Psymposia: Jag Davies of Drug Policy Alliance
Jag Davies is the Director of Communications Strategy with the Drug Policy Alliance www.drugpolicy.org
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically from YouTube's captions, then cleaned up by removing filler words, repeated words and background sounds. It may still contain errors.
[00:00] Hey everyone thank you for coming out here tonight really appreciate it so we're at a very interesting moment in our history right now our country over the past 30 years has undergone this massive experiment that's really never been attempted in human history that we regularly incarcerate we have Behind Bars tonight about one in every 100 adults in the country about one in every 32 adults in the country is under some form of Criminal Justice supervision and the US is completely unique in that we do that we have a higher incarceration rate than China or Russia or any other country in the world both in total numbers and per capita and the main engine driving this mass
[01:01] Incarceration of our own people is the War on Drugs this war on an inanimate object which is really essentially it's a war on people because you can't declare war on an inanimate object and we're at a very interesting moment I'd say in history because there's opening and an opportunity to significantly shift the way our country addresses drug use in the 80s and 90s our prison population exploded we went from having about 40 000 people in jail for non-violent Drug law violations in 1980 to having about half a million people in jail today for nothing more than a non-violent Drug law violation we arrest more than a million people every year just for drug possession and more than a million half people total for Drug law violations
[02:02] And getting arrested for a drug evaluation is a pretty serious thing you know you even if you don't go to jail you it shows up on you know your bank records your employment history every time you go to apply to school or apply for a job fight for a loan and in the 80s and 90s there was really this hysteria about drugs that really drove that and the interesting thing is that the past 10 years that has really changed in a lot of ways public opinion has undergone a massive and pretty much historically unprecedented shift over the past few years in 2006 only 36 percent of people in the country supported legalizing marijuana now that number is about 20 points higher about 55 almost no issue has changed that quickly and even more broadly a majority of the very substantial majority of the public supports actually you know not sending people to jail for Drug law violations at all a
[03:04] Recent poll came out from Pew that showed a majority of Republicans majority of people over 65 think it's a good thing that states around the country are starting to reform their drug sentencing laws so that people aren't sent to jail for as long for non-violent Drug law violations so we have this massive bipartisan support and the only thing that's really stopping us is our inertia and our own ability to propose a vision of the future that people can accept you know as we know I mean there's a problem with so many political issues right we know what we're doing is nuts whether it's the environment or the economy or drug policy we know it's completely counterproductive but actually coming up with a vision for the future that people can actually accept and agree upon is a very difficult thing and you know I'd say we're at a unique moment in history but I in some ways
[04:05] It's true in some ways it's not because every society in history has always had a certain dualism when it comes to drugs you know in any in just about any group of people in the country they sort of have their assumptions about well these are the good drugs and these are the bad drugs and people who use those drugs they're you know they'll watch out for them or people have very real stigma that they associate with certain groups of people and so even though public opinion has changed in so many ways towards you know undoing mass incarceration and legalizing marijuana I think we need to challenge ourselves to dig a little bit deeper to the root causes of how we ended up in this situation it's not just a matter of that it's racially unjust most of the people going to prison don't look like the people in this room they're young black and Latino males mostly
[05:07] And not only is it bad for the economy that's why states are really reforming the drug laws because they realize it's a huge waste of money and they just simply can't afford it but that we need to accept people's choices that they make about what they put into their own bodies and sort of explore our own fears about that like for example let me ask a question in the room according to government the government's own data about how many people would you think you try heroin and methamphetamine get addicted to it how many people think it is about 75 percent of people who try those drugs how many people okay cool how many people would say it's about 50 of people who ever try heroin and
[06:07] Meth end up having showing what the you know we would Define as a substance use disorder how many people if it's about 25 percent how many people think it's less than 25 percent oh well the number this is according to the federal government's own National survey on drug user Health that they've done every year for the past 30 or 40 years only about 10 to 15 percent of people who ever try heroin and methamphetamine become addicted to it and that's not to say that those drugs can't have very serious problems associated with them but that is to say that many of the problems associated with them are a result of their criminality and the stigma associated with them people are not comfortable getting help when they need
[07:09] Help people are forced to take drugs that they don't know the quality of they're not able to get access to clean needles to make sure that they don't spread aids to their family and their Community so you know on some levels we've come a long way and we're really at a incredible moment when it comes to reducing the role of the criminal justice system and drug policy more generally I've been working for God over a decade now on reforming drug laws I've worked for the past five years for a group called the drug policy Alliance we're the largest group in the country that's working to essentially end the war on drugs and to shift drug policy essentially from the criminal justice system to the health system and to empower public health and health professionals to make decisions about how we address drug use in our society and how we address problematic drug use
[08:09] As well and to you know as much as possible reduce the role of criminalization and so I would encourage everyone to check out drugpolicy.org that's our website and we have materials outside but I'd also encourage you to just try and learn more on your own about what is it about certain drugs maybe that that you fear what is it if what is it that that that your assumptions are about them because I think that'll help all of us the explain psychedelics to a wider audience I think that's the really hard thing for people who care about psychedelics we care about it so deeply it's a deep thing it's not something you can just explain to someone on an elevator a lot of the time but we need to find more ways to do that we need to be able to bridge the divides and to not make you know
[09:12] Not fall into the assumptions that people have and because a lot of people have those assumptions about people who use psychedelics as well that that people have about other drugs I'm sure in most rooms if you surveyed people about who the average psychedelic drug user is you know the sort of myths and misperceptions would be rampant and you know what's really amazing over the past decade is that the research with psychedelics has really shifted into the mainstream and you know groups like maps and Hector and the Beckley foundation in England and the Council on spiritual practices have had fantastic success but they're still working within a paradigm that's really based on the drug war where a lot of the people making decisions still the you know the a lot of the people that make decisions about what research is able to be done and even the way you know it happens on a certain
[10:13] Level of like self-censorship on a level the research sort of opportunity is and outcomes in Academia are still very limited by the drug prohibition Paradigm and there's of course on a practical level a lot of sort of extra Hoops you have to jump through and there's also a lot of opportunities I think in reforming psychedelic drug policies there's not really anyone talking about that I mean I think it's really interesting that maps in these groups are working within a medical model to put it through the medical process that we've established in this country say does it meet the federal standards for safety and efficacy and to prove that it works as a medicine but come on we all know like the medical system come on you know there's a limit to add to it you know and what's defined as Medical you know it's a blurry area so I think we need to
[11:14] Pursue opportunities as well outside of the medical scientific context also in the policy context regarding psychedelics the drug policy Alliance is working on a campaign really focusing on and we're working with maps a lot and their zendo project focusing on The Nightlife harm reduction community and working with event promoters to help them it put in place harm reduction policies so that people aren't arrested and people don't obtain bad drugs at their festivals and at their clubs so there's a lot there's a big vacuum right now in between the fields of psychedelics and Drug psychedelic research and drug policy and I'm really excited to see what happens over the next few years and I really appreciate all of you being here again and check out the drug policy Alliance if you're interested in learning more or talk to me thank you thank you
