Front Lines of America’s Drug War
Directly Impacted and Down to Make a Difference
I made a decision recently. Its a decision of ultimate importance. As a member of Urban Survivors Union I am fighting the war on drugs, but I am not fighting it alone. I am fighting this war with a group of dedicated soldiers bonded by fierce loyalty and determination. The rights of drug users must be realized. People who use drugs have the right to the highest attainable standard of health, right to life, and security. The ever-increasing deaths of people who use drugs are a direct result of prohibition and must cease. These deaths are unnecessary. People who use drugs are stigmatized and criminalized and this is why the deaths continue. We must end this war on people. The millions of nonviolent prisoners who have committed no crime but to use a substance must be released. I will not turn my back on myself or my truth. I will not shut up. I will not say it nicer, I will not allow people to easily ignore the truth I see everyday. I will not be patient and understand that things take time. I am an American Drug War Soldier fighting on the front lines, and the motto of Urban Survivors Union for 2017’s Overdose Awareness Day is “No one Forgotten, No one Left Behind.”
It has been one year. One year since I woke up to pounding on my front door. I woke up confused, the dog was barking, my phone ringing, there was obviously something very wrong. My heart stopped, and error ran through my veins. I glanced at the clock it was not even 5:00am. What in the hell is going on? I was so terrified I did not even attach my prosthetic leg, I just hopped to the front door trying to balance myself as carefully as possible. I looked out of the peephole saw my mother standing there looking terrified. I opened the door looking her up and down, my loving mother standing in my doorway, broken, fear in her eyes and heart. Her mouth opened and she said the words I can never forget, I can never un-hear, I can never make different. She spoke the most painful words I have ever heard. Words of finality. Without a stutter, “Louise, Selena is dead”. I collapsed in pain and horror. “Not my daughter”. How can this happen to a girl who knew about overdose, she was trained in Naloxone and had the skills to reverse overdoses, had it been any other person who overdosed at the drug rehab where she was admitted, she could have saved their life, but that was not the fate of Selena. This was another rehab that did not have an overdose policy or naloxone on site.
You see many people stop right here. Oh my god they say. Children are dying, we must stop this. We must imprison the dealers, we must make the drug users stop using. We must lock it down, make it stop! It might seem like this is the answer, but that is, if you don’t understand the truth. The truth about drugs and drug policy. My daughter did not die because of drugs. She died, due to drug policy. Reckless drug policy and tragically inadequate help for people who use drugs.
The drug war still seems to be a great mystery to many Americans and it blows my mind. I don’t know if people are unaware, uneducated, or don’t fucking care. Plenty of people seem to be oblivious to the truth. The US has more people in prison than any country in the world, we have, as a society used the drug war to decimate the black community with no remorse. We have created a militarized police force which suffers from systemic racism and unchecked authority. I believe the police to be the most dangerous and powerful gang in America, In 2014, law enforcement officers took more property from American citizens than all home and office burglaries combined using civil forfeiture laws. In States where civil forfeiture is banned Adoptive forfeiture laws override the bans allowing the police to seize property. Asset forfeiture is legal theft. Police seize property and people must be proven innocent (unlike people, property is assumed guilty until proven innocent). Our policies around drugs have contributed to the continuing spread of disease, namely HIV and HCV . Our prison systems and courts are clogged with people who are suffering from mental illness as and non violent drug offenders and if this is not enough for you — — what must our government do to piss you off?
How many people have to die? How many peoples lives must be ruined? How many people do we throw away in prison? How many people do police have to gun down when they are running the other way? When is enough enough??
In the US there is no formal system of censorship that we can point to, in fact, we declare with great fervor that we have free press, and this is something that many Americans are quite proud of. How, my friends, have so many Americans missed the truth of the American Drug War? How are we so confused about the realities and consequences of American Drug Policy? Prohibition is the poison. Why do we continue to buy into the bullshit and most important, WHY ARE WE LETTING IT HAPPEN ALL OVER AGAIN? Jeff Sessions is singing the tune of the renewed DRUG WAR. His rhetoric reeks of the 1980’s crack fiasco and all of the devastation and untruths that accompanied. There is not time it is happening. Private Prisons, Murder charges for the people who are involved with people who overdose, mandatory minimums and more, just you wait. As people die, and as conditions become worse we will do again what failed before and more people will suffer. WE MUST LEARN FROM THE PAST.