Several states and other jurisdictions have led the way on decriminalizing psychedelics and facilitating therapeutic access. In Oregon and Colorado, psilocybin is legal to consume under the supervision of a therapist or licensed facilitator, while New Mexico is set to implement a medical psilocybin program specifically funding access for people on low incomes.

Ketamine, a synthetic psychedelic, is now widely available for prescribed use treating a conditions including severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. For several years, MDMA has been undergoing clinical trials for PTSD with promising results. And on April 18, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Medical Illness, to allocate funding and fast-track research on psilocybin, ibogaine, and MDMA for a variety of mental health conditions.

There is good reason for excitement. Many patients with seemingly insurmountable conditions see significant improvement when granted access to psychedelics. Scientific evidence on the efficacy of these medicines is still emerging, but shows great promise across a range of substances and a range of needs.

The people most affected by the relevant conditions are often the very people excluded from treatment, people who also face systemic barriers like poverty, racism and state violence.

Ronald Bowman, who participated in the 2021 Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) MDMA-assisted therapy clinical trials for PTSD, told Filter that he noticed a “favorable” difference after just the first dose, which allowed him to “talk with sturdy confidence” about traumas he was unable to effectively communicate previously.

However, he also found that, due to the complexity of his trauma, he needed more than the three sessions allotted by the study. As a retiree, he was unable to follow through with a private practitioner because of cost.

As we celebrate the potential for change carried by these medicines, it is important to simultaneously examine issues of access. The people most affected by the relevant conditions—including severe depression, PTSD and addiction—are often the very people being excluded from research and treatment, people who also face systemic barriers like poverty, racism and state violence.

People impacted by the criminal-legal system, in particular, have been widely overlooked.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimates that 44 percent of people in jail and 37 percent in prison have a mental health condition, and that 68 percent of people in jail and 57 percent of people in prison have a substance use disorder. 

Moreover, a 2019 study found that parents with mental health conditions were eight times more likely to become involved with child services. And the National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare reports that, according to data collected in 2021, 39 percent of children removed from their homes had a parent with a substance use disorder—which doesn’t include families whose children are not removed but remain under surveillance by the system.

Right now, most of these people do not have access to psychedelic therapies and are unlikely to receive it any time soon. Those that are legal tend to be financially inaccessible to the vast majority of people impacted by these systems. But income is not the only barrier to fair access to these potentially life-changing therapies.

“The courts just willy-nilly choose some medication that they think is less ‘abusable.’”

Sally Friedman, senior vice president of legal advocacy at Legal Action Center, has defended many clients involved with child services and the criminal-legal system. While she has not personally had a psychedelics case, she has seen many times how judges and case workers control or terminate people’s medication access, even when they have prescriptions and have demonstrated positive changes as a result of the therapies.

“I had a client on ADHD medications and she was forced off by a court,” Friedman told Filter. “I’ve had clients forced to switch from methadone or buprenorphine to naltrexone … the courts just willy-nilly choose some medication that they think is less ‘abusable.’”

When it comes to psychedelics or other novel treatments, she continued, “I just don’t think it would be a surprise for any medication developed for substance use disorder or [other mental health conditions], for one of these two huge systems—criminal-legal or family regulation—to discourage it because of lack of understanding, especially if it’s a controlled substance.”

The roots of exclusion go much deeper than systems involvement, noted Ifetayo Harvey, executive director of the People of Color Psychedelics Collective. “I would say for the most part, people who have been justice-impacted are a demographic of people that aren’t really considered in psychedelic research and therapy,” she told Filter.

Racism persists within psychedelic research, as well as in the legal system—something Harvey’s collective is working to dismantle. One report found that, between 1993 and 2017, psychedelic research participants were 82.3 percent non-Latino white. When the criminal-legal and family regulation systems have long disproportionately targeted people of color, multiple layers of discrimination combine.

“We have data coming out that’s really compelling, but we are really not applying the more common-sense rules of drug use, set and setting.”

Besides the issue of access, there’s the added question of efficacy given the circumstances of vulnerable populations’ lives, as Michael Galipeau, a New York State LMSW, pointed out.

“We have data coming out that’s really compelling, but we are really not applying the more common-sense rules of drug use, set and setting,” he told Filter. “Where is the context for healing when you’re going to a shelter where you don’t know if you or your stuff are going to be okay, or you’re facing going to jail, or you don’t know if you’ll survive to the next day?”

To that point, a 2023 paper suggested that the overpolicing of Black populations could eliminate benefits of psychedelics use. But that’s a reason to work to end systemic injustice, not to give up on seeking equitable access.

“I would challenge, too, that there’s highly resilient people tangled in the system and more than able to lean into ketamine therapy,” Craig Salerno, a licensed professional counselor and licensed addiction counselor, told Filter.

Salerno offers counseling for ketamine-assisted therapy patients at his Boulder, Colorado, clinic. He feels that with proper discernment on the part of the practitioner, even some high-risk patients can benefit from psychedelic therapies.

“You don’t want to lean in with someone who’s not ready,” he cautioned. “If someone is unhoused, you may not want to do deep trauma work and throw them [back] into an unstable environment. But some are close enough to touch deep psychedelics work and still find ways to manage.”

Salerno works with people experiencing severe opioid use disorder, for example. “Some people say that’s too acute, but to me, with the likelihood of death and overdose, sometimes you need to go for it.”

“What concerns me is that the success of psychedelic medicine is amazing, but it doesn’t get us off the hook for deeper social issues, and access to basic human rights.”

We are at a unique point in the US history of psychedelics. These therapies are rapidly emerging into our cultural narrative, but are not yet established enough to be cemented in any particular nationwide policy. So we have an opportunity now to examine, acknowledge and repair the wrongs of our past, and implement psychedelic therapies with conscious equity.

This repair goes beyond psychedelics. It means following New Mexico’s example to break down the income barrier to psychedelic therapies. It means including system-impacted people, especially people of color, in psychedelics research, leadership and discussions—actively implementing their ideas—and funding grassroots efforts rather than relying solely on institutions.

It means creating and upholding laws that prohibit judges and caseworkers from making medical decisions. It means increasing funding for food, housing and other basic needs. It means dismantling systems of government oppression that keep people with and mental health conditions trapped in loops of imprisonment and surveillance.

“The psychedelics community has to stop seeing itself as a separate movement from the larger movement to end the War on Drugs,” Harvey said. And the movement to end the drug war itself recognizes that it is part of a much larger struggle against societal injustice.

“As a social worker,” Galipeau concluded, “what concerns me is that the success of psychedelic medicine is amazing, but it doesn’t get us off the hook for deeper social issues, and access to basic human rights. Those are fundamental to human health.” 

Photograph (cropped) via FreeRangeStock/Public Domain

The post The Time to Build an Equitable Psychedelic Landscape Is Now appeared first on Filter.

The mobilization, which ran from May 12-14, brought together labor unions, veterans, civil liberties advocates, legal experts, industry executives and directly impacted individuals around three core demands: federally legalizing cannabis, releasing federal cannabis prisoners, and expunging records to restore civil rights. The coalition spent three days navigating the halls of both congressional chambers to pitch a comprehensive package of 13 separate hemp and cannabis reform bills.

