I am Eric Sterling, Students for Sensible Drug Policy Board Member and President of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. I wrote harsh drug laws in the 1980s and now work to reform them. AMA

Many of the drug laws in contemporary American society have been labeled as "institutionally racist". To take one in particular, marijuana arrests show that while blacks use marijuana at roughly the same rate as whites, they account for 67% of the incarcerated population for that crime.

So I have a two part question. 1) Do you believe that marijuana prohibition is "institutional racism"? And if the answer is yes 2) Do you think that these policies were created with a racist intent, or was it merely a byproduct?

The history of drug prohibition reveals that America's drug policies are founded on racial prejudice and control. David Musto of Yale laid this out in his book, The American Disease. Anti-opium smoking laws based on anti-Chinese sentiment. Early 20th century cocaine laws based on hysteria that "cocainized negroes" were the principal cause of the rape of white women in the south. 1930s-era marijuana laws based on anti-Black sentiment expressed by the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Harry Anslinger.

This is not simply about marijuana and race. The role of drug prohibition in America is to maintain white privilege.

Consider our drug policy: The ostensible goals are to save lives, to prevent crime, to keep drugs out of the hands of kids.

What does data show about how our drug policy works? The death rate from illegal drugs has grown fairly steadily since the early 1980s -- it is now more than triple it was then. We are not saving lives, and anyone who reads the newspapers knows that.

It is obvious to most observers that drug prohibition generates an enormous amount of crime. Look at Mexico. Look at "drive-by shootings." Think about the crime committed by folks who steal to get the money for their "fix." Think about the widespread corruption of police -- present in almost every jurisdiction in one form or another -- around the drug trade.

And obviously, kids have easier access to drugs than any population subgroup.

So our drug policy is not accomplishing its formal goals. Yet it continues to absorb $60+ billion per year. So it is doing something that the society wants done. Well, the majority society wants to maintain white privilege. This has been the case since the 1960s. The moment when the U.S. rate of incarceration changed from a half century of stability was the moment when the U.S. civil rights movement triumphed -- about 1970. At last, it was illegal to engage in segregation. At last there were voting rights. Discrimination in education and employment and housing were outlawed. So how, after the bloody resistance to the civil rights movement, does white society maintain its privileges? The war on drugs.

The face of the drug user, as presented in the news media, is usually black. We use terms like "youth at risk." As majority white audiences hear that term, in our mind's eye, what is the pigmentation of the youth who are "at risk?" Yet white high school kids are using cocaine at a rate that is three times the rate that Black high school kids are using cocaine, according to government drug survey data.

I don't think in the past 40 years the drug laws were created with racist intent. There was certainly a belief that people of color had more serious drug problems, and perhaps they need help. However in the Congress, since the early 1990s, there has been indifference to the unequal application of harms in the course of enforcing the drug laws. Since the early 1990s, the Judiciary Committees knew that the federal drug laws were being enforced in a grossly disproportionate way when it came to Blacks. Yet it was not until 2010 that the political will was strong enough to make Congress make some marginal improvements.

I want to draw a distinction between "racist intent" which implies an individual who has a racial animus, and the unconscious acceptance of racial preferences and racial handicaps, i.e. the benefiting from structural racism. The white public knows that blacks are being incarcerated at greater rates than whites, but to the extent that public thinks about that at all, it thinks that this is probably okay. Whites don't necessarily intend that this to be the case, but to the extent they are aware of it, the disproportionality seems appropriate and fulfills a white understanding about race and drugs. (I have heard well respected black officials say that because "crack is a black drug," the fact that Congress imposed severe penalties on much small quantities of crack cocaine than powder cocaine is evidence of racial animus. But many more whites are users of crack cocaine than blacks -- crack has never been a "black drug.")

I think in some ways the collateral penalties for drug offenses are reminiscent of the penalties of Jim Crow segregation. Under Jim Crow, an African-American had limited ability to travel, could not buy a home or live in certain areas, could not hold certain jobs, could not go to certain schools, etc. It was dangerous for a black person to walk down the street in many neighborhoods. These penalties were formally eliminated by the civil rights movement.

