Should the Victims of the War on Drugs Receive Reparations?
BY HELEN REDMOND • October 31, 2014
A drug war Truth and Reconciliation Commission along the lines of post-apartheid South Africa is a radical idea proposed by the Green Party. Substance.com asks their candidates for New York State’s gubernatorial election to tell us more.
In November’s gubernatorial election in New York State, Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones are running against Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo, who won his party’s primary. Hawkins and Jones are seeking to become the next governor and lieutenant governor respectively.
They’re hardly your typical politicians. Hawkins works at UPS in Albany, unloading trucks, and is a member of the Teamster’s union, while Jones is a teacher who taught for nine years in the New York City public school system.
Hawkins and Jones understand that winning is a long shot, to say the least. A recent NBC 4 New York poll showed Hawkins getting just seven percent of the vote. Still, taking a longer view, siphoning away a proportion of the main parties’ voters can be a way to get them to shift their policies in your direction. And the Greens have long argued that building an alternative to the two-party system is crucial because Republicans and Democrats represent the interests of their wealthy corporate donors. The top industries that donate to Governor Cuomo’s campaign are finance, insurance, and real estate, while the Green Party portrays itself as a party for working people, and doesn’t accept contributions from corporations. “The richest one percent own the two major parties,” Hawkins says.
One area in which the Green Party platform differs radically from that of the Democrats is the war on drugs. So Substance.com spoke with both candidates to get their take on issues like mass incarceration, the racial disparities of drug-law enforcement, the legalization of heroin and other drugs—and what could happen after that.
How has the war on drugs impacted communities—particularly communities of color—in New York State under Governor Andrew Cuomo and former mayor Michael Bloomberg?
HAWKINS: Cuomo is a drug warrior and mass incarcerator. He has been silently complicit in the drug war, first as attorney general and then as governor—as Bloomberg and [former NYPD Commissioner] Kelly stop-and-frisk and now Mayor de Blasio and [NYPD Commissioner] Bill “broken windows” Bratton target poor communities of color for petty offenses, particularly marijuana possession.
The war on drugs hasn’t reduced substance abuse, but has created a culture of violence fueled by profits from the drug trade, similar to the crime wave that accompanied the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s.
Despite decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana four decades ago, New York State leads the country in marijuana arrests. The greatest racial disparities occur in Brooklyn and Manhattan, where black New Yorkers are over nine times more likely than whites to be arrested for possessing marijuana.
JONES: It has been devastating. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the black arrest rate for marijuana has increased 26 percent since 2001. So under the watch of Cuomo and Bloomberg, the war on drugs has intensified. We are now at a point where some 50,000 people in New York State are snatched off the streets every year for this reason alone. And as we know, once these folks are saddled with a criminal record, they effectively become second-class citizens because it’s legal to discriminate against them.
The New York Times came out recently in favor of the legalization of marijuana. What’s your reaction to the new position of the “paper of record”?
HAWKINS: What took the Times so long? It is time for New York to also legalize, regulate, and tax recreational marijuana as Colorado and Washington State now do.
JONES: Better late than never. The New York Times can tell which way the wind is blowing, but has not gotten out in front on these issues.
You favor legalizing and regulating both marijuana and heroin. Do you have any concern that legal regulation could lead to an increase in the use of these drugs?
HAWKINS: Cuomo says marijuana is a gateway drug to hard drugs, but he is pandering to a public opinion cultivated by decades of drug war propaganda. Where marijuana and heroin have been decriminalized or legalized in countries like the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, and Uruguay, both marijuana and hard drug use have declined.
continued here http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/victims-war-drugs-receive-reparations-93194/
BY HELEN REDMOND • October 31, 2014
A drug war Truth and Reconciliation Commission along the lines of post-apartheid South Africa is a radical idea proposed by the Green Party. Substance.com asks their candidates for New York State’s gubernatorial election to tell us more.
In November’s gubernatorial election in New York State, Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones are running against Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo, who won his party’s primary. Hawkins and Jones are seeking to become the next governor and lieutenant governor respectively.
They’re hardly your typical politicians. Hawkins works at UPS in Albany, unloading trucks, and is a member of the Teamster’s union, while Jones is a teacher who taught for nine years in the New York City public school system.
Hawkins and Jones understand that winning is a long shot, to say the least. A recent NBC 4 New York poll showed Hawkins getting just seven percent of the vote. Still, taking a longer view, siphoning away a proportion of the main parties’ voters can be a way to get them to shift their policies in your direction. And the Greens have long argued that building an alternative to the two-party system is crucial because Republicans and Democrats represent the interests of their wealthy corporate donors. The top industries that donate to Governor Cuomo’s campaign are finance, insurance, and real estate, while the Green Party portrays itself as a party for working people, and doesn’t accept contributions from corporations. “The richest one percent own the two major parties,” Hawkins says.
One area in which the Green Party platform differs radically from that of the Democrats is the war on drugs. So Substance.com spoke with both candidates to get their take on issues like mass incarceration, the racial disparities of drug-law enforcement, the legalization of heroin and other drugs—and what could happen after that.
How has the war on drugs impacted communities—particularly communities of color—in New York State under Governor Andrew Cuomo and former mayor Michael Bloomberg?
HAWKINS: Cuomo is a drug warrior and mass incarcerator. He has been silently complicit in the drug war, first as attorney general and then as governor—as Bloomberg and [former NYPD Commissioner] Kelly stop-and-frisk and now Mayor de Blasio and [NYPD Commissioner] Bill “broken windows” Bratton target poor communities of color for petty offenses, particularly marijuana possession.
The war on drugs hasn’t reduced substance abuse, but has created a culture of violence fueled by profits from the drug trade, similar to the crime wave that accompanied the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s.
Despite decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana four decades ago, New York State leads the country in marijuana arrests. The greatest racial disparities occur in Brooklyn and Manhattan, where black New Yorkers are over nine times more likely than whites to be arrested for possessing marijuana.
JONES: It has been devastating. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the black arrest rate for marijuana has increased 26 percent since 2001. So under the watch of Cuomo and Bloomberg, the war on drugs has intensified. We are now at a point where some 50,000 people in New York State are snatched off the streets every year for this reason alone. And as we know, once these folks are saddled with a criminal record, they effectively become second-class citizens because it’s legal to discriminate against them.
The New York Times came out recently in favor of the legalization of marijuana. What’s your reaction to the new position of the “paper of record”?
HAWKINS: What took the Times so long? It is time for New York to also legalize, regulate, and tax recreational marijuana as Colorado and Washington State now do.
JONES: Better late than never. The New York Times can tell which way the wind is blowing, but has not gotten out in front on these issues.
You favor legalizing and regulating both marijuana and heroin. Do you have any concern that legal regulation could lead to an increase in the use of these drugs?
HAWKINS: Cuomo says marijuana is a gateway drug to hard drugs, but he is pandering to a public opinion cultivated by decades of drug war propaganda. Where marijuana and heroin have been decriminalized or legalized in countries like the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, and Uruguay, both marijuana and hard drug use have declined.
continued here http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/victims-war-drugs-receive-reparations-93194/