The legislative push comes at a critical juncture. While an overwhelming majority of states have legalized medical or adult-use cannabis in some form, federal law continues to classify the plant as a Schedule I controlled substance, creating a legal and economic paradox that advocates say can no longer be ignored.

Central to the coalition’s push is the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, introduced as HR 5068. If passed, the MORE Act would completely remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, effectively ending nearly a century of federal prohibition.

The bill’s provisions extend far beyond simple descheduling. It aims to eliminate all federal criminal penalties for marijuana activity, establish clear pathways for expungement and resentencing, and create community reinvestment from federal cannabis tax revenues. The bill also contains equity measures designed to lower barriers to entry for small, independent businesses attempting to navigate the highly capitalized legal market.

“It’s on Congress to pass a comprehensive legalization bill that centers the release of cannabis prisoners.”

“Cannabis reform is the most popular issue in American politics, and now that the president has signaled he is open to reform, it’s on Congress to pass a comprehensive legalization bill that centers the release of cannabis prisoners who should no longer be incarcerated,” Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project and cofounder of the Latino Cannabis Alliance, told Filter.

Ortiz emphasized that administrative gestures must be backed by concrete statutory moves. “LPP stands ready to work with the Cannabis Caucus co-chairs and the Cannabis Unity Coalition to pass a full descheduling bill like the MORE Act,” he continued, “to finally end the nightmare that has been cannabis prohibition, and create a path for everyone incarcerated for cannabis crimes to rejoin their families and become full members of society.”

Jason Ortiz speaking

A driving theme of the Week of Unity was the disproportionate impact of federal prohibition on minority communities, specifically Latino populations. In a May 13 press conference outside the Senate wing of the Capitol, advocates drew a direct line from early 20th-century anti-immigrant rhetoric to modern-day deportation statistics.

“Buenos dias. My name is Jessica Gonzalez. I am an Ecuadorian immigrant, an attorney, and the president of the Latino Cannabis Alliance, a national coalition of Latino advocates, attorneys, organizers, researchers and storytellers fighting to move our communities from the margins of cannabis policy to the center of it,” Gonzalez told a crowd of reporters and lawmakers. “We are Harry Anslinger’s worst nightmare.”

“A system that fused cannabis prohibition and immigration enforcement into a deportation pipeline, and aimed it at our families.”

Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, weaponized anti-Latino and anti-Black prejudice in the 1930s to secure the initial federal restriction of cannabis. Gonzalez noted that the structural machinery built during that era continues to function with devastating efficiency.

“We are here because Latinos are the largest immigrant group in the country, and the cannabis industry benefits tremendously from Latino consumers and workers while staying silent on the same policies that make participation for non-citizen Latinos dangerous,” Gonzalez said. “That is a contradiction we are here to say out loud. And here is a number we do not hear often enough: 70 percent. Over 70 percent of people sentenced federally for cannabis possession are classified as Hispanic. That is not a coincidence but the result of a system that fused cannabis prohibition and immigration enforcement into a deportation pipeline, and aimed it at our families.”

For non-citizens, even legal residents, a federal conviction or disclosure of cannabis possession can trigger mandatory deportation without judicial discretion. Gonzalez stated that the Latino Cannabis Alliance refuses to let the economic boom of state-sanctioned cannabis eclipse the human cost of federal inaction.

“But we have never been a people who accept the terms we are given,” Gonzalez said. “My family refused when they left everything they knew and built a life in a foreign country. Our communities refused when prohibition tried to turn our families into criminals and our neighborhoods into evidence. And today the Latino Cannabis Alliance refuses to let one more family be deported, one more worker be silenced, or one more community be erased from a movement we have always belonged to.”  

She continued that, “decriminalization is the floor, not the ceiling. We will not forget the deported. We will not forget the detained. Our work spans borders, but it begins where this system was built. Prohibition began with a lie about our people. It will end with the truth from us.”

“In cannabis, Latinos still face limited access to capital, restrictive policies and exclusion from ownership.”

Business leaders also described the injustice and inequity of the current landscape.

“Cannabis Unity Week is not a celebration of victory—it is a call to action,” said Susie Plascencia, founder of Latinas in Cannabis and a representative for the National Hispanic Cannabis Council. “Thousands of people are still incarcerated for cannabis offenses, families are still living with the consequences of prohibition, and Latino communities remain disproportionately harmed and underrepresented in this industry.”

Today, Plascencia pointed out multi-state marijuana operators are generating billions of dollars on public stock exchanges, yet independent, minority-owned startups face severe capital constraints due to federal banking restrictions.

“Latino entrepreneurs are among the fastest-growing in the country, building businesses despite systemic barriers,” she said, “but in cannabis, many still face limited access to capital, restrictive policies and exclusion from ownership. We are building in spite of it all, but we should not have to build alone. We are here to demand federal action … Because equity is not just about repairing harm—it’s about investing in the future.”

The broader drug policy reform movement also lent its institutional weight to the coalition.

“As MAPS celebrates its 40th anniversary, we’re proud to join the Cannabis Unity Coalition in advancing the movement for compassionate, evidence-based drug policy,” said gina vensel, community partnerships manager for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

“This milestone is an opportunity to reflect on the progress made in challenging the War on Drugs while recognizing the crucial work that still lies ahead, especially around restorative justice,” vensel told Filter. “Together, we strive to dismantle stigma, educate our communities, and advocate for meaningful reform. The Cannabis Unity Coalition represents the power of collective action to drive lasting, positive change.”

Beyond the comprehensive framework of the MORE Act, advocates spent time on the Hill educating lawmakers on a variety of narrower measures designed to solve immediate, practical problems.

Among these is the STATES 2.0 Act (HR 2934), a bipartisan bill that would amend federal law to respect state-legal cannabis programs, shielding state-regulated businesses from federal interference and asset forfeiture. Advocates also pushed for the PREPARE Act (HR 2935 / S 3576), which would establish a federal commission tasked with designing a comprehensive regulatory framework for the eventual post-prohibition transition.

“I think there are a lot of people who smoke cannabis in Congress,” Rep. Omar said.

To counter decades of politically motivated restrictions on scientific inquiry, the coalition also advocated for the Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act (HR 3082), to remove barriers that prevent the Office of National Drug Control Policy from conducting objective research on the societal impacts of cannabis legalization.

The coalition additionally brought a heavy focus to “clean slate” initiatives, housing stability and agricultural guidelines. Key legislation on this front includes the Clean Slate Act, a bipartisan measure mandating the automatic sealing of certain federal records for nonviolent cannabis convictions, to help impacted people access employment and educational opportunities. Advocates are championing the Veterans Cannabis Use for Safe Healing Act and the Veterans Equal Access Act, too—complementary bills to prevent removal of Department of Veterans Affairs benefits if veterans participate in state-legal medical cannabis programs, and to allow VA physicians to recommend medical cannabis in states where it is legal.

Another item on the coalition’s agenda is the Marijuana in Federally Assisted Housing Parity Act, to protect people in federally assisted housing from eviction or denial of residency based solely on state-compliant cannabis use. Finally, organizers are seeking hemp regulatory clarifications through a suite of agricultural bills.

While the coalition faced an uphill battle given entrenched congressional leadership, several lawmakers emerged from their offices to signal solidarity. Following the press conference, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), spoke candidly with TMZ about shifting currents inside the Capitol.

Omar noted that the immense financial drain of maintaining prohibition has fundamentally changed the conversation, making fiscal conservatives increasingly open to reform.

