While much of the country is preoccupied with the war on terrorism, Ethan Nadelmann took the stage at Robertson Hall yesterday to speak out against another war that is affecting millions of Americans daily — the war on drugs.
Nadelmann is the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the largest drug reform organization in the nation.
The lecture, cosponsored by the Wilson School and the Princeton Justice Project, focused on efforts to build a "political movement to end the war on drugs."
Nadelmann, who was a Politics and Wilson School faculty member from 1987 to 1994, argued in favor of a more "compassionate set of social policies."
Treatment vs. courts
Instead of wasting time and money in a futile attempt to combat drug use through the courts, Nadelmann said, drug policy should be built around drug treatment and initiatives that promote safety, such as needle exchange programs. He criticized the criminal justice system, saying, "Incarceration is the new slavery. Probation is new social control system."
"Driving this movement is a core principle . . . that people should not be punished simply for what they put into their bodies. That choice is yours and not the state's," Nadelmann said.
Evolving morality
Nadelmann drew attention to changes in America's alcohol and drug policy since the era of Prohibition, when illicit drugs such as heroine and cocaine were legal, while alcohol and cigarettes were banned. Morals evolve, he asserted, and "what determines which [drug] we accept has everything to do with politics and culture and power."
The American variation of drug policy is slightly exceptional, Nadelmann said, featuring a "commitment to abstinence and sobriety as almost a form of godliness." The quasi-religious and fundamental prohibition of drug use makes present policy and attitudes especially hard to disentangle, he said.
Two paradigms
Nadelmann identified two drug policy paradigms. One is the present system, which strives to create a drug free society.
The alternative framework, favored by Nadelmann, emphasizes harm reduction and teaching people "how to live with drugs in such a way that will cause least possible harm and greatest possible benefit," Nadelmann said.
"The public is ahead of the politicians," Nadelmann said in a separate interview, adding that "nobody on the drug war side wants to debate this."
His scheduled appearance on a TV show debate last week had to be canceled because no opponents were willing to appear, he said.
Nadelmann offset his scathing social commentary with words of hope for the future. He especially applauded the growing support for policy reform from minority legislators and from different regions of the country.
"From Louisiana to Indiana you have legislators increasingly open to drug policy reform because of budgetary issues. That's helping our movement gain momentum," he said.
Drugs in New Jersey
These shifts in sentiment are cause for hope even in New Jersey, which was set back by the conservative drug policy of former Governor Christie Whitman, Nadelmann said.
He attributed thousands of HIV infections and deaths to Whitman's drug policy. There were no political consequences for her actions then, Nadelmann remarked, but there is reason to believe that change is on the horizon.
The Drug Alliance is "growing rapidly and we're winning more and more victories in the state legislature, beginning to win small battles in Congress, and we've won almost 20 state ballot initiatives," Nadelmann said.
Nadelmann had already been scheduled to speak yesterday evening at visiting professor Lord David Windlesham's task force on crime and drugs.
Mobilizing students
Robin Williams '04, co-President of the Princeton Justice Project and Director of the NEXT syringe access and needle exchange program, then decided to invite Nadelmann to speak in front of the campus community.
Williams, who characterizes New Jersey as "a great case study for how wrong things can go," encouraged students on campus to confront legislators to create more humane drug policy.
As he spoke, Nadelmann crisscrossed the floor in Dodds auditorium, exuding an energy and enthusiasm characteristic of motivational speakers.
He spouted his ideas at breakneck speed. "Even if you think you agree with me I went to take you a level or two deeper," Nadelmann said.
Nadelmann compensated for the gravity of his subject with occasional levity: "Those junkies are not so different than we are," he said in reference to drug users waiting in line for needle exchange, "A lot of them look like grad students."
At other moments during his speech, Nadelmann conducted hand-raising polls to determine how many audience members had tried marijuana or were acquainted with a drug addict.
Nadelmann ended his lecture with a call for action, a point which is especially imperative for local activists such as Williams, who hopes to rally support for sympathetic legislators for the November elections.
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