Brandon Ecoffey: Let's fix broken marijuana policies in America

Incarceration and criminalization does not solve the root of the problem for those who want to rid society of these substances. While the incarceration rate has increased by more than 800% since 1973, the year America declared a war on drugs, use across the board has relatively remained stable. That is not much of a return on the $1 trillion investment the U.S. government has made fighting illegal narcotics.

Over the course of the last decade public sentiment regarding the legalization of marijuana has shifted in favor of decriminalization as minority communities, who have been hit disproportionately hard by long draconian drug sentences doled out for non-violent crimes, cry out for an end to the madness. Conservative lawmakers and prosecutors, who have now begun to realize that mass incarceration does not work, have called for a change in national drug enforcement policy and a remaking of marijuana policy in particular. Even in South Dakota, one of America’s most conservative states, policy makers have admitted that they cannot prosecute their way out of America’s demand for drugs. All the while, those suffering from everything from depression, inflammation, ADHD, AIDS and cancer are now calling for less stringent government regulation and the decriminalization of marijuana.

Research in to the medicinal benefits of marijuana is still in its infancy as large pharmaceuticals and its powerful lobbyists have blocked the expansion of medical marijuana research for decades despite evidence that marijuana and its byproducts can treat many diseases. The companies blocking marijuana research are the very same ones that have produced the synthetic painkillers that our communities are strung out on right now. As big pharmaceutical works in DC against legalization the for profit prison industry has pushed for longer sentences for non-violent offenders. Statistically these non-violent drug offenders are most likely to be from impoverished and/or minority communities and will more than likely become repeat offenders. Those of us who are from these communities recognize this as we see friends and relatives bounce in and out of the federal penal system. The numbers do not lie.