“I will say, advocacy for legalizing doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a user, so everybody can be an advocate … because we understand that it is not OK for us to spend the billions of dollars we do now on incarcerating people for smoking a joint,” Omar said.

Omar also suggested that policy positions on the Hill lag behind private reality. “I think there are a lot of people who smoke cannabis in Congress,” she said.

As the three-day mobilization concluded, organizers expressed optimism, saying that the sheer breadth of the 41-group alliance forces lawmakers to view cannabis not as a boutique drug policy issue, but as a critical intersection of labor rights, immigration justice, veteran health care and economic equity, among other issues.

Whether their unity can spur legislative movement in a highly polarized Congress remains to be seen, but advocates left Washington with a clear message: The floor of decriminalization has been established; the fight for the ceiling of full justice is underway.

Photographs by Jack Gorsline

The post “End the Nightmare”—Coalition Hits DC for Cannabis Justice appeared first on Filter.

During a February 26 appearance on Fox Business, Representative Pat Fallon (R-TX) was asked about recently filed Republican legislation that would impose restrictions on access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—specifically mandating that non-disabled people under 65 work at least 20 hours per week in order to receive the assistance.

Fallon decided to justify the legislation by playing into cannabis stereotypes.

That’s already part of federal law, but lead bill sponsor Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) claims his America Works Act would close “loopholes” that have been exploited in certain states.

Fallon, for his part, decided to justify the legislation by playing into cannabis stereotypes and arguing that federal dollars are going toward medical cannabis purchases by benefit recipients.

“You know what? We have a message for those kind of folks,” he said. “If you’re able-bodied and you want to milk the taxpayer, those days are over. Get off the couch, stop eating the Cheetos, stop buying the medical marijuana and watching television.”

“You’re going to actually contribute now, because the American taxpayer is fed up,” he said, adding that “we can’t fund the federal government anymore with these kind of deficits when we’re spending more on our interest payments almost a trillion dollars than we are on our military. That should be a wake up call that, if we don’t change course, we’re going to lose this great Republic of ours.”

The cannabis narrative is nothing new among certain GOP congressional lawmakers.

There’s no specific mention of cannabis in the bill itself—nor is there evidence of rampant abuse of the SNAP program to buy marijuana, which is already prohibited under federal law.

But the cannabis narrative is nothing new among certain GOP congressional lawmakers.

In 2021, for example, Republican members introduced a bill aimed at preventing people from using federal financial assistance at marijuana dispensaries, titling it the “Welfare for Needs not Weed Act.”

Senator Steve Daines (R-MT), the lead Republican sponsor of a marijuana banking reform bill, also included language in a separate benefits-related bill in 2021 that would make it so people could not use Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds at “any establishment that offers marihuana…for sale.”

In 2018, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a prior version of the legislation as part of a broader jobs bill, but it was not enacted into law.

Photograph by Dank Depot via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

This story was originally published by Marijuana Moment, which tracks the politics and policy of cannabis and drugs. Follow Marijuana Moment on X and Facebook, and sign up for its newsletter.

The post GOP Lawmaker to Benefit Recipients: Quit Medical Marijuana and Cheetos appeared first on Filter.

Measure R asks: “[Should we require] single adults age 65 and under, with no dependent children, who receive County funded public assistance benefits and whom the County reasonably suspects are dependent on illegal drugs, to participate in screening, evaluation, and treatment for drug dependency in order for those adults to be eligible for those benefits be adopted?”

It describes its goals as trying to help people dependent on drugs get into treatment: “Although reasonable participation in treatment programs will be required, sobriety of participants will not be … Perfection isn’t the goal; improved health and life outcomes is.”

Currently, the county pays a maximum of $75 a month to individuals on an EBT card, and a maximum of $367 in rental assistance, with $340 paid directly to a landlord. Under the measure, the county’s Human Services Agency would determine if there is “reasonable suspicion to believe that an individual is dependent upon illegal drugs.”

San Joaquin County’s proposal reflects a broader trend in California.

That person would have to submit to a “professional evaluation.” Anyone found to have a substance use disorder would then be compelled to enter a “treatment program determined to meet his or her rehabilitation needs.” The treatment would have to be made available at no cost to the individual, but refusal would mean loss of benefits.

There are some exceptions. The measure would not apply to recipients aged over 65, or to those with dependent families. And the county could choose to temporarily extend rental assistance if a person is at risk of eviction.

San Joaquin County’s proposal reflects a broader trend in California. Earlier in 2024, San Francisco voters approved Measure F, a similar law which also threatens to take away public benefits if people don’t submit to drug testing. That will take effect in January 2025.

San Joaquin County District 3 Supervisor Tom Patti wrote and sponsored Measure R. In comments reported by the local Stockton Record, Patti said he took San Francisco’s Measure F as a model.

“I think the biggest key is that we want to have regional continuity,” he said, adding that he had spoken to officials in other nearby counties. “And if there’s, again, that continuity, then I think we can really lead the way for the state to demonstrate how we can engage [in addressing drug-related issues].”

This also comes in the same year that California voters approved Proposition 1 to overhaul the state’s Mental Health Services Act. Prop 1 effectively cut public spending on community-based treatment and outreach to people with mental health and substance use issues, shifting county dollars to building new inpatient treatment beds. The measure was sold by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and others as a necessary path to expanding treatment and housing units, but many harm reduction and homelessness advocates opposed it.

Forced or coerced treatment, which a number of these measures entail, is condemned by many experts as unethical, unhelpful and often harmful.

In this same election cycle, California voters are also deciding on Prop 36, which would essentially increase criminal penalties for certain drug charges, and create a new “treatment mandated felony” category—threatening people with prison or jail unless they agree to go to substance use treatment. This would reform Proposition 47, approved by the state’s voters in 2014, which reduced some drug and shoplifting charges to misdemeanors. Independent reviews have found no evidence that this led to any increase in crime, but that hasn’t stopped a backlash.

“Treatment should be voluntary and readily available and humane—not coercive.”

“California is in the middle of an identity crisis,” Denise Elerick, founder of the Harm Reduction Coalition of Santa Cruz County, told Filter of the recent developments. “We have been a leader in justice reform, but nobody’s had the courage to push back on these police unions and the far right wing who’s behind a lot of this, and to hold our so-called progressives accountable for buying into it.”

Elerick has experienced a related battle firsthand, having spent years fighting against efforts to shut down her organization’s syringe service program in Santa Cruz.

“The pressure is to get ‘tough on crime’ again all over,” she said. “It’s been 10 years since Prop 47 and the sky didn’t fall, crime didn’t shoot through the roof, we lived through a pandemic, the counties are saving millions of dollars directing people to programs for treatment and diversion.”

San Joaquin’s Measure R, if approved, might end up costing the county more money than it costs to distribute benefits, because of the need to hire additional staff to conduct assessments and screenings. “This is about more than just dollars. This is about making a statement,” County Supervisor Steve Ding told a Board of Supervisors meeting in August.

Elerick added that it’s all premised on there being adequate treatment available—which is frequently not the case.

“Let’s talk about what treatment is,” she said. “It’s a risky time for people that are forced into treatment. It should be voluntary and readily available and humane—not religious or faith-based, or coercive. There’s a myth that treatment will cure everything, and it’s nuanced for people … It’s not a ‘one and done’.”

