The House I Live In

:02:15. > :02:25.THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS SOME STRONG THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS SOME STRONG

:02:25. > :02:35.

:02:35. > :02:41.My family came to America fleeing persecution in Europe. For my mum's

:02:41. > :02:47.parents it was the Pogroms of Russia in which thousands of Jews

:02:47. > :02:52.died. As children my brothers and I were

:02:52. > :02:56.taught we were the lucky ones who meat it out. But with that luck

:02:56. > :03:06.came a responsibility. Never again didn't just mean that people like

:03:06. > :03:09.

:03:09. > :03:17.us shouldn't suffer. It meant Be seated, please, ladies and

:03:17. > :03:22.gentlemen. I would like to summarise for you the meeting that

:03:22. > :03:32.I have just had with bipartisan leaders. America's public enemy

:03:32. > :04:05.

:04:05. > :04:15.number one in the United States is Keep in mind that school is going

:04:15. > :04:20.

:04:20. > :04:25.to let these students out in 15 Sure we've got problems over this

:04:25. > :04:34.nation but never forget, there's nothing wrong with America today

:04:35. > :04:38.that a good election won't cure. That is why I believe the tide of

:04:38. > :04:45.battle has concerned and we are beginning to win the crusade for a

:04:45. > :04:55.drug-free America. What shame that we American people could act and be

:04:55. > :05:24.

:05:24. > :05:34.All of us must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and

:05:34. > :06:06.

:06:06. > :06:14.Democracy, liberty, opportunity and My name is Nannie Jeter. I was born

:06:14. > :06:17.in Crewe Virginia, a very small town. Coming north, I think I would

:06:17. > :06:22.prove I was going to conquer everything that needed to be

:06:22. > :06:28.conquered. Nannie Jeter was like a second mother to me. Though she

:06:28. > :06:38.started out working for my family, she was never a nanny, Nannie is

:06:38. > :06:45.

:06:45. > :06:50.The night is a celebration night. Our families were close and her

:06:50. > :06:55.children and grandchildren were my play mates growing up. As we got

:06:55. > :07:05.older, I saw many struggling with poverty, joblessness, crime and

:07:05. > :07:06.

:07:06. > :07:14.worse. When I asked her what she thought might have gone wrong, her

:07:14. > :07:18.answer was simple. I think drugs. Drugs is the monster. The killing,

:07:18. > :07:24.the steling, people being destroyed, it's devastating. What happened to

:07:24. > :07:27.my son with drugs, I would love to change that. Drugs in America,

:07:27. > :07:33.pollsters have identified that as the number one issue in this

:07:33. > :07:39.country. They are taking drugs in growing numbers. A battle to

:07:40. > :07:43.control the drug markets is deadly. To understand what drugs had done

:07:43. > :07:47.to Nannie Jeter's family and others, I wanted to get out on the road to

:07:47. > :07:53.talk to people. I know first hand the devastation we as a family have

:07:53. > :07:58.had to endure because of the drugs. Putting it before my kids, putting

:07:58. > :08:02.it before my mum, sister. I had two kids and I lost them to the streets

:08:02. > :08:06.because of my own problems. Time and again I learned how one

:08:06. > :08:11.person's struggle had grown into a crisis for their family and the

:08:11. > :08:17.community. How many people here had any kind of drug involvement?

:08:17. > :08:23.in here for selling drugs. I have a 30-year sentence. I killed a guy in

:08:23. > :08:26.1984. I was doped and out of my head. As I began to look around,

:08:26. > :08:34.the very real problems associated with drug abuse began to seem just

:08:34. > :08:39.one part of an even larger problem facing the country. It's true that

:08:39. > :08:45.drugs have destroyed lives, that heroin and cocaine, for example, do

:08:45. > :08:51.nothing to engender individual dignity but while cover the drug

:08:51. > :08:55.war as a journalist I came to understand the war against them has.

:08:55. > :09:00.The war against drugs is heating up. Somebody said we are going to fight

:09:00. > :09:04.a war against lis sit drugs because drugs are bad. There's no argument

:09:04. > :09:10.there. But think about where we are 30 years later. If you look at all

:09:10. > :09:14.the money spent on drug enforcement, prisons, probation officers, judges,

:09:14. > :09:18.narcotics agents, and everything else that has expanded due to the

:09:18. > :09:24.war on drugs t gratifies us and makes us feel we are tough on crime.

