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The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) made history last weekend by passing a resolution calling for a public health approach to the problems of substance use and abuse.

DPA's Anthony Papa considers the Supreme Court's recent decision in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" student's free speech case on the Huffington Post.

DPA's Executice Director, Ethan Nadelmann, examines the implications of the United States' imprisonment binge, largely fueled by the drug war, in the Huffington Post yesterday.

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports today that the number of people incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails jumped by 62,037 in the year ending June 30, 2006.  That jump represents the largest increase since 2000.  There are now 2.24 million people behind bars in this country.  The United States continues to rank first among all nations in both total prison/jail population and per capita incarceration rates – with about 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated population.

The failed drug war policies of 30-plus years are a major contributor to America’s prison population explosion.  Approximately 50,000 people were incarcerated for drug law violations in 1980.  The total is now roughly 500,000.  (This number does not include hundreds of thousands of parolees and probationers who are incarcerated for technical violations such as “dirty urines,” nor does it include non-drug offenses committed under the influence of drugs, or to support a drug habit, or crimes of violence committed by drug sellers.)

“Two powerful forces are at play today,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “On the one hand, public opinion strongly supports alternatives to incarceration for non-violent, and especially low-level, drug law violators – and state legislatures around the country are beginning to follow suit.  On the other hand, the prison industrial complex has become a powerful force in American society, able to make the most of the political inertia that sustains knee-jerk lock-‘em-up policies.”

The Drug Policy Alliance has played a pivotal role in reforming drug sentencing laws around the country, including Proposition 36 in California, reform of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York, and equalization of crack and powder cocaine penalties in Connecticut.

Rhode Island has made news for reform twice in the last week! First, the legislature voted to make the state's medical marijuana law permanent. The law passed a year ago but was scheduled to sunset this month, and Marijuana Policy Project and the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition rallied to make sure it was made permanent.

The law even withstood a veto by the governor, because the Senate and House approved it with such a huge margin. Great job, guys!

Then last weekend, the legislature passed a bill to do away with mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. The bill would give judges more discretion in sentencing, possibly helping to reduce problems with prison overcrowding and disproportionate targeting of people convicted of low-level offenses. The governor hasn't yet said whether he'll sign it -- let's hope he doesn't go down the same road as my governor, Maryland's Gov. O'Malley, who vetoed a sentencing reform bill earlier this year.

Posted by Megan Farrington.