Another major issue, she continued, is that for unhoused people who enter treatment, there is no safety net once they complete it, and many will end up back on the streets without a prospect of housing.

“How are they supposed to maintain any level of abstinence, when they’re going to go back to living outside with the same conditions?” Elerick asked. For people who use opioids, lowered tolerance after a period of abstinence increases vulnerability to overdose.

“Drug testing of welfare recipients is not ethically acceptable policy,” the researchers wrote.

Drug testing people on benefits has a long history in the United States. In 1996, President Bill Clinton’s “welfare reform” allowed states to require drug tests for public benefits.

In 2018, a ThinkProgress analysis found that states in 2017 spent nearly half a million dollars to drug-test over 2,500 people who had applied Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits. At least 13 states actively drug-tested people on the TANF program, it estimated. All of this had resulted in just 301 positive tests.

The state of Florida has run into legal trouble over its drug-testing requirement for all people on TANF benefits; an appeals court in 2014 ruled that its blanket requirement was unconstitutional. Since then, jurisdictions have responded by requiring public agencies to show “reasonable suspicion” of drug use before ordering a test, just as San Joaquin County’s Measure R would do.

Researchers have also sought to evaluate these policies. In a 2018 paper, authors Mary Jean Walker and James Franklin looked at whether they are successful in getting people into treatment, whether or not they result in significant harms to people, and whether they save costs compared to alternatives. In all three areas, drug testing for benefits failed.

“Pursuing recreational drug users is not important in the light of costs incurred, while dependent users who may require referral are usually identifiable without testing and typically need a broader approach than one focusing on drugs,” they wrote. “Drug testing of welfare recipients is therefore not ethically acceptable policy.”

Photograph by Micah Baldwin via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post San Joaquin County, CA, to Vote on Drug-Testing Public Benefit Recipients appeared first on Filter.

The name of Claudia De la Cruz is rare among them. She’s the candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Born and raised in New York, De la Cruz earned master’s degrees in social work and divinity at Columbia University, co-founded the People’s Forum community center and has served as a pastor. She’s been involved in many protests, including recently against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The PSL formed in 2004, after splintering from the Workers World Party in San Francisco, and now claims a presence in over 100 cities. The party’s website states that “the only solution to the deepening crisis of capitalism is the socialist transformation of society.”

De la Cruz’s candidacy is controversial even on the political left, given fears that the likes of her, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent Cornell West could siphon away enough blue votes in swing states to put Donald Trump back in the White House. 

De La Cruz has either direct or write-in access to the ballot in 30 states, including key battlegrounds in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Her name is unlikely to directly appear on the ballot in Pennsylvania, where Democrats succeeded in getting it removed on a technicality in August. But later that month, Georgia officials ruled that De La Cruz, West and Stein could appear on the ballot there. State Democrats announced they would appeal.

I spoke with De la Cruz before she addressed a passionate audience at a Milwaukee church. I wanted to ask about her perspectives on the drug war, harm reduction and related areas. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Alexander Lekhtman: The unprecedented overdose crisis has continued under the Biden and Trump administrations, and long before. How would you address it?

Claudia De la Cruz: It’s a deeper question: What moves people towards use of drugs? What is it that causes people to find some escape from reality, and what reality are they escaping from? To solve the problem, we have to look at the cause. A lot of it is rooted in economics, people’s inability to live and thrive in a system that  thrives on death and destruction.

Addiction is criminalized as much as the selling, and it’s not looked at as a health problem. As a country we have the highest use of substances, so it’s way beyond policy, it’s about the reorganization of society in a way that allows people to make meaning of their lives, and can provide people what they need to live and thrive.

“The so-called War on Drugs was not a war on drugs, it was a war on the anti-war movement, and on Black people, that continues today.”

Another aspect is we often think about “street drugs.” But what about Big Pharma, and people who get hooked on drugs for the profit of a whole institution and system that benefits off of peoples’ addictions? So it goes beyond drug policy and into the profit motive. How is that connected to economics in our communities? A lot of people who are using high levels of drugs are living in a context that is highly violent and poor, without access to many basic things they need.

The so-called War on Drugs was not a war on drugs, it was a war on the anti-war movement, and on Black people, that continues today. It has given space for other laws, like the 1994 crime bill. Beyond policies, we need to think about uprooting the systems and structures that create the conditions for people to become addicted, and also how do we decriminalize and regulate the use of substances in this country?

Kamala Harris might present herself as a figure who represents change and an opportunity to “turn the page” from the Trump-Biden matchup that so many people were disgusted by, but her policies do not differ in any fundamental way from Joe Biden’s. On some issues, like taxes on the rich, she has even moved to the right of Biden.

Neither candidate is willing to call for the type of dramatic change necessary to meet the scale of the crises people are facing, and that includes mass incarceration. People who want to see an end to racist drug and criminal justice policies still need to look for an alternative outside of the two party system.

AL: Besides how you frame it in economic and societal terms, there are acute practical needs for vulnerable people who use drugs. What do you think about harm reduction measures including syringe service programs and overdose prevention centers? We see widespread attacks on such programs, in red and blue jurisdictions. These and many adjacent services—a drop-in center for unhoused people in New York City, for instance—are being underfunded and defunded. Why is this happening?

CDLC: The same problem is happening in Philadelphia. There has been a displacement of an entire population in the city, for interests that have to do with gentrification. The way they sell it is, “We want to clean up our streets and make sure our kids are safe.” Without considering there is a reason why this is a problem and what creates that problem. They’re uninterested in that.

Mayor Adams is the worst thing that’s happened to New York, almost like if Bloomberg and Guiliani had a baby. He is not only attacking the homeless community and population with drug addiction problems, he’s also attacking regular working class New Yorkers. It’s a hyper-surveilled and policed city. “Cop City” is being built in Queens.

We can’t see all this in isolation. We have to understand why we’re seeing cutting of programs for people on the margins that have been historically attacked.

“Harm reduction is important, but not enough—we have to reorganize society.”

In the 1990s, I was part of St. Ann’s church in the Bronx that does harm reduction, and it changed my understanding on drug addiction. People like Reverend Luis Barrios hid syringes and did all sorts of things out of the need to keep users safe, because they’re not going to stop using drugs as long as the conditions don’t change.

There needs to be a level of support. Harm reduction programs serve as a cushion, as we transition to something that works for the people. They are necessary. To cut the funding and displace them only creates a bigger problem. Where do these folks go? It’s important to understand these are attacks on poor people, primarily Black and Brown communities, so there is a racist aspect to it.

Harm reduction is important, but not enough—we have to reorganize society. Rather than cutting harm reduction, we should be investing in it and figuring out ways to create the society that allows people who are suffering a health issue to move forward.

AL: Another aspect of the drug war is its relationship to policing and the militarization of the police. Despite the uprisings following the murder of George Floyd, very little seems to have changed. What’s your stance on policing and law enforcement?

CDLC: The criminal justice system serves profit, and the agenda of the ruling class. Police exist to protect private property, not people. If we follow the roots of policing, it comes from slave catchers. They were there to bring back people who had fought for their freedom. It is not true that the more police, the safer we are.

