A Peace Plan for the Drug War
By Mary Barr
Ten years ago I was a Drug War prisoner. I was reeling from a legacy of abuse that began in my childhood years, and I was addicted to crack, was a homeless mother, and had been incarcerated over 40 times.
But I was among the fortunate. Thanks to my enrollment in a long-term treatment center, I managed to get my life back together. Today I am an advocate for change in our criminal justice system. I speak throughout the world and I work in U.S. prisons, often with women in situations similar to mine, empowering them to succeed.
No matter which way you look at it, the current U.S. War on Drugs is not working. Instead, it is creating disturbing and expensive consequences for our society, especially for children. Globally, more kids are trying drugs, and these drugs are purer and easier to get than they were when the term "War on Drugs" was coined over 25 years ago. Government statistics show that drug imports and exports, sales, and use have risen steadily every year. Today the U.S. generates the greatest demand for drugs and has the largest number of prisoners in the world, a quarter of which are nonviolent drug offenders.
Too often people convicted of nonviolent drug related charges are denied access to the very health and educational opportunities that can help them to make positive changes in their lives. Instead, they are warehoused in prisons that typically cause more problems than they solve. Families are regularly broken apart, leaving children to pay the price for a system that prefers to spend more to make people worse off than to invest in treatment and prevention.
But there is a way out. I propose a 5-point common-sense exit strategy that will lead to true rehabilitation, honesty, and healing for our children, despite the presence of drugs in our world.
Substance abuse treatment instead of new prisons
Substance abuse treatment has been proven by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to be 15 times more effective than imprisonment. Treatment is also one-third the cost of incarceration.
Throughout the 1990s, a new prison was opened every week in the U.S. while funds for treatment and education were cut. In the U.S., we have incarcerated over 2 million people on drug charges, more than 150,000 of whom are women. Eighty-five percent of these prisoners are incarcerated for nonviolent drug charges and peripheral crimes. In addition, they are parents to over 3 million children.
In 2003, the direct costs involved with incarceration as a method of decreasing drug use reached $39 billion. Indirect costs such as lost wages and foster care take the total even higher. And the human costs are unfathomable.
A stunning 85% of these prisoners return to prison, and 50% of children who have an incarcerated parent wind up behind bars themselves. Rather than "rehabilitating" convicted drug users, we are handing them and their children a life sentence.
Sadly, substance abuse treatment is only available to approximately 10-15% of those who request it. Although it is widely acknowledged that optimum results come from one year or more of continued therapy, as I had, most insurance only covers treatment for about 30-90 days.
Change legislation that places non-violent drug offenders in jail for lengthy terms
Judges, lawyers, even prosecutors and law enforcement have called for an end to mandatory minimum drug sentences, stating that imprisonment has not been a successful method of dealing with drug problems and that prison sentences are often racially and economically biased.
Treat substance abuse as a social health issue and make education, job training, and treatment a priority
We know that education, jobs, and treatment are the three major deterrents to any type of crime. Globally, a majority of men and women imprisoned on drug charges have experienced childhood and adult trauma and have below sixth-grade reading skills and low self-esteem.
We can redirect a portion of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy's stated $60-70 billion that are spent each year on fighting the Drug War to programs that ensure that people have access to quality education, opportunities for job training, and health care for treatment. We can also use these funds to create effective ad campaigns to educate the public.
Consider gender and age in treatment and legislation
Women traditionally have fewer economic and societal opportunities than men. I was not surprised to find that, like me, around 80% of women imprisoned on nonviolent charges had been sexually abused and over 85% have been physically abused. Seventy-six percent of these imprisoned women are mothers.
Building family residential treatment centers where mothers and children can be together will increase the number of women who will seek help and decrease the number of children becoming involved in drugs and crime. Youth programs and peer counseling have proven more effective than traditional treatment for teens.
Redirect international military "Drug War" spending into alternative development and peace initiatives
Although our own policies at home are not effective, the U.S. continually pressures other countries to follow their directives.
In many countries around the world, the U.S. provides billions of dollars of aid and weapons to governments to fight drug wars by proxy, such as Colombia and Afghanistan, but discounts the civilians who are caught in the crossfire and leaves them without viable alternatives.
For example, in 2003, I visited the Putumayo region of Colombia, a nation that shoulders the brunt of some of our most costly and ineffective drug policies. In 2003 alone, the U.S. gave the Colombian government $751 million with which to fight drug production, sales, and use—the most military aid apportioned in the Western Hemisphere. Yet every year, more coca is exported from Colombia, and armed violence between government forces, rebel groups, and paramilitary escalates and spills into communities.
Plan Colombia is a large initiative funded by the U.S. One component of this plan is to fumigate coca crops and to persuade farmers in the region, who eke out their living growing coca, to grow alternative crops like corn, rice, and hearts of palm, by providing a one-time cash payment of $2,000 worth of livestock or seed.
I visited three farms that had participated in Plan Colombia. The alternative crops had been poisoned by aerial fumigation intended to kill coca plants. At one patch of hearts of palm, the Senora stopped and started to cry. She was around 60, and she had spent days in the blasting heat to plant these crops, her family's livelihood, which were totally devastated. She told me it was the third time she had planted and the third time her crops had been fumigated.
Water sources were also fumigated, and people and their livestock had no choice but to drink from them. I met a young attractive woman who allowed us to take a picture of her arms, which were scarred red from the chemicals while tears ran down her cheeks. During an interview with a nurse, she told us health problems in fumigated areas have doubled since the spraying began.
Rather then having a significant impact on drug production and use, U.S. policies and programs abroad are frequently hurting individuals, families, and communities struggling to meet their most basic needs.
A Starting Point
The measures I have described above would be a good start, but since we have spent decades on failed policy at home and abroad, it will take time.
Ironically, our current system has stripped from those who are most impacted by current government policies the ability to affect change in their lives and in our country. People convicted of drug charges in the U.S. are often denied education grants, housing, and welfare. In many cases we can't even vote.
But in the worst cases, we are depriving people of the children they love. I know too many mothers, clean and responsible for years, still fighting to get their kids back. I am so blessed to have my children in my life, but it almost didn't work out that way.
Today I have high self-esteem. I am a great human being, mother, and wife. I visit prisoners in correctional facilities, and I know that with our help they can overcome the many obstacles they face. I bring them messages of hope and inspiration, practical advice and resources. I also educate the public on their behalf, because I want you to know what I know—that they, and their families, are worth it.
Combining her personal experiences with statistical analysis, Mary Barr has been a featured speaker on Capitol Hill, on television and in the print media, and in conferences and universities internationally. Since 1998, her self-empowerment series has been featured in jails and prisons, for which she is the only private citizen to receive the STEP Medal of Honor. She was instrumental in the historic development of the first transitional program in the Former Soviet Union, where she engaged the cooperation of the Chairman of Prisons and several organizations in Odessa, Ukraine. In June 2003, Barr traveled from Bogata to parts of Colombia affected by counter-narcotics efforts interviewing politicians and farmers.
- Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world.
US Aid to Colombia in 2003
Military and chemical fumigation expenditures = 80%
Economic, social, and peace assistance programs = 20%
- Center for International Policy