:09:24. > :09:28.But to what end. We are the jailingest country on the planet,

:09:28. > :09:31.beyond Russia or China. Nobody jails their population at the rate

:09:32. > :09:37.we do. Yet drugs are purer than ever before, they are more

:09:37. > :09:47.available, younger and younger kids willing to sell them. It's

:09:47. > :09:47.

:09:47. > :10:41.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 53 seconds

:10:41. > :10:46.draconian and it doesn't work and I am not a big Superdrug dealer. I

:10:46. > :10:51.do what I have to do, I know how to survive, I dib and dab if I have to.

:10:51. > :10:57.It is not hard to tell these are the junkies, right. I think the

:10:57. > :11:05.economy drives off drug money. You have judges getting high, too. Cops

:11:05. > :11:09.sniffing coke. The boys are behind us. When I think about people

:11:09. > :11:14.living in inner city neighbourhoods, think about the principle of a

:11:14. > :11:18.quality of life chances. You should not be able to enter a hospital

:11:18. > :11:22.ward in an inner City Hospital of newborn babies and predict with

:11:22. > :11:26.near certainty on the basis of their class, background and race,

:11:26. > :11:34.where these kids, where these healthy newborn babies are going to

:11:34. > :11:40.end up in life. The dope lot, that is what this is, 77 Cromwell Towers.

:11:40. > :11:49.This is where I'm from. For now. Every war starts with propaganda.

:11:49. > :11:59.With the drug war our definition of what a drug user or drug seller is.

:11:59. > :12:02.

:12:02. > :12:06.Became almost a war time cartoon of The truth is drugs aren't yours,

:12:06. > :12:10.you are just a minuteion, somebody without any real authority, selling

:12:10. > :12:17.somebody else's dope. It is like fearing the guy at the dry through

:12:17. > :12:25.win der at bur -- window at Burger King. Sometimes cops view you as

:12:25. > :12:35.you live over here but they don't view you like them like twas your

:12:35. > :12:42.

:12:42. > :12:47.I I wouldn't want to work anywhere else. I feel the need to be here as

:12:47. > :12:53.a minority superviser. Predominantly, a minority

:12:53. > :13:03.neighbourhood. What we deal with here is a lot of lower level

:13:03. > :13:09.

:13:09. > :13:19.narcotic activity. We do mostly I will start making my way up there.

:13:19. > :13:25.

:13:25. > :13:31.Sometimes I think you can trace any Magic man, what is up? You been

:13:31. > :13:37.drinking right? No. Sober. How long has it been? Two months now. Good

:13:37. > :13:44.for you. You have a good one brother. Magic man, he's been

:13:44. > :13:54.around forever. We like to look at the war on drugs as good guys and

:13:54. > :14:02.bad guys and on the ground it is Drugs are never going to be gone. I

:14:02. > :14:06.get that. To say you are going to be drug-free completely, (Laughs)

:14:06. > :14:10.In drug work you never got that satisfaction, because you don't get

:14:10. > :14:14.rid of drugs. You have small victories here and there, but if

:14:14. > :14:24.you look at the big picture, are we getting anywhere, you could be

:14:24. > :14:32.

:14:32. > :14:42.Anybody else in the store? No. going to get you the search warrant.

:14:42. > :14:42.

:14:42. > :14:52.You can smell it in here. You want a hair cut? He's got cocaine

:14:52. > :15:02.

:15:02. > :15:11.If you talk to people in law enforcement, they believe that the

:15:11. > :15:16.community is completely corrupt. They believe everybody's living off

:15:16. > :15:21.drug money, that there is no moral centre. They see communities that

:15:21. > :15:25.blame everybody but themselves for what's going on. And then you talk

:15:25. > :15:32.to those communities and they genuinely believe that law

:15:32. > :15:41.enforcement is using drug laws to destroy the community. Over time, I

:15:41. > :15:44.have discovered that everybody involved hates what's going on.

:15:44. > :15:52.is interesting with this war on drugs, how little the American

:15:52. > :15:56.people know. I never thought about it before. As I started to ask

:15:56. > :16:00.around, I found if people knew anything about the war on drugs,

:16:00. > :16:09.they thought I was talking about something in a foreign country.

:16:09. > :16:17.6500 people died in drug-related incidents in Mexico last last year.