Very few laws in the criminal justice system are there to protect people. You have to jump hoops to be able to get our people justice in this country. It serves another institution that reigns king: the mass incarceration complex. It is there to provide cheap labor. A lot of these prisons are private prisons that make money from having bodies in these jails. It’s also a form of population control.

Our communities have unfortunately been taught that policing is the only way we can be safe. Our understanding of community safety needs to shift: It means creating the conditions for people to live dignified lives.

If you think about gated communities, how many policemen are in those communities? Not many. Because they don’t see the types of crimes, poverty crimes, that we experience in the ‘hood. A lot of these are crimes of survival; obviously there are other types. So there is a need to dismantle the mass incarceration project, which is a project of the ruling class.

How do we create a criminal justice system that doesn’t tell folks that have been rounded up and taken in: You have to plead guilty in order to get X, Y and Z? It’s all a lie; usually people plead guilty and are put through the system, and their rights are abused and taken away. The amount of people who can’t vote, these are mechanisms of control. If we want to abolish systemic oppression, we have to abolish the system that produces the oppression.

There are a lot of creative campaigns: “Defund the Police,” it’s a good campaign, but how much did it really advance? In 2023 we saw crazy increases in police department budgets around the country.

“The state is preparing to heavily militarize, and criminalize these movements. What are we going to do about that?”

AL: How do you think Defund the Police might have gained more traction?

CDLC: It’s important to understand the root of the problem. Defund the Police campaigns did a lot of work in terms of narrative change, and having people understand the crude reality that there’s more investment in policing than in solving real material issues. But we need to call things what they are: There’s no defunding the police that is enough that actually goes across the US.

Ultimately dealing with the symptom of the problem is not enough. Right now we’re looking at the development of Cop Cities all across the US. We have to know and study the economic base for that.

We are entering very uncertain political and economic times. We’ve been in crisis since 2008 in this country; it got even worse post-pandemic. People are resisting not only police brutality, but also on the question of Palestine, on immigrant rights and women’s rights. People will continue to be out, and that will grow in this country because of the conditions. The state is preparing to heavily militarize, and criminalize these movements. What are we going to do about that? Small campaigns are not going to be the solution. We have to build an independent movement of working class people that are politically aligned, and very clear on the strategy of the ruling class.

AL: Shifting to foreign policy, situations in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, even China, have a heavy bearing on the US and international drug war. We see Republicans threatening war in Mexico to combat trafficking organizations. How do you think about these issues?

CDLC: The same methods used here in the US domestically by the capitalist state are then amplified internationally. When we talk about US imperialism we have to recognize it is the expression of US capitalism at home. If the US uses the criminal justice system to persecute, lock up, dehumanize and criminalize communities that are historically marginalized, then they have that same approach to the Global South. It’s a way of maintaining them in their place.

The War on Drugs did that in the 1980s, with the idea that we need to justify occupation and financing paramilitaries across Latin America and the Caribbean. War, invasion, occupation, political and economic domination, came from the War on Drugs.

You mentioned Colombia. Colombia was for a long time the beauty and best friend of the US, because it served to surveil what was happening in the continent, like when Venezuela had its revolution.

When we can put these situtations in a larger context and understand the hold the US gained through the War on Drugs, we understand this was not about people’s health, or stopping drugs from coming to the US. It is about controlling.

We need to implement a foreign policy with another approach to building relationships with other nations. An approach not built on dominance, policing and extraction, but collaboration and solidarity, and allowing other nations to develop in sovereignty. There’s no reason the US should have a Southern Command. Our foreign policy cannot be based on policing, bullying and submitting other countries to our will. The Democrats and Republicans are not going to change that. 

AL: The drug war also contributes to destabilization and violence in Latin America, fueling migration to the US as people flee. You’re a child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic. How would you address migration and border issues?

CDLC: Our politicians want to blame immigrants. Was it Trump that said, “They want to take Black jobs”?

Historically, both the Democrats and Republicans have had very similar anti-immigrant positions. They want the labor of immigrants because it produces capital for them, they just don’t want to deal with the immigrants. We have a lot of consciousness-raising to do to understand immigrants are not our enemy. They come here because life has been made hell in their countries. A lot of folks are migrating from Cuba because of the 60-year blockade that doesn’t allow Cuba to live. There’s the sanctions on Venezuela, a genocide happening in Palestine, and a US-backed invasion in Haiti.

We’re going to see a lot of people migrating to the US, and they’re following the traces of things that have been stolen from them.

AL: Gun policies are also adjacent to the drug war. How would you approach issues including domestic gun violence and international trafficking of US-made weapons?

It is an outrage that US-based gun manufacturers contribute so greatly to violence all around the world. Not only do they profit off of death in this country, but they export their deadly products globally. It is also important to remember, for instance, that the ATF for years helped gangs in Mexico acquire guns on the pretext that this was part of a larger investigation related to the “war on drugs.”

We believe the issue of violence in America should be tackled holistically, and gun control needs to be designed in a way that does not contribute to the further criminalization of oppressed communities. One key step that should immediately be taken is to lift the special immunity from lawsuits that Congress gave to the arms industry in 2005. 

“If people in these different spaces were to  organize together and understand the root of the problem, things would be very different.”

AL: Those of us in the drug policy space tend to be laser-focused on specific causes. We often have to remind ourselves how closely other issues, such as immigration or climate justice, intersect with those concerns.

CDLC: The segmenting and fragmenting of how we think of things is intentional: “Black people have a problem, let’s create this organization for you. Immigrants want some rights, let’s create this organization for them.”

What I’ve learned over 30 years of organizing is that every issue we deal with in this country has to do with capitalism. It has to do with the economics of who profits. While they have fragmentation of society, we don’t win. If people in these different organizations and spaces were to speak to each other, organize together and understand the root of the problem, things would be very different.

The ruling class would be scared out of their boots. The question of Palestine is scaring them that much. You have people from all backgrounds, all generations taking the streets, disrupting everyone anywhere they go, and taking action. That threatens them.

I think about Fred Hampton Sr. and the original Rainbow Coalition. There were a lot of people sitting at that table that had cultural, ethnic and racial differences. But they understood they had the same enemy. When we understand we have the same enemy, our strategy is unified.

Photograph courtesy of the PSL

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Milei has received most attention for his radical economic agenda, as the country faces rocketing inflation and increasing poverty. His controversial pledges include “dollarizing” the economy, shutting down the central bank and large-scale cuts to public spending that he signified by bringing a chainsaw to rallies. He wants to abolish, for example, the country’s ministries of environment, science, culture, and women and diversity; and to combine the ministries of social development, public health and education under one “Ministry of Human Capital.” He also opposes abortion rights and wants to hold a referendum on ending access.

But Milei will face major challenges implementing his agenda, when his Liberty Advances party holds only a small minority of seats in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies. And this reality—together with his limited and vague statements on drugs—makes his likely impact on Argentine drug policy harder to assess.

His refusal to “pay the bill” will have a bigger impact on people who use drugs than whether or not he supports legalization.

In contrast to other rightwing leaders he’s been compared to, like former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Milei has spoken in favor of drug legalization in a “free society.” Yet he summarizes his attitude by describing drug use as a form of gradual suicide. He has stated: “If you want to commit suicide, I have no problem with that, but don’t ask me to pay the bill. If you’re not going to take responsibility for your decisions, it seems unfair to me.”

