Time to Bury the Drug War and Envision New Drug Policies Rooted in Mercy and Compassion

As a Christian, this Easter, I am forced to think more deeply about what my Christianity means to me in the age of the global war on drugs. A war that has ravaged poor and Black and Brown communities here in the United States, and abroad has threatened democracies and destabilized states in Central and South America and elsewhere, and costs trillions of dollars and countless innocent lives.

I am now convinced that the war on drugs is simply not about drugs as many policymakers may want me to believe. Too many people are being harmed by our current drug policies. When our solution to a problem is doing more harm than the problem we're trying to fix--we are fighting a losing battle. Forty years of sticking our heads in the sand is just reckless and irresponsible. It's past time for a new approach in U.S and international drug policy.

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