:16:17. > :16:22.The biggest drug industry in the world, isn't in Mexico, not in

:16:22. > :16:27.Colombia, or Afghanistan, it is in the United States. We in the United

:16:27. > :16:31.States perhaps, our dirty little secret between 10 and 16 billion

:16:31. > :16:35.dollars are spent by Americans to pay for these illegal drugs,

:16:35. > :16:41.creating a demand. The thing about the war on drugs is, it tries to to

:16:42. > :16:48.deal with the health problem as if it was a legal problem. When people

:16:48. > :16:53.are distressed they want to smooth their distress. So the real sque

:16:53. > :16:56.not why the addiction, but why the pain. One of the realities, most

:16:56. > :17:02.people get interested in this country for drugs are selling drugs

:17:02. > :17:06.to support their own habit. If you stand in a court, you are watching

:17:06. > :17:16.poor uneducated people be fed into a machine, like meat to make

:17:16. > :17:17.

:17:17. > :17:24.sausage, it's bang, bang, bang, My mum used to tell me I was going

:17:24. > :17:33.to die before I turned 18. When I was 14-years-old, that is when I

:17:33. > :17:40.started getting into fights and stuff like that. Now, I'm 28-years-

:17:40. > :17:49.old, sentenced for crack cocaine. am the discricket court -- District

:17:49. > :17:58.Court Judge. I have sent over 2600 people to federal prison.

:17:58. > :18:04.I grew up around gang members and drug dealers. They were my role

:18:04. > :18:11.models. Coming here today, Maurice's best chance is a sentence

:18:11. > :18:16.of 20 years. Drug laws often carry what are called mandatory minimum

:18:16. > :18:21.sentences below witch a judge cannot sentence a defendant.

:18:21. > :18:24.have a guy like Maurice, who grows up in a bad family situation with

:18:25. > :18:32.heartbreaking details of how he got where he is today, but even if the

:18:32. > :18:37.judge wanted to give him a sentence below 20 years, he can't. My mother

:18:37. > :18:43.was addicted to drugs. I don't remember my father at all. He got

:18:43. > :18:49.killed when I was three-years-old. There was a death around me, I seen

:18:49. > :18:59.a lot of people die, a lot of friends are dead. It could have

:18:59. > :19:30.

:19:30. > :19:34.We are here in the Bible belt, law and order Oklahoma, the prison is

:19:34. > :19:41.the largest employer in the county. Employees live all around here. If

:19:41. > :19:44.you take out a prison, the towns would dry up. I don't know there is

:19:44. > :19:53.a job I could do better in the world. They should have written

:19:53. > :20:00.prison guard on my head when I was born. The job was built for me.

:20:00. > :20:06.incarcerate women at the highest per capita rate. We have 1500

:20:06. > :20:10.inmates, majority of our drug- related crimes. I am here on a 12-

:20:10. > :20:16.year drug trafficking sentence. am 34-years-old, I have been here

:20:16. > :20:25.since I was 23. I am doing a life sentence for second degree murder.

:20:25. > :20:30.I killed a guy in a bad drug deal. I have sold tonnes of dope. We have

:20:30. > :20:37.a nice secure facility, I can keep anyone you want to keep. The

:20:37. > :20:42.facility is as secure as it can get. Turn around spread your butt,

:20:42. > :20:48.spread it with your hands. As it turns out drug laws have

:20:48. > :20:54.become so harsh, even the the non- violent can be locked up with

:20:54. > :21:04.sentences once reserved for violent crimes. We need to lock up people

:21:04. > :21:09.

:21:09. > :21:15.we are afraid you of, but not the I am a law and order guy, I am a

:21:15. > :21:19.firm believer, no free rides. Here you recognise that your chances to

:21:19. > :21:22.manipulate the system are done. That door slams behind you and you

:21:22. > :21:26.have absolutely no ability to control what goes on on the other

:21:26. > :21:30.side of that door. You can't open the door. This is where most people,

:21:30. > :21:36.if they are a newcomer and first time offender, they really figure

:21:36. > :21:46.out this is prison. This is what the next five, ten, 15, 20, 30

:21:46. > :21:47.

:21:47. > :21:51.years of your life looks like, this While following the steps that so

:21:51. > :21:56.many Americans take through the world of the drug war I couldn't

:21:56. > :22:00.help but notice at every stage black Americans were

:22:00. > :22:10.disproportionately represented. every war you have an enemy. When

:22:10. > :22:16.

