OFF THE WIRE
In an interview earlier this week with National
Public Radio, US Attorney General Eric Holder publicly acknowledged the
obvious:
-There are too many citizens in prison on low level drug charges
-The mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines employed by the federal
government should be reformed
-The inherent outcome of the federal criminal justice system affirms serious
racial disparities exist
Holder: “The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old. There
have been a lot of unintended consequences. There’s been a decimation of certain
communities, in particular communities of color.”
“[W]e can certainly change our enforcement priorities, and so we have
some control in that way,” Holder said. “How we deploy our agents, what we tell
our prosecutors to charge, but I think this would be best done if the executive
branch and the legislative branch work together to look at this whole issue and
come up with changes that are acceptable to both.”
Listen to interview here.
The Drug Policy Alliance has multiple
suggestions on how President Obama and Attorney General Holder ‘can go big’
in their last three years in office to substantively reform the failed war on
some drugs.