Nixon's war on drugs has failed for half a century. It’s time to end it: Alexander Soros

Fifty years ago this month, the United States launched a war on its own people. President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one.” Since then, our criminal approach to drugs has devastated lives, destroyed communities, and led to the largest prison population in the world.

Over the past half-century, the drug war has driven a well-documented surge in police budgets and incarceration. Law enforcement agencies now make more than 1.6 million arrests each year for drug possession alone. Human Rights Watch documents that every 25 seconds in the United States, someone is arrested for the simple act of possessing drugs for their personal use. From its inception, the war on drugs, has fueled institutional and structural racism and fuels the prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, and police brutality.

Drug policies hinder racial equity

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Black people are almost four times as likely as white people to be arrested on marijuana charges, despite similar rates of consumption. The war on drugs has turned even the suspicion of substance use into an excuse for deadly force. A no-knock search warrant — a tactic frequently justified by the assertion that drug suspects pose an inherent danger — led to the killing of Breonna Taylor. As George Floyd was being murdered, an officer nonchalantly told onlookers, “This is why you don’t do drugs, kids.”

Racial equity: Release people incarcerated under draconian marijuana laws

The U.S. has exported these violent and regressive policies across the globe, promoting an international framework of drug prohibition and tying military aid and intervention to the war on drugs. In these countries, as in the U.S., criminalization has done nothing to curb supply or demand. Instead, it’s just fueled black market-related violence. Since 2006, Mexico’s war on drug cartels has led to more than 150,000 deaths associated with the drug trade and more than 32,000 disappearances.

Lost in this litany of destruction is the clear fact that the war on drugs has failed in its aim to combat harmful substance use and to save lives. Drug use has continued to increase. Nearly 500,000 people died in the U.S. alone from opioid overdose from 1999 to 2019. Last year, overdose deaths surpassed even COVID-19 fatalities in some cities. But decades of being targeted by law enforcement has pushed drug users, who fear criminal prosecution, further into the shadows. The policing of illicit substance use makes seeking healthcare risky, depriving users of essential services that can be life-saving. It also results in catastrophic harm to civil society.

But today, lawmakers have a chance to chart a new path. That means moving away from criminalization and incarceration, toward evidence-based interventions that treat drug use like the public health issue it is.

This past election showed us surprising unity on drug policy, despite the country’s intense polarization. Where drug decriminalization or legalization was on the ballot, it won handily—in both blue states and red. My father, George Soros, recognized the potential for this shift decades ago. Working with Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, they won the fight to legalize medical marijuana in California and other states. In Baltimore, with former Mayor Kurt Schmoke, they worked to increase treatment for substance misuse and expand the availability of naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of overdose.

Change is possible. First, we need to stop criminalizing people who use drugs. We can look abroad for sensible models. In 2001, Portugal passed landmark legislation to abolish criminal penalties for personal possession; drug deaths fell, while the number of people treated for substance use disorder in the country rose 60%. Here in the U.S., Oregon is leading the way with a new law ending arrests for small amounts of heroin, methamphetamine, LSD, and other drugs, diverting those funds into recovery services. Washington and Maine could be next.

Don't make drug use a death sentence

Substance abuse disorder should be addressed through evidence-based, public health measures that save lives and protect communities and families. It’s imperative that we stop pretending that abstinence works all the time, for everyone. Policymakers need to meet people where they are, with approaches that recognize that drug use is a lived reality for many and shouldn’t be a death sentence.

One practical step in this direction: Make permanent the temporary permission, granted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, that allows people to take methadone, used for treatment of opioid use disorder, in their homes, rather than be forced to line up every day for their medicine. Officials should also expand syringe service programs, get more naloxone into the hands of drug users, and permit the opening of overdose prevention centers, where people can use drugs under the supervision of trained staff and without fear of arrest.

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Making this happen requires committed leadership. The Biden administration’s drug plan contains promising elements, but leaves out many specifics. On a national level, only Congress can de-schedule substances, eliminate mandatory minimums, and fund treatment-centered alternatives. Instead of exporting militarization, the U.S. could chart a new foreign policy that supports the legalization of drugs such as cannabis, improves security and governance, supports small-scale farmers, and provides harm reduction services such as addiction treatment.

We have an opportunity to develop a national approach to drugs that reimagines what it means to have safe communities, and that finally puts people first. We will never achieve police reform and racial justice in America if the war on drugs is allowed to continue. We must learn the lessons of our fifty-year failure and use this moment of reflection for action.

Alexander Soros is the Deputy Chairman of the Open Society Foundations. Follow him on Twitter: @AlexanderSoros

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: War on drugs hurt minorities for 50 years. Time to end it and move on.