Count the Costs: Addicted to Stigma
According to the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, adopted in 1961, the aim of drug control policies is to protect public health. This is far from reality. In the US, the birthplace of drug prohibition, the war on drugs was designed as a form of social control and institutionalized racism. Despite similar rates of drug usage, African-American men in the US are sent to prison on drug charges at 13.4 times the rate of white men, resulting in one in nine 20- to 34-year-olds being incarcerated on any given day, primarily as a result of drug law enforcement. Ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups of society are disproportionally hit by the global war on drugs.
