterson and the DEA need to “expend” some time researching the topic a bit more. Take for instance these easily verifiable facts from the Drug Policy Alliance:
"Key Facts
The Drug War Drives Mass Incarceration and Racial Disparities in U.S. Judicial Systems
There were more than 1.5 million drug arrests in the U.S. in 2016. The vast majority – more than 80% – were for possession only.
People of color experience discrimination at every stage of the judicial system and are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly sentenced and saddled with a lifelong criminal record. This is particularly the case for drug law violations.
Research shows that prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for black people as for white people charged with the same offense. Among people who received a mandatory minimum sentence in 2011, 38% were Latino and 31% were black.
Mass Incarceration Destroys Families
2.7 million children are growing up in U.S. households in which one or more parents are incarcerated. Two-thirds of these parents are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, including a substantial proportion who are incarcerated for drug law violations.
One in nine black children has an incarcerated parent, compared to one in 28 Latino children and one in 57 white children.
Collateral Consequences of Mass Incarceration
Punishment for a drug law violation is not only meted out by the criminal justice system, but is also perpetuated by policies denying child custody, voting rights, employment, business loans, licensing, student aid, public housing and other public assistance to people with criminal convictions.
Such exclusions permanently relegate millions of Americans to second-class status, disproportionately people of color.
One in 13 black people of voting age are denied the right to vote because of laws that disenfranchise people with felony convictions.
"Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs." - Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (2010)"
http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-war-mass-incarceration-and-race-englishspanish
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