This refusal to “pay the bill” will have a bigger impact on people who use drugs than whether or not Milei supports legalization or decriminalization. But Milei is willing to pay the bill to continue the country’s war on trafficking organizations.

“If you look at his few comments about drug use, he seems profoundly uninformed and open to saying stupid shit, like he does in so many other areas,” Ethan Nadelmann, founder and former executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told Filter. “I think there is a possibility this is a guy who could openly say, let’s legalize cannabis or provoke a bigger discussion … [But] keep in mind he is utterly hostile to any progressive social welfare legislation that would help people struggling with drug addiction. His thing is, ‘Get the government out of the way, let people do what they want to do, but if they stumble, fuck ’em.'”

Overall, there is relatively low prevalence of injecting drug use in Argentina, said Virginia Labiano, a political scientist at the National University of San Martín and postdoctoral scholarship recipient from the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research. “In the 1990s, injection cocaine use was common,” she told Filter, “but heroin, and opioids in general, passed us by.”

A much wider issue, she said, “is consumption of [coca] base paste, or paco, but in reality it has very little cocaine. It’s linked to use among vulnerable populations … In general there is very little awareness or advocacy of harm reduction.”

Harm Reduction International (HRI) meanwhile estimated that 11,500 people in Argentina inject drugs. Among them, nearly half were living with HIV and more than half with hepatitis C.

HRI also reported that Argentina has no sanctioned syringe programs that would reduce transmissions of blood-borne diseases; no peer distribution of naloxone; no access to safer smoking supplies; and no safe consumption sites. The country does have opioid agonist treatment, though more people enter treatment for cocaine use. HRI noted that some harm reduction measures, like drug checking at parties, may be available through community groups. In the realm of tobacco harm reduction, meanwhile, sales of nicotine vapes are banned.

Still, current federal law, according to the Argentine Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, guarantees an “integrated approach” to dealing with “problematic consumption.” This includes community prevention centers where people who use drugs can find out about what resources and services are available to them. All health providers must provide drug treatment services at no cost as part of universal health coverage. Services must respect “individual autonomy” and “apply the harm reduction model,” to improve quality of life and prevent harms like overdose. Under this model, people are also given help in completing school, or getting a job.

According to Labiano, though, these protections exist more on paper than in reality (what’s more, the executive branch is responsible for implementing them).

“He wants to privatize public health—this will limit access for many people, drug users or no, but who lack access to health and social resources.”

Yet a president on a mission to gut public funding is an obvious threat to those services that do exist. Argentina’s government-funded health care is a clear target: Milei has proposed rolling back subsidies for hospitals and privatizing them.

“He wants to privatize public health—this will limit access for many people, drug users or no, but who lack access to health and social resources,” Pablo Cymerman told Filter. The founder and director of Argentine drug policy research and advocacy group Intercambios Asociación Civil, he’s also a professor of psychology and social sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. “We are very concerned about this, and this obviously could mean an end to free services for people with problematic substance use.”

Argentina’s drug policy is overdue for an overhaul, after a landmark legal decision. In August 2009, the Supreme Court of Justice ruled that the federal prohibition on drug possession for personal use was unconstitutional. But this court ruling alone guarantees nothing; police are left with the discretion to continue making arrests, and judges to decide if the charges are warranted. Congress has failed to pass any new law complying with the court’s decision, leaving a legal gray area.

Cymerman has no confidence Milei will support a decriminalization bill, if it even comes up again. “It’s not an issue on the agenda right now,” he said, “and Milei has risen to power allied with the most conservative political groups in the country, that are very reluctant to support these ideas—and in fact speak against decriminalization, let alone legalization or regulation [of drugs].”

Argentina’s drug war began in the 1970s, with federal legislation that codified drug offenses. The current statute was approved in 1989. It sets penalties of between 4-15 years in prison for trafficking charges, and one month to two years for simple possession. A prison sentence for lower-level charges may be waived if the person undergoes treatment or education courses.

According to the Transnational Institute, Argentina today is primarily a “transit” country for cocaine. Cities like Rosario have seen escalating violence reportedly linked to conflict between drug trafficking groups.

Concerns about crime and drugs played a role in the recent election. Milei’s Liberty Advances party platform features measures like reducing the age of criminal immunity, deregulating firearms and privatizing some prisons. Unlike the cuts it urges elsewhere, it promises to expand the role of the federal police by increasing training, equipment and technology. According to Chequeado, Milei has vowed to prioritize fighting drug trafficking.

“If Milei does what he says he wants to, it will be disastrous for many Argentinians.”

Milei and Vice President-elect Victoria Villarruel are reportedly promising to empower a National Internal Security Council to coordinate federal and local anti-trafficking efforts in cities like Rosario, with a focus on underage drug use.

“There is talk of legalizing drug consumption, but this does not discourage associated crimes,” Villaruel told La Nacion. “In Uruguay, marijuana was legalized but crime continued, as people obtain drugs with a greater hallucinogenic effect than those sold legally.” Villarruel has proposed that the Argentine military deploy on the streets of the nation’s cities, working with police—an idea that even some military sources have reportedly rejected.

“It would be a mistake to involve military forces in internal security problems,” Cymerman said. “Their job is for conflicts outside the country, not to meddle in domestic issues. To militarize the response [to civil problems] has been harmful to the people and countries wherever it has been tried.”

This of course, includes Argentina, which experienced a brutal military dictatorship from 1976-83, supported by the United States.

Altogether, Milei’s election victory looks ominous for people who use drugs and many others, even if his more radical proposals are tempered by the legislature and courts.

“We don’t know what will happen,” Cymerman said. “I don’t want to be too pessimistic. If Milei does what he says he wants to, it will be disastrous for many Argentinians. I hope his ‘libertarian’ ideas would be applied to the market for drugs, because that would be true liberty. We have very difficult years ahead of us in economic and social terms.”

Photograph of Milei in 2022 by Ilan Berkenwald via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The Influence Foundation, which operates Filter, previously received a restricted grant from the Drug Policy Alliance to support a Drug War Journalism Diversity Fellowship.

The post What Will Javier Milei Mean for People Who Use Drugs in Argentina? appeared first on Filter.

“It basically said take four ‘misos’ every three hours, and that’s it,” Martínez told Filter. 

Things didn’t turn out as she expected. Martínez started bleeding, and later she had diarrhea and felt ill. She didn’t know whether or not this was normal, or whether or not the pills were working. She was panicked, fearing that if she sought medical care, the providers would know what she had taken and report her to law enforcement. Abortion was still criminalized in the Mexican state of Baja California. 

Had Martínez been supported through her abortion by someone who’d gone through it themselves or was knowledgeable about the process, she would have known that the symptoms could be eased with medication, and that they indicated the misoprostol was working—which it did. She also would have known that no doctor or nurse would have been able to tell she’d induced an abortion. 

“I didn’t want anyone else to go through what I went through due to a lack of trusted information,” she said.

Six months later, Martínez cofounded Las Borders, a feminist collective in Mexicali that provides guidance and abortifacients (mifepristone and misopristol) to help people terminate their pregancies safely. Las Borders is part of a growing movement in Mexico led by acompañantas, women who accompany at-home abortions, offering support and often, the medications themselves.

There are dozens of similar collectives across the country. Las Borders attends to requests from an average of around 100 people seeking assistance every month. They haven’t yet felt an increase in demand from across the border as United States legislators steadily roll back reproductive rights, but others have.