But the collateral penalties for drug offenses are an echo of the Jim Crow restrictions. For example, if you have a drug conviction and on probation or parole, you can't travel without permission of your probation officer. With a conviction, you are ineligible for public housing (and your family can be evicted for your offense). (However, a home "owner" will not lose his or her home mortgage or the federal tax deduction for the mortgage interest.) There are many jobs with licenses for which the person the drug conviction is disqualified: beautician, cosmetologist, barber, electrician, etc. This employment exclusion is very much like Jim Crow. And of course students with drug convictions get expelled under "zero tolerance" laws or denied financial aid. And "driving while black" leading to drug searches, the occasional arrest, and the forfeiture of cars is the modern equivalent of that Jim Crow era penalty.

I don't think in the past 40 years the laws were created with racist intent. There was certainly a belief that people of color had more serious drug problems, and perhaps they need help. But in the Congress, since the early 1990s, the Judiciary Committees knew that the federal drug laws were being enforced in a grossly disproportionate way when it came to Blacks. And it was not until 2010 that the political will was strong enough to make some marginal improvements.

I want to draw a distinction between "racist intent" which implies an individual who has a racial animus, and the unconscious acceptance of racial preferences and racial handicaps. The white public knows that blacks are being incarcerated at greater rates than whites, but that public thinks that is okay. They don't necessarily intend that this be the case, but they are aware of it and it seems appropriate and fulfills an understanding about race and drugs.

[deleted]

Bro, learn how to edit a post. Don't write everything in replies. There's an edit button for a reason. When you write it like this, it gets mixed up depending on the upvotes and probably other factors that reddit has.

Thanks. Too much chat experience I guess.

I hope these new edits work for you now.

Why did you do so in the 80s and what changed your mind now?

One of my friends called me a "plainclothes freak." I am attorney, and the Congress was my client. I had the ability to have some influence, but I did not have a vote.

I realized more fully while working for Congress that the "war on drugs" could never be won. And I saw the mixture of hatred for drug users and indifference to their suffering on the part of policy makers. I also saw how the war on drugs was a growing threat to civil liberties, due process and the rule of law.

One more question if I may. Based on the fact that you were a lawyer instead of a policy maker, in your dealing with the actual voters, how much do you think they were influenced by the prison lobby?

I've always seen an interesting pairing between those who believe in strict punishment and their campaign being funded by prison groups. Our own governor (mike pence) recently spearheaded a newer harsher law for Marijuana usage, and to no surprise of mine he was given campaign contributions from a large prison lobby. This seems to be a trend, and I didn't know if it was the same in the 80s.

In the 1980s, I did not see lobbying by a prison lobby. The political dynamic itself was sufficiently anti-drug. There was a widespread feeling that drugs were among the top domestic social and political problems. I don't think campaign contributions from a prison lobby was any kind of factor in 1984, 1986 or 1988.

Hi Eric. I am a student at Virginia Tech as well as VP of our chapter of SSDP. I was fortunate enough to meet you at the SSPD mid-atlantic regional conference held in Richmond in the spring of 2014 as well as the international conference held this fall. What experiences, if any, influenced you to start thinking about drug policy? What was the most astonishing misconception about drugs that you saw when working with congress? Do you believe most congressmen are legitimately uninformed about drugs or do you believe they only hold extreme views on drugs because of their constituents and reputation?

I started thinking seriously about drug policy in 1976 during my third year in law school. Keith Stroup, the founder and then Executive Director of NORML, came to Philadelphia to organize support for decriminalization. There was a decrim bill pending in the PA legislature. Keith was brilliant! He was so articulate. I thought he could be elected President of the U.S. I was inspired to testify in support of the decriminalization bill.

Nine months later, after I passed the bar exam, I went to the NORML national conference in Washington, DC at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. I was blown away by the professionalism of NORML. At the continuing legal education sessions I heard some of America's most accomplished and skillful criminal defense lawyers teaching. I hoped that someday I could stand amidst their ranks.

The most astonishing misconception that was uttered in Congress in the 1980s was the phrase, "We have lost a generation to drugs!" I looked around the hearing room when this was being said and thought to myself, almost everyone of the staff in the room -- young lawyers who were on law review, men and women who had graduate degrees -- they were among the drug users. This was NOT a lost generation.

I think most Americans are fairly uninformed about drugs. Where would they get accurate information? From television??? From the newspapers?? Many Members of Congress are genuinely uninformed.

But informed or not, certainly many expressed extreme views (I am not sure how many of them "held" extreme views.) because they saw great political benefit. They knew they could get news media attention in their home district. They knew they would get praised by the police officials.

Nine months later, after I passed the bar exam, I went to the NORML national conference in Washington, DC at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill. I was blown away by the professionalism of NORML. At the continuing legal education sessions I heard some of America's most accomplished and skillful criminal defense lawyers teaching. I hoped that someday I could stand amidst their ranks.

Do you still think Keith could be President? Seriously tho, what influence, if any, has the drug reform movement had on the Obama administration in the last 6 years? What can be done to have more influence in the next administration?

The drug policy reform movement has had enormous impact on the Obama Administration! Look at all the memos from the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department regarding marijuana.

As state laws continue to change, because of the very hard work of SSDP, MPP, DPA, LEAP, NORML and allied groups, this will dramatically influence the next administration.

I think that Obama's heavy marijuana use in high school has been seen by Obama as a big personal mistake, as the height of immaturity. I think his use of marijuana has been a problem in his administration. It is something like the problem that we had with Bill Clinton who was famous for having not inhaled. If Clinton tried any kind of reform, he feared it would immediately bring up the mockery about not having inhaled. Clinton's problem was one of political perception. Clinton was also torn because he brother had been a drug addict, and Clinton believe his arrest got his brother into treatment and saved his life. Obama's problem is not political. Department of Justice "liberalization" around marijuana is not accompanied by accounts of his "choom gang" in Hawai'i.

The most astonishing misconception that was uttered in Congress in the 1980s was the phrase, "We have lost a generation to drugs!" I looked around the hearing room when this was being said and thought to myself, almost everyone of the staff in the room -- young lawyers who were on law review, men and women who had graduate degrees -- they were among the drug users. This was NOT a lost generation.

Hey Eric, what are your thoughts on the legality of drug testing kits, such as the one Dancesafe sells? Are they considered illegal now?

Drug testing kits may be illegal under drug paraphernalia statutes as devices that are used to facilitate the ingestion of controlled substances. That would be the basis for an arrest. I haven't researched if there are cases that have challenged such arrests. I would make one argument in defense: necessity. I would argue that the harm of the crime of selling or possessing drug test kits is outweighed by the benefit of potentially saving lives of persons who are going to use drugs which may be contaminated. I am not sure a court would buy that argument.

As more states legalize marijuana, are we seeing an impact on our overcrowded jail and prison systems? Do you expect to see improvement?

We have two states that have had legal marijuana long enough to see whether there is an impact on their incarcerated populations, but I haven't looked at the data, I am sorry to say.

My hunch is that you won't see much impact. First, marijuana arrests are considered low level arrests in most jurisdictions. Bail gets set at pretty low levels, and so there are not a lot of marijuana defendants in jail at any one time. Marijuana possession sentences are fairly short as well. At the prison level, there are not a high percentage of folks now imprisoned on marijuana offenses. Maybe there are 40-50,000 persons out of 1.5 million or so serving prison sentences in state prison for marijuana felonies.

Now there are many -- the true number is unknown -- who had probation or parole revoked because a drug test was positive for an illegal drug, and that drug was marijuana. Even if marijuana is legal, many parole and probation conditions may prohibit the use of marijuana as alcohol use is often prohibited to probationers or parolees. But that is a key area where legal marijuana could have an impact -- prohibit violation of parole or probation terms because of marijuana use.

Eric, thanks again for doing this. We all appreciate the opportunity to hear from you.

Are you concerned that the after the legalization of marijuana, momentum in ending the "war on drugs" might slow down? Why or why not?

Yes. I am definitely concerned. A great deal of the current support for marijuana legalization is based on the fact that marijuana IS safer than alcohol. A majority of adults have tried marijuana, and even more know people who have used marijuana without ill effect. But I don't think that a campaign that suggests that heroin is safer than alcohol will be as easy to advance. Heroin is more addictive than alcohol in some senses, but and less toxic in many ways. Heroin does not cause cancer, for example. So the arguments are going to be different.

I argue that a reason to legalize drugs like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine is that dangerous drugs need to be controlled. Prohibition is the abdication of control. The Controlled Substances Act is an oxymoron.

In addition the stigma about using heroin and methamphetamine is much greater than the stigma re marijuana use. There is hardly much stigma regarding marijuana use anymore -- if you don't get caught.

So the momentum is very likely to slow.

I don't know how strong the movement to legalize very important and interesting drugs like LSD, peyote, psilocybin, and MDMA will be.

This will, in part, depend upon how successfully the legalization of marijuana is accomplished.

Should ALL drugs be legalized? Decriminalized? Why or why not?

Ultimately, I think that drugs that are legalized and regulated are safer for the users than drugs that are produced and distributed by criminals.

We don't have to decide now whether all drugs should be legalized. But we should legalize the drugs that we see are most problematic, such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. We see widespread use of Adderal but we don't see the same kinds of problems that we see with meth. Heroin is not much different from methadone. But there are those who retain a strong desire for heroin over methadone.

What are some organizations concerned redditors can get involved with?

If you are student, you absolutely should join Students for Sensible Drug Policy. You will get such moral support, you will learn so much, you will have so much fun in your activism.

If you are out of school, the two most productive drug policy reform groups are Drug Policy Alliance www.drugpolicy.org and Marijuana Policy Project www.mpp.org. DPA is doing a lot on many issues in the U.S. and around the world. They have mobilized global leaders in a way that no one else has. MPP is incredibly effective in the U.S. lobbying state legislatures and Congress.

If there is a local group in your state, city or county, be sure to join the local group and participate in lobbying your own government.

Moving forward, what do you think are some of the biggest obstacles facing the drug reform movement?

Law enforcement in general is vociferously opposed to drug reform. Most officers see the offenders they deal with -- whether thieves, spouse abusers, whatever -- as folks that also use drugs.

In addition, law enforcement management recognizes that there is real budget money fighting drugs. There are no federal grant programs for local police to investigate rape cases that depend upon evidence that they are having an impact. There is no federal grant money for reducing burglary, car theft or shoplifting.

A second huge obstacle is the fear of government by drug users. NORML has never had more than 15,000 members out of 15 to 20 million marijuana users. When I was a NORML activist I met countless numbers of folks who would not sign a petition or join NORML because they were afraid that their name would be on a list that would come to the attention of the government.

A third huge obstacle is the cynicism of the "sophisticated" citizen. "The political game is rigged! Politicians don't care. They only listen to people with money." The truthful kernel of this is outweighed by the reality that politicians are INTENSELY interested in knowing what voters care about. They change their minds on issues when they know that this means something to their constituents. When they get letters, calls and email from their constituents they pay attention. That is a political reality.

Fourth, I don't think the drug reform movement has done a good enough job reaching out to unlikely allies and building on-the-ground political organizations. Our medical marijuana initiatives in many states were won using advertising. But there was not enough effort to build a sustained political organization. When you look at 22 states with legal medical marijuana, but not one senator out of the 44 that represent such states sponsoring a medical marijuana bill that says to me we have not built state organizations to sustain that effort.

A second huge obstacle is the fear of government by drug users. NORML has never had more than 15,000 members out of 15 to 20 million marijuana users. When I was a NORML activist I met countless numbers of folks who would not sign a petition or join NORML because they were afraid that their name would be on a list that would come to the attention of the government.

A third huge obstacle is the cynicism of the "sophisticated" citizen. "The political game is rigged! Politicians don't care. They only listen to people with money." The truthful kernel of this is outweighed by the reality that politicians are INTENSELY interested in knowing what voters care about. They change their minds on issues when they know that this means something to their constituents. When they get letters, calls and email from their constituents they pay attention. That is a political reality.

Fourth, I don't think the drug reform movement has done a good enough job reaching out to unlikely allies and building on-the-ground political organizations. Our medical marijuana initiatives in many states were won using advertising. But there was not enough effort to build a sustained political organization. When you look at 22 states with legal medical marijuana, but not one senator out of the 44 that represent such states sponsoring a medical marijuana bill that says to me we have not built state organizations to sustain that effort.

What do you think motivates our country's top drug warriors? And what is the best way to try and reach them to change their hearts and minds? I'm thinking of the DEA administrators or US Attorneys who go after medical marijuana patients.

The nation's drug warriors are in different divisions. You are correct that there are the enforcers such as DEA administrators (both the Administrator, and various deputies) and U.S. Attorneys (and their assistants). I would include state and local police commanders -- they are very influential too. There are also psychiatrists and drug abuse treatment and prevention experts, there are clergy, and there are passionate concerned citizens who may or may not have had family members who had drug abuse problems of some severity.

The enforcers are motivated in a number of ways. At one level, they are committed to enforcing the law. Almost all of those in the criminal justice system are exposed to serious offenders, many of whom are or who have been users of illegal drugs. (They are rarely analyzing why or how they became drug users, and they are not typically thinking about balancing a liberty to use drugs against the reach of the law.) The law is important to defend as a value. There are also economic reasons: many agencies qualify for federal grants that are based on anti-drug activity.

There are psychiatrists and other professionals who encounter people who have had terrible addictions and whose lives are a mess. They see drugs as the cause, and believe that drug legalization would result in many more casualties of that type.

There are people who have encountered youth they perceive as "burn outs," people who seem to have lost any drive or purpose in life, other than to use drugs, or who seem to have become stupefied by their drug use. They don't want this to happen to others.

It is challenging to get anyone to change their hearts and minds. Howe many SSDP members change their minds to believe that drug prohibition makes sense?

I don't claim to know any "best" way to reach drug warriors of whatever type.

An approach that I have tried to use is to start with our efforts to reintegrate into society those who are in recovery. I ask, are people in recovery helped by having a criminal record? Answer, no. Do they deserve having a record? No. Drug users who are not yet in recovery don't deserve this stigma either. I also try to argue about the moral power to infict punishment. The greatest punishment society has, other than the death penalty, is the taking away of one's liberty, imprisonment. What morally justifies taking away someone's liberty? It has to be something like hurting another person, or violating a very important right. It is wrong to punish excessively. It is wrong to take away liberty if your conduct was not wrongful. The legislature can't make conduct wrongful -- that is a philosophical determination. Is drinking alcohol wrongful? No. Is smoking a cigarette wrongful? No. What is it about the conduct of using a drug that makes the act wrongful? Very simply, nothing.

Does that change minds? I don't know.

What do you think is the biggest area for reform in modern drug policy? This could be either in terms of viability or in terms of need (or both!)

The most urgent need is to legalize and regulate the production and distribution of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. These are the drugs that because of contamination and uncertain dosing lead to the greatest number of deaths -- through poisoning or overdose.

These are the drugs that are the biggest money makers for dangerous "world-class" criminals. They can only be driven out of business once their businesses are regulated and operated by legal, regulated entities.

And these are the drugs that are most involved in crime by users. Users are entitled to legal drugs. Their drug use can no longer be an excuse or reason to commit crime.

The users of these drugs are most at risk, and they should no longer be stigmatized and driven away from law and legal services. Legal access to drugs brings them into the orbit of people who care about them, not those who simply are preying on their addictions.

Firstly let me say thanks, I appreciate you and what you do. I am a vet who suffers from some PTSD symptoms and I use marijuana to help me sleep peacefully. When, if ever, can I expect the VA to get behind this treatment plan? Also what do you think happened here in Montana? I remember we came very close to legalizing in some capacity but after numerous DEA raids it sort of seemed to peter out.

I don't understand what happened in Montana. I feel very bad for the activists and others who ended up with federal criminal convictions after their efforts.

Re: I think that VA will change policy, but I can't predict when. Either there will be some very compelling, robust studies showing that patients with PTSD are benefiting from the use of certain strains of Cannabis; or Vets will mobilize politically, relying upon numerous anecdotes, to get Congress and VA to change policy. Look at the effectiveness of parents concerned about getting high CBD Cannabis to their children who suffer from seizures. They mobilized.

If you could go back to the 1980's when the war on drugs was huge, what would you have done differently having the knowledge you now have. How do you feel about many people considering it a total failure?

Interesting question. I am infamous for my role in the enactment of the mandatory minimums in the summer of 1986. But people don't know about my many extensive activities in trying to block drug paraphernalia laws, in trying to legalize heroin for pain relief, in advocating heroin legalization to select reporters, in trying to protect MDMA from being prohibited, in providing hard to find government documents about drug policy to the public and the news media, about trying to convince staff and Members of Congress to oppose the war on drugs in various ways. I am not sure that I would do anything differently. I went way out on some limbs. I came away with a great deal of expertise and with my reputation intact.

Hi Eric, thanks for doing this!

Which section of the Constitution do you believe most supports the changes you're fighting for (Full Faith and Credit, Commerce, amendment, etc)?

The Bill of Rights. I spelled out a lot of this in a speech to the Colorado Bar Association on Sept. 14, 1990, that you can find reprinted here: http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/media/sterling.htm Is the Bill of Rights a Casualty of the War on Drugs?

Do you share Project SAM's fear of creating Big Marijuana, aka Big Tobacco 2.0?

I think that we ought to be concerned about how we regulate any legal drug industry -- alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals. All of those have been poorly regulated in many respects. But one could argue that many industries, from banking to mining to oil production, have been poorly regulated. Inadequately regulated in some respects, perhaps over regulated in others.

But what I think one can point to is that over time industries that have problematic features get increasingly regulated.

Project SAM is taking a hysterical approach to the idea of big business and its out of control character.