The War on Drugs, a phrase coined by Richard Nixon in the early 70s, is an initiative that is still in progress. This is America’s longest war, and it needs to end. For several decades it has been widely acknowledged that this initiative has been subjectively and objectively a failure. This war on drugs has produced nothing but mass incarceration of predominantly black and brown Americans, led to increased policing in communities of color, and put on full display the race and gender disparities inherent in the enforcement of these laws. It’s time we reimagine our approach to substance use.

The time for this change is now! We must reject the notions that substance use and dependence are a result of some personal failure on the part of the individual. We must reject the notion that this issue should be addressed from a criminal justice lens. Rather, we must embrace this as a health issue and seek to address it using evidence-based approaches; such as the harm-reduction model. The billions of dollars spent annually to enforce the current drug laws, arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate individuals for non-violent drug offenses can be redirected to help support care systems that are already in place, but have historically been severely underfunded.