Pubdate: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI) Copyright: 2013 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock Contact: http://www.metrotimes.com Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381 Author: Robert Sharpe Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n370/a10.html THE WAR ON DRUGS Dear Editor: RE: "Double Standards, Singular Repercussions"; [Higher Ground, July 31-Aug. 6, 2013] The drug war has been waged in a racist manner since its inception. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was preceded by a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Opium was identified with Chinese laborers, marijuana with Mexicans and cocaine with African-Americans. Racial profiling continues to be the norm, despite similar rates of drug use for minorities and whites. Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drugs at the same rate as minorities. The drug war is a cultural inquisition, not an evidence-based public health campaign. Prison cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. It's time to declare peace in the failed drug war and begin treating all substance abuse, legal or otherwise, as the public health problem it is. Thanks to public education, addictive tobacco use has declined, without any need to arrest smokers or imprison farmers. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse. ROBERT SHARPE Arlington, Va., Aug. 2, 2013 The writer is a policy analyst at Common Sense for Drug Policy in Washington, D.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom