26% of arrests in the US are for drug related crimes. 46% of prisoners in federal prison are there for drug related crimes.[1] We need more than police reform:

26% of arrests in the US are for drug related crimes. 46% of prisoners in federal prison are there for drug related crimes.[1] We need more than police reform: we need to reform the context that police work in. There is a huge incentive for police to focus on the most easily accusable crime types. Because drug related offenses are so easy to prosecute, police are heavily motivated to pursue drug related arrests. The act of pursuing drug related arrests can itself be trivially abused. There is very little distinction between a baseless accusation and a successfully prosecuted crime. This makes it incredibly difficult and subjective to regulate the behavior of officers who are pursuing drug related arrests. On top of that, we have an overwhelmed court system that can keep the accused waiting weeks, months, or even years to see trial. This pressures the courts to rush justice. From within the court system, a conviction is seen as a success; so it's pretty obvious what outcome is most likely to be falsely generated by that rushed justice. It's also trivial to abuse those wait times: a dubious accusation is enough to lock away any person the officer chooses. That person may need to wait in jail (generally considered worse than prison) for as much time as the sentence they would be convinced for! Even if an officer faces consequences to that abuse, the consequence can only happen after a length of time that itself is extended by the increasing wait times of the overwhelmed court system. This creates a feedback loop: the sheer volume of drug convictions creates a conviction in the mind of each officer: pursuing drug related offenses is easy and inherently justified. It's no surprise to me that so many officers approach arrests with oversized egos: incredulous at the idea they could possibly do wrong. This is normal everyday stuff to them, and the entire system expects them to continue. We all know the war on drugs is a failure of epic proportions. It's time to move on. Every moment we wait is an abuse to the justice system itself and the people to whom it is served. [1] https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-related-crime-statistics/ https://drugabusestatistics.org/drug-related-crime-statistic...