Some were already bringing abortifacients into Texas. But over the past year, this work has markedly increased. 

Collectives in northern Mexico often connect with the reproductive rights activists in the US towns and cities across the border from them. Some were already bringing abortifacients into Texas. But over the past year, this work has markedly increased. 

In January, border collectives from Tijuana to Matamoros held an in-person summit, which for the first time was joined over Zoom by activists from Texas. 

“The most important thing isn’t legality, it’s organization,” said Anna Díaz, a Las Borders member who was in attendance. “For the compas on the other side to know that we’re together, that they are not alone, and that we’re here to accompany them as well.”

In September 2021, Mexico’s Supreme Court determined that two state-level restrictions on abortion were unconstitutional: Coahuila’s law criminalizing abortion, and Sinaloa’s state constitution holding that life begins at conception. Abortion up to at least 12 weeks of pregnancy is currently decriminalized in eight states and the capital, Mexico City. The other 23 states have yet to decriminalize abortion, despite the Supreme Court effectively compelling them to do so.

Coahuila is home to the collective Acompañantes Laguna. Members accompany around 50 people each month, focusing mostly on those who live in or near the city of Torreón, or are migrating through. But because Coahuila borders Texas, the collective also networks informally with US groups to share advice.

“When they learned that we gave out medicine, that we do this in a network, that we promote self-managed abortions, they were like, What?!” cofounder Laura Hernández Esquivel told Filter. With the exception of one Mexican-American woman they met, Acompañantes Laguna hasn’t come across anyone else on the US side providing abortifacients in a similar way.

Misoprostol can be purchased over the counter from most well-stocked pharmacies across Mexico, for an average cost of around $25 USD. But even without the requirement of a prescription, it’s not uncommon for women to be denied misoprostol by disapproving pharmacists, so the collective often sends male partners or friends to purchase it.

Misoprostol can induce abortion on its own, but has a higher success rate when combined with mifeprostone. In Mexico City, where abortion has been decriminalized since 2007, mifepristone can be prescribed and costs around $35 out-of-pocket. Clinics there help Acompañantes Laguna and other collectives acquire the medication in bulk. Combined with fundraising efforts, this allows Acompañantes Laguna to provide both medications, including direct delivery, for under $40.

“We’ve learned in Mexico that a law won’t stop abortions.”

One state over, in Nuevo León, abortion is still criminalized. Here, Necesito Abortar provides medication and accompaniment to around 500 people each month. The collective has 17 members in Nuevo León and an 18th in Texas, from where they’ve been fielding an increasing number of accompaniment requests.

In early June, Necesito Abortar sent medication and provided guidance to 10 people in the US. Around the same time, some of its members physically transported 200 brown-bagged kits over the border.

The US Food and Drug Administration declared in late 2021 that abortifacients are legal to deliver or mail, but states can still criminalize the people who do so. Texas installed penalties of jail time and a fine of up to $10,000, which could potentially be applied to members of Necesito Abortar or anyone else from Mexico if they were arrested while on the US side of the border.

The end of Roe will impact “the most vulnerable,” Hernández Esquivel said shortly after it was struck down. She noted the stark inaccessibility of abortion to anyone without housing, documentation, income, support networks. All the people who already have “the most difficult time accessing alternative abortion and health services.” 

“We’ve learned in México that a law won’t [stop] abortions,” Hernández Esquivel said. “Legality is not synonymous with justice.”

Photograph (modified) by Anggita Pratiwi via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0

The post Mexico’s Abortion Collectives Increase Cross-Border Collaborations appeared first on Filter.

#DefundPolice is one strategy towards abolition, as activist and scholar Mariame Kaba, writer and lawyer Andrea J. Ritchie, and TGI Justice Project‘s Woods Ervin explain in a June 15 toolkit created in tandem with the Movement 4 Black Lives and Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action.  According to the document embedded below, it advances “a long term vision of abolition of police through divestment from policing as a practice, dismantling policing institutions, and building community-based responses to harm, need, and conflict that do not rely on surveillance, policing and punishment.”

As politicians and news media muddle what exactly abolition is and isn’t, the authors draw crucial distinctions. City councils that are actually considering defunding the police may not in fact be meaningfully working to constrain or end their power. The authors describe three types: mere “budget cuts,” which fail to limit police size and scope, contest their legitimacy, or reinvest in criminalized communities subjected to austerity; a #DefundPolice approach, overhauling power and committing to investing in communities; and “dismantling” by cutting police funding with no intention of replacing it with another law enforcement body, while re-imagining systems of accountability and transformation of harm.

Then, there is abolition, a project of eliminating systems of police, surveillance and punishment, while investing in programs for the “universal public good” and societal structures that promote “mutual accountability” and “collective liberation,” the authors describe.

Actualizing a given ideological vision requires a cogent strategy. Targets to consider that continue to feed law enforcement agencies, the authors suggest, include city and county budgets, state funds, federal grants, fines and fees, asset forfeiture, private-public contracts and corporate donations. The authors propose 10 demands towards the goal of abolition, like committing to reduce budgets until zero, disappearing police from public institutions likes schools, and refusing police-like responsibilities adopted by social service agencies, among others.

The authors issue some cautions: “Avoid getting lost in exact dollar numbers and don’t simply mandate police to have private liability insurance.” They encourage organizers, among other things, to beware of things like “Watered Down Translations” of abolition or the “Failure to Build Capacity” within communities.

The toolkit is a starting place, but not the final roadmap, the authors acknowledge. “We need a million experiments,” tweeted Kaba. “A bunch will fail. That’s good because we’ll have learned a lot that we can apply to the next ones.”

The post “A Million Experiments”⁠—Leading Abolitionists Outline Roadmap to #DefundPolice appeared first on Filter.

“This is significant if you believe that you shouldn’t lose the right to vote if you’ve gone to prison,” Richard Mitchell, a Steering Committee member for the Central Kentucky Council for Peace and Justice (CKCPJ) told Filter. “If you’ve done your time, you should be able to vote. When we do ‘get out the vote’ work in Lexington’s lower-income communities, we discover that many of them want to vote but cannot because of some past felony record. It deletes significant voter power from our communities.”

Beshear acknowledged that the executive order does not permanently ensure the rights to vote and hold public office for impacted people. A future governor could reverse his action, unless lawmakers and voters pass a constitutional amendment to codify the reform in law. 

Beshear supports such a longer-term effort. For now, “I can tell you that as long as I serve, this order is going to be in effect,” he said. His executive order does not apply to people who were convicted of violent or sexual offenses, or to certain nonviolent offenses such as bribery or treason. Nor does it cover people who are currently serving prison sentences, on parole or on probation.

The people who are covered regain eligibility automatically without being charged any new fees. They can now register to vote like any other citizen. They can also request verification from the Department of Corrections if they need it. However, they are still liable to repay court-ordered restitutions or other damages.

Along with Iowa, Kentucky is one of only two states in the US to enforce a lifetime voting ban for people with felonies, persisting after prison, parole and probation are completed. The ban has prevented 300,000 people from voting in Kentucky, according to 2016 data from the Sentencing Project. That’s over 9 percent of Kentucky’s voting-age population. The ban has had a racially disproportionate impact, in barring over 25 percent of Kentucky’s black voting-age population from voting. Overall, Kentucky has the third-highest voter disenfranchisement rate in the US.