:22:16. > :22:20.you think about the impact on poor people of colour. We haven't been

:22:20. > :22:25.willing to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what is going on.

:22:25. > :22:34.it turns out nearly everyone I talked to knew about the impact of

:22:34. > :22:37.the drug war on black America. Disproportionate number of black

:22:37. > :22:41.people are prosecuted. While people could tell me all about their first

:22:41. > :22:46.hand experience of this, very few had any idea where it came from.

:22:46. > :22:51.Here is America as you and I like to think of it, the land of the

:22:51. > :22:55.free and the home of the brave. But from every part of the nation come

:22:55. > :23:05.newspaper headlines telling us of an enemy, America's secret enemy

:23:05. > :23:14.

:23:14. > :23:18.The drug war began as a war on dangerous narcotics. You can trace

:23:18. > :23:24.modern drugs enforcement back to the early 50s. When you start today

:23:24. > :23:29.see the rise of the urban narcotics squads. Government agencies charged

:23:29. > :23:34.with the enforcement of narcotics laws have been able until recently

:23:34. > :23:38.to decrease steadily the number of addicts in the US. It was plausible

:23:38. > :23:44.as a policy because the use of the dangerous narcotics was a counter-

:23:44. > :23:49.culture. It was the jazz man's vice, it was in the back alleys. There

:23:49. > :23:51.was no mass marketing, no drive up drug corners. It was a very small

:23:51. > :23:59.percentage of the American population that was engaged in the

:23:59. > :24:09.use of heroin or cocaine. In the 1950s as drug use was was growing,

:24:09. > :24:21.

:24:21. > :24:26.law enforcement became focused on There's no question there was a

:24:26. > :24:29.passion with which the early narcotics enforcement culture

:24:29. > :24:39.pursued black America, even though the addict population was

:24:39. > :24:41.

:24:41. > :24:46.distinctly bye racial. In the 06s drug use grew widespread in America.

:24:46. > :24:50.By the late 06s most urban areas had a mass market for drugs. By the

:24:50. > :24:54.'80s you were looking at McDonald's. At that point you can't claim you

:24:55. > :25:04.are try to go isolate a counter cultural phenomenon. You are

:25:05. > :25:16.

:25:16. > :25:19.fighting a war against a whole In October 2009 I joined Nannie

:25:19. > :25:24.Jeter at the funeral of a family member I knew. Over the years drug

:25:24. > :25:31.had dep lie affected her life and the funeral brought back terrible

:25:31. > :25:37.memories for her. My son James died in 89, or 87, I can't quite

:25:38. > :25:43.remember. Before he died he said mummy, I'm tired of tI cannot live

:25:43. > :25:48.this life. It doesn't matter what I do, I just just want to die. All I

:25:48. > :25:53.know my son used a needle. Though I had known about James's death at

:25:53. > :25:59.the time, I didn't know the extechbt his addiction or how

:25:59. > :26:07.widely the war on drugs had affected the family. I began to

:26:07. > :26:11.realise the full extent of T didn't realise my father was a

:26:11. > :26:21.heroin addict. I got the news in jail. What were you in jail for?

:26:21. > :26:21.

:26:21. > :26:26.Drugs. Drugs have been going on for so long, it's tough. Again and

:26:26. > :26:32.again I heard how drug drug laws had done more to punish individuals

:26:32. > :26:35.than to prevent a serious effort to prevent prevent drug abuse. What

:26:35. > :26:40.was it doing to other families. There is a structural problem in

:26:40. > :26:45.the country that we keep ignoring. We have two million people in our

:26:45. > :26:50.jails and prisons and a million are African-American, most males. That

:26:50. > :26:54.is a pattern that has overwhelmed the African-American community

:26:54. > :26:58.because we have a generation of kids that have the assumption that

:26:58. > :27:02.they are destined to be in the criminal justice system. What

:27:02. > :27:07.people need to see is the next generation of children aren't going

:27:07. > :27:17.to be like I was or like my parents were or like my grandparents were,

:27:17. > :27:22.

:27:22. > :27:32.a generation better than those who At the precinct they told me my

:27:32. > :27:43.

:27:43. > :27:53.charge charge was a conspiracy 24-year-old Anthony Johnson of New

:27:53. > :27:58.

