On the 50th Anniversary of the War on Drugs, Congresswoman Cori Bush Calls for Wellness and Compassion Over Trauma and Punishment
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, in a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security Hearing, Vice Chair Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01), shared how the racist War on Drugs harmed her community by criminalizing drug use and possession and forcing families into a cycle of poverty and violence. The Congresswoman reaffirmed her commitment to using evidence-based and health-centered approaches to decriminalize substance use and make investments in prevention and treatment services.
President Richard Nixon launched the “War on Drugs” on June 17, 1971. The announcement of new drug policies “marked the beginning of an era in which the use and/or trafficking of drugs became central to the federal government’s positions on social policy and crime.”
Fifty years later, the United States leads the world in incarceration. There are two million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500 percent increase over the last 40 years. In the federal system, the prison population increased from 24,640 inmates in 1980 to a peak of 219,298 inmates in 2013. Nearly half of all federal inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses.
The hearing coincides with the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s declaration of a “War on Drugs.” It also comes on the heels of Congresswoman Cori Bush and Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman’s introduction of the Drug Policy Reform Act (DPRA), a bill to end criminal penalties for drug possession at the federal level and to shift regulatory authority from the Justice Department to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Congresswoman’s questioning focused on decarceration and prevention.
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A full transcript of her questioning and exchange with the witness is available below.
Transcript: Congresswoman Cori Bush at Hearing Entitled: “Undoing the Damage of the War on Drugs: A Renewed Call for Sentencing Reform” (June 17, 2021)
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: St. Louis and I thank you, Chairwoman, for convening this important hearing.
And let me just say, being tough on crime, let me start with being tough on crime is the reason why we are here today. It is not because the social safety nets were being taken care of. It was the “tough on crime” work of people that are even in this chamber. So, fifty years. That’s how long our government has waged a war, not on drugs, but on people. Our people, they’re not just statistics. A lot of my colleagues even here today in Congress aren’t from where I’m from. They haven’t seen what I have seen. The people and communities harmed by this racist, white supremacist war on drugs, those folks are my neighbors. They are my friends. They are my classmates. They are my loved ones.
I will never forget how in a two-year window as a young person, I lost 40 to 50 friends. Imagine losing friends or community members so frequently that loss and trauma became your norm. In fact, I lost more friends to the war on drugs than not.
I had a very, very close loved one of mine who was killed — shot straight in the head because of this nightmare. For those of us that lived through this War, we lived through daily and tragic deaths. What the War on Drugs ignited was an actual warfare on our streets. Our grandparents were forced to put their homes up for bond and when the government threw us in jail and left us without any social safety nets, it was, said that this is what was needed. But no. Many grandparents were forced to become guardians because the War on Drugs devastated an entire generation of parents. Children were forced to be caretakers for their parents who fell victim to the cycle of abuse.
I watched young boys fall into the trap of selling drugs as a means of survival. Survival. Youth joining gangs as a way to secure their homes and their streets from police violence. I know because I was a part of that. It’s not something that I read or that I heard like some folks on here. I saw young women and girls unwillingly fall victim to trafficking, abuse and exploitation to survive this War on Drugs.
As a child and a young adult, I didn’t think I had a voice to do anything about what I was seeing. But now, as a congresswoman and as a nurse, I can speak for all my friends whose lives were cut too short. I can speak for those friends who are still behind bars, even to this day. And I can say — unequivocally — that the War on Drugs was a failure of policy. It was a failure many leaders in this very Chamber are responsible for.
Ms. Frederique, thank you for your thorough testimony in providing solutions. The War on Drugs has not meaningfully reduced drug use. In what ways has it worsened drug use and overdose deaths?
MS. FREDERIQUE: Thank you so much Congresswoman for your question. Unequivocally, our choices around policy, our draconian investments, our focus on incarceration and criminalization have not only not deterred people from using drugs, but they have also made drug use more risky and more dangerous. Prohibition itself has made our drug supply risky and dangerous. Our choice, that was a choice, to create prohibition and to really push and focus on criminalization has made our drug supply poisoned. And what we are seeing with the overdose rates is that people one: don’t have the education that they need in order to understand drug use and to make sure that they don’t die, which is basic, two: our drug supply is poisoned because people are adulterating it because of the incentivization of prohibition. And three, our communities don’t have the resources necessary to navigate addiction because we are bloating our criminal justice system as opposed to the public health infrastructure that people need to navigate addiction. As a social worker, it is very clear to me that we need community support and resources to navigate peoples’ choices around risky drug use. Our focus on criminalization not only makes it difficult for people to ask for help or to get them and it also makes it really difficult for us to control the kinds of substances that people are using.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thank you, Ms. Frederique.
Ms. Barkow, you have written extensively on the role the President and the role he can play in reversing the harms of the War on Drugs for those still serving time. Can you talk about these proposals?
MS. BARKOW: Yeah, whatever you all do in Congress, and I urge you to do as much as you can, the President can use the clemency power to reduce sentences. So anyone, for example, who’s serving a sentence under any of these mandatory minimums that’s too harsh, you know, the people who are on home confinement, that someone asked about earlier, keeping them out, the President can do all of that through clemency. You know, there’s no reason to send any of those folks back. A blanket clemency order would keep them home. He can use the clemency power to reduce these draconian drug sentences that people are serving and I certainly hope that he uses that power.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI: Thank you very much. And I’ll close here, for years and years our communities were duped. Our communities were told that these criminal policies were necessary to keep our streets safe. But we know that that was a lie. We know that these policies made substance abuse, substance use health issues even worse. And I implore my colleagues to join us in legislating to promote health and not perpetuate harm.
Thank you and I yield back.
To watch and download the Congresswoman’s full exchange, click here.
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Congresswoman Cori Bush represents Missouri’s First Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. She serves on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. She is also a Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a proud member of the Congressional Black Caucus. She is a registered nurse, single mother, and an ordained pastor. Following the murder of Michael Brown Jr. by a now-terminated Ferguson police officer, she became a civil rights activist and community organizer fighting for justice for Black lives on the streets of Missouri and across the country.