Robert: Just a quick note to let you know that Common Sense for Drug Policy is in today’s Wall Street Journal.
A Tale of Two Cities And Their Crack Use
Regarding your editorial “Race and the Drug Laws” (Aug. 6): What’s interesting about the drop in violence associated with crack cocaine is the irrelevance of drug enforcement. During the peak of the 1980s crack epidemic, New York City applied the zero-tolerance approach. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was actively smoking crack and the nation’s capital had the highest per capita murder rate in the country.
Despite very different leadership and law enforcement, crack use declined in both cities simultaneously. This parallel decline occurred when the younger generation saw firsthand what crack was doing to their older peers and decided for themselves that crack was bad news. Adding to what is already the highest incarceration rate in the world is not the answer to America’s drug problem. Diverting resources away from prisons into cost-effective, substance-abuse treatment would save both tax dollars and lives.
Robert Sharpe
Common Sense for Drug Policy. Washington