:27:58. > :28:04.York was arrested along with two Right now you have pled guilty to a

:28:04. > :28:08.charge which requires a five-year mandatory minimum. I can't get less

:28:08. > :28:13.than five years, that seems harsh when you think about the fact he is

:28:13. > :28:21.not violent at all. It is critical to present Anthony as more than a

:28:21. > :28:26.drug dealer. John is one of the best criminal defence lawyers in

:28:26. > :28:29.Vermont. I needed help with this kid. Though Anthony Johnson was

:28:29. > :28:36.arrested in Vermont he is originally from the very same New

:28:36. > :28:40.York housing project when I first met Shaniqua. You know Anthony.

:28:40. > :28:45.He's 24-years-old, he is looking at five to 40 years of jail. By the

:28:45. > :28:49.time he gets out he won't have a life. Following Anthony's legal

:28:49. > :28:53.team as they investigated the steps lead to go his arrest, I learned

:28:53. > :29:00.more about where he came from. More clearly than before I could see how

:29:00. > :29:05.the vicious cycle of the drug war spans generations. I wish my father

:29:05. > :29:13.was there for me. I I was outside the front of the building and I

:29:13. > :29:16.noticed him doing a little hand to hand, and and then I figured he was

:29:16. > :29:23.a drug dealer. I seen him a couple of times doing it. Did sku him

:29:23. > :29:33.about it? No, I never asked him. Why? Because I don't ask those

:29:33. > :29:46.

:29:46. > :29:52.questions, I knew. I really didn't When I heard of it, he's selling

:29:52. > :30:02.drugs, to be honest with you, to be totally honest with you, it didn't

:30:02. > :30:05.

:30:05. > :30:09.surprise me. Where we lived, where he came out of. The drug dealers

:30:09. > :30:15.are looked at as leaders of the community. If your mom can't pay

:30:15. > :30:20.the rent, they pay the rent F you need food, they would give money to

:30:20. > :30:24.the household for food. Everybody wanted new converse and he would

:30:24. > :30:28.get them for you. The drug dealer would come from up the block, you

:30:28. > :30:36.pick out a pair, you pick out a pair. We came back on the block, we

:30:36. > :30:41.all carrying sneaker boxes. Everybody wanted to know. We would

:30:41. > :30:51.tell them where we got them from. Every time he came on the block,

:30:51. > :30:54.

:30:54. > :30:59.you were under him. Ice-cream van came, he bought us ice-cream and he

:30:59. > :31:04.didn't have to pay. He would tell the man, get them an ice-cream and

:31:04. > :31:10.we all got ice-cream. Honestly, I loved him. I loved him because when

:31:10. > :31:15.they came around, it was Christmas. As you get older, they say you get

:31:16. > :31:20.your own money, sell drugs. I don't know how to sell drugs, I said. He

:31:20. > :31:25.said, you don't have to know how to sell them. He gave me the drugs, I

:31:25. > :31:35.stood there and he would point and they would come to me. I had my own

:31:35. > :31:40.sneaker money, I had my own movie money and my own power. Where I

:31:41. > :31:45.come from, the neighbourhood, he was hood famous. My Big Brother

:31:45. > :31:50.came from doing the same thing. But it was mostly one person, my man

:31:50. > :31:56.tAY, he was everything I wanted to be. He had the girls, the clothes,

:31:56. > :32:06.all the jewellery, the cars, the money. That is what I wanted.

:32:06. > :32:10.

:32:10. > :32:18.wanted to be Tay. Tay showed me how John, I missed your call. I wanted

:32:18. > :32:25.to check with you and give you a chance to talk to Alicia where we

:32:25. > :32:31.are at. Anything under ten, I try and make them go beyond that. Five

:32:31. > :32:39.to 40 would scare me. I was always proud of him, but I always figured

:32:39. > :32:45.he was OK, that he was good. I know I screwed up. You need that father

:32:45. > :32:49.figure in your life. I know my daughter needs me and I don't want

:32:49. > :32:59.me and her to have the same relationship me and my father had,

:32:59. > :33:10.

:33:10. > :33:14.looking at me in pictures. I don't Watching Anthony's child sleep

:33:14. > :33:18.hundreds of miles from her father, I could see the painful cycle

:33:18. > :33:22.gripping his family but I also had to wonder what compelled him to

:33:22. > :33:25.make the choices he Z It is interesting people ask the question,

:33:25. > :33:29.what about personal responsibility. You only thing you don't do is

:33:29. > :33:33.blame criminals for the crime that they committed. You blame everybody

:33:33. > :33:39.else and everything else. I wish the answer were that simple, but

:33:39. > :33:42.let's take a little step back. There are structural impediments.