And even with the new executive order, people with felony convictions in Kentucky⁠—as elsewhere⁠—will continue to face barriers in getting hired, receiving a loan, renting or buying a home, or pursuing an education.

“The same people who lose their right to vote have enormous struggles getting a job,” Mitchell said. “It works against them pursuing a different path in life, and in fact increases the likelihood they will re-offend and return to jail if they don’t have many options.”

Filter has previously reported, for example, on the challenges facing people with prior cannabis convictions even in states that have legalized. The discrimination and loss of civil rights drug offenders experience for simple misdemeanor possession charges have made retroactive expungement, record sealing and re-sentencing a central demand of reformers at state and federal levels.

Progress has been seen elsewhere. Voters in Florida approved Amendment 4 in November 2018, which restored voting rights to over a million people with felony convictions. It previously enforced a lifetime voting ban. However, the administration of Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is fighting in federal court to require those individuals to pay court-ordered restitutions, fines and fees before regaining eligibility. Earlier this month, a US District Judge earlier this month accused DeSantis’s administration of trying to “run out the clock” by excluding this potential new voting bloc from the 2020 elections.

Meanwhile, groups like the ACLU of Kentucky are pushing for a constitutional amendment to guarantee voting rights to people with felony convictions. Such a proposal would need to be proposed and approved by 60 percent of both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly.

It would then be put on the ballot in the next election for voters to decide on. “We now hope we can act as a legislature to restore voting rights permanently to those who have paid their debt to society and deserve to be heard at the voting booth,” said House Democratic leaders Derrick Graham and Joni Jenkins.

Photo from Voting Rights Campaign of Kentucky via Facebook

The post The Impact of Restored Voting Rights for 140,000 People With Convictions in Kentucky appeared first on Filter.

Martin spoke on November 9 at the 2019 Reform conference in St. Louis, during a roundtable of cannabis activists, regulators and researchers focused on repairing the harms of marijuana prohibition. She continued, “But I did see an opportunity when people started miserably failing. There might be a glimmer of hope that they would see, ‘Maybe we should come together.’”

Martin’s Hood Incubator launched in 2017 to help provide business training, opportunities and resources to Black and Brown entrepreneurs fighting for a cannabis business license in Oakland’s new legal cannabis market. But the licensing process in her city has been notoriously difficult.

Even after it implemented its first-in-the-nation social equity program, intended to reduce barriers for disadvantaged applicants, Oakland has struggled to award licenses quickly and easily. It only issued four equity permits in January 2018, though as of September that year over 600 people had applied to the equity program.

So if the legal cannabis industry has stumbled on its promise to create justice and equity post-prohibition, is there another way forward? For Emily Ramos—co-founder of ¡High Mi Madre!—the answer is clear: worker co-operatives.

Worker co-operatives, or “co-ops,” are businesses where employees and workers own an equal part of the business, share in revenues or profits, and vote on how the business is run. Ramos distinguished between “producer co-ops,” like Ocean Spray, and “consumer co-ops,” like the Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn, New York. Consumer co-ops require their customers to become members to enjoy certain benefits and incentives.

Then there are the hybrids. “We’re fighting to be a hybrid worker-/consumer-owned cooperative where all our workers are owners of the business,” Ramos said. “But our consumers, the people from our community, can also buy membership in our co-op to have a discount on our services and products.”

In anticipation of cannabis legalization in New York, Ramos and her business partner, Pilar DeJesus, are building the groundwork for cannabis and hemp co-ops. ¡High Mi Madre! has been educating communities around New York City about the legal cannabis industry, while also joining forces with the Drug Policy Alliance to advocate and lobby for statewide legislation.

Ramos credited Green Worker Cooperatives, a co-op incubator and training academy in the Bronx, for giving ¡High Mi Madre! the knowledge and resources to grow. Even after graduating its five-month Co Op Academy, Ramos says the incubator has continued supporting her business and even furnished it with a grant.

“Funding is a big barrier for us. We don’t want to sell ourselves to corporations or sell off our business, so how can we use our community to gather the funds and leverage capital?” Ramos asked. “In our advocacy in New York, we’re fighting for more money for business incubators in our community. We’re demanding free attorneys for trademarking, incorporation, and contract services. We’re asking for money for organizations in our communities that fund worker co-operatives and women- and minority-owned businesses.”

Co-ops can be a valuable economic alternative for people of color, low-income communities and other marginalized people who face various barriers or discrimination in employment or entrepreneurship. They offer workers a chance to own their labor and resources and have a say in how they are used. Ramos noted that undocumented immigrants, who might be excluded from or exploited by traditional businesses, can also find empowerment in co-ops.

Ramos and DeJesus want to make co-ops more central to the cannabis legalization debate, and to help develop a nationwide network of cannabis co-ops at every step of the supply and production chain: growers, retailers, distributors, brands, CBD, hemp and more.

“Cooperatives will remain strong. They’re not going anywhere. Their goal is not to get bought.”

Legislation for cannabis co-ops already exists in states like Massachusetts and California, but progress has been glacial. Massachusetts state law allows for cannabis farmer “craft cooperatives,” but not a single one has been licensed. In California, farmer co-ops band together to offer a quality product, but have trouble competing with increasingly consolidated corporate operations.

Ramos proposed that when the federal government legalizes cannabis, it should offer more money for states that support and encourage co-ops. But the hard work, she emphasized, must come now, at the state level—pre-legalization—to mold future federal policy.

Ramos sounded a profoundly hopeful note in a panel that otherwise laid bare the broken promises of cannabis legalization. Cannabis regulators Cat Packer, director of the Los Angeles Department of Cannabis Regulation, and Shaleen Title of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission acknowledged the slow progress of cannabis social equity and stark racial disparities in ownership of the legal markets in their states.

Meanwhile, Professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah of the University of Toronto detailed his difficulties studying racial disparities in cannabis arrests in Canada—mostly because the government neglected to even collect data on it. If cannabis co-ops do not eliminate these systemic inequities for people of color, they could at least empower them to greater economic autonomy.

Lanese Martin acknowledged this potential. “If—as I believe to be true—the cannabis industry consolidates like all other industries, cooperatives will remain strong,” she said. “They’re not going anywhere. They will have a strong percentage share wherever they’re based. Their goal is not to get bought. Communities will continue propping them up. 

“It’s good to know you’re creating this foundation so when folks get desperate, they can tap in,” she said to Ramos.

The sooner people of color educate themselves about legal cannabis, Ramos urged, the sooner they can reclaim what was taken from them.

“A lot of people of color are told we should tokenize ourselves and go work for a white corporation so they can benefit from our creativity. I think it’s total bullshit that we think that is our only option. Our communities have always run the marijuana industry in the legacy [illicit] market, so there’s no reason we shouldn’t be running it now in the legal market.”

Photo, courtesy of Shaleen Title, shows from left-to-right: Queen Adesuyi, a policy manager for Drug Policy Alliance who chaired the panel; Shaleen Title, a commissioner on the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission; Professor Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, University of Toronto; Emily Ramos, founder of ¡High Mi Madre!; Lanese Martin, co-founder of the Hood Incubator; Cat Packer, executive director of the Department of Cannabis Regulation, City of Los Angeles. 

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