Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “War on Drugs”
State legislators in Rhode Island are considering whether their state should become the fifth in the nation to legalize marijuana. On May 10, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Providence, Thomas J. Tobin, issued a public commentary in opposition. Rev. Alexander E. Sharp, Executive Director of Clergy for a New Drug Policy, offers this letter in response.
Since Clergy for a New Drug Policy began, we have identified mandatory minimums as a key component of the War on Drugs requiring reform. We are pleased to announce that a bipartisan congressional committee has crafted the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which would reform unjust sentencing policies.
Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid is president of Sound Vision, an Islamic not-for-profit organization. “It will lead to the escalation of the social and armed conflict, fail to solve the drug trafficking problem, endanger the peace process, attack indigenous populations’ culture and lifestyles, seriously hamper the Amazon eco-system, worsen the humanitarian and human rights crisis, promote forced displacement, and further worsen the social and political crisis,” wrote a coalition of 73 Colombian non-governmental organizations to the United States 15 years ago. With such dire warnings and dangerous rhetoric, what “it” could they be referring to? None other than the so-called American “War on Drugs.” These far-reaching social implications mirror those of the War on Terror, another example of military rhetoric that some United States officials use to describe social policy agendas.
Rev. Saeed Richardson has pastored for over 10 years in AMEC and Non-Denominational Churches in NC & VA. He came to Chicago in 2010 and currently serves as Ministerial Associate at the Faith Community of St. Sabina. “People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one’s soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you.” While these words may come from an unexpected source, the actor Samuel L. Jackson, how true do they ring in today’s regard; how true it is that Black souls dismantled day by day, before our very eyes.
By Rev. Alexander E. Sharp The program CNDP helped to initiate recently in Rhode Island — “Ending the Drug War, Healing Our Communities: Cops, Docs, and Clergy Speaking with One Voice” — is becoming increasingly visible. On Saturday, February 13, I went to Austin, Texas to join a district judge and an addiction psychiatrist on a panel before Republican Liberty Caucus State Convention, as well as at a gathering of Texans for Accountable Government. Common themes were that the War on Drugs has failed and is more harmful to individual lives than the marijuana use it seeks to prohibit. Here are excerpts.
