Marianne Williamson Instagram – Richard Nixon initiated America’s War on Drugs in 1971. At the time he called it our “public enemy No. 1,” which he knew wasn’t true. We’ve spent a trillion dollars on it since that time, and clearly it hasn’t solved a problem but rather exacerbated it greatly. Gabor Mate has remarked “It isn’t a war on drugs, but a war on drug addicts.” In fact, it’s one of the main drivers of the prison-industrial complex. When I was in college there were 300,000 people incarcerated in the U.S.; today, there are over 2.3 million. And almost half of all federal prisoners are non-violent drug offenders. This too is a racial issue. Blacks and whites in America use drugs at roughly the same rate, yet you never hear about police raiding white neighborhoods looking for drugs. Since Black people get on average 20% longer sentences for the same crime when committed by whites, the Drug War has contributed greatly to systemic racial injustice within the criminal justice system. In short, we need to end America’s War on Drugs. For the $100B we spend on it each year, instead we could have a world class network of drug recovery options. As President I wouldn’t want a Drug Czar; I’d want a Recovery Czar. Ending the War on Drugs will also help undercut the power of the drug cartels by taking away their black market. And it would give us more bandwidth and resources with which to go after the drug we do need to stop: fentanyl. Read – and share – my Drug Policy on the Issues page at Marianne2024.com (Photo by Jeffrey Patrick Karnes)