Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs

Historically, laws and policies to criminalize drug use or possession were rooted in explicit racism, and they continue to wreak havoc on certain racialized communities. We are a group of bioethicists, drug experts, legal scholars, criminal justice researchers, sociologists, psychologists, and other allied professionals who have come together in support of a policy proposal that is evidence-based and ethically recommended. We call for the immediate decriminalization of all so-called recreational drugs and, ultimately, for their timely and appropriate legal regulation. We also call for criminal convictions for nonviolent offenses pertaining to the use or possession of small quantities of such drugs to be expunged, and for those currently serving time for these offenses to be released. In effect, we call for an end to the war on drugs.

Automated summary

A group of experts advocate for the decriminalization of all recreational drugs, with the ultimate goal of proper legal regulation, alongside the expungement of criminal records for nonviolent offenses and release of those currently serving time for drug-related crimes, in a collective effort to end the war on drugs.