:33:42. > :33:47.What you see over and over again in urban America are kids who live in

:33:47. > :33:51.a crowded home, who are hungry when they go to school, lack attention

:33:51. > :33:56.because they have heard noise and gunshots where they live. I don't

:33:56. > :34:01.think people fully understand in the inner city, these kids are

:34:01. > :34:04.making rational choices. I profiled a girl like this, a ten-year-old

:34:04. > :34:09.girl, the men she steps out of the door way, there are drug dealers

:34:09. > :34:14.out there, no economic opportunity. The school is warehousing her. She

:34:14. > :34:19.doesn't see any prospects. How is she supposed to get out. At the end

:34:19. > :34:22.of the day when there are no resources here and your teachers

:34:22. > :34:27.aren't stressing to you come to class, not caring, you are not

:34:27. > :34:33.going to come to school, you are going to sell drugs. To go to the

:34:33. > :34:40.drug kofrner is the rational act for somebody going to work for the

:34:40. > :34:46.only company in a town, which is the only economy working in this

:34:46. > :34:51.town. Those arrested soon find themselves in a cycle from which

:34:52. > :34:56.few ever really escape. People don't realise that when you arrest

:34:56. > :34:59.a young black man, the first thing when he gets out of prison, he

:34:59. > :35:03.can't get a job because of his record. If you have a felony charge

:35:03. > :35:08.you need to be working, trying to move yourself forward. If he wants

:35:08. > :35:13.to go back to school, he is ineligible by law for certain

:35:13. > :35:16.grants. He can't get certain health care benefits. He can't live in

:35:16. > :35:21.certain neighbourhoods. His family that was the centre piece of his

:35:21. > :35:26.life, if they are living in public housing, they can't take him in

:35:26. > :35:34.only people who deserve to live in public housing are those who live

:35:34. > :35:38.responsibilityy there. For the rest of your life you have to check that

:35:38. > :35:48.box on employment applications, dreading that question, have you

:35:48. > :35:51.

:35:51. > :35:56.been convicted of a felony. As a physician I am concerned with the

:35:56. > :35:59.cash yul tis of the war on drugs, the frontline users and petty

:35:59. > :36:05.dealers. Rather than seeing the drug problem in isolation, you have

:36:05. > :36:11.to see it in a social context. These are not problems that are

:36:11. > :36:15.just intrinsic to individuals. They represent multi-generational family

:36:15. > :36:19.and social conditions and human failure. You say all the things

:36:19. > :36:22.that you knew when you were coming up that was wrong. Now I am

:36:22. > :36:27.starting to do them, but I can't control it because I got these

:36:27. > :36:37.problems. I am using drugs, I am halfway selling drugs, using drugs

:36:37. > :36:43.

:36:43. > :36:53.and now I got these two little boys. I don't know how to really be their

:36:53. > :37:00.

:37:00. > :37:08.dad. I know I am supposed to. I don't know how to stop doing what

:37:08. > :37:13.I'm doing. To be their dad. Seeing the pain Anthony's father carries

:37:13. > :37:17.over both his oin choices and the infact of outside pressures I

:37:17. > :37:23.wondered how a matter of public health didn't just inspire drug

:37:23. > :37:28.laws but became the full blown target of a war. America's public

:37:28. > :37:38.enemy number one is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat it, it is

:37:38. > :37:40.

:37:40. > :37:44.necessary to wage a new all-out offensive. The US war on drugs was

:37:44. > :37:49.initiated under President Richard Nixon to get his polls up. From

:37:49. > :37:52.most people I talk to the drug war was born in the late 60s under

:37:52. > :37:59.Richard Nixon. I have no sympathy for the pushers and peddlers and

:37:59. > :38:04.others in this country. We are going to restore freedom in America

:38:04. > :38:07.again. When Nixon ran for President, he talked about the problem of

:38:07. > :38:10.crime in the streets. The wave of crime is not going to be the wave

:38:10. > :38:14.of the future in the United States of America. This is really the

:38:14. > :38:20.first time in a major way that the issue of drug crime became a

:38:20. > :38:25.national political issue. Richard Nixon is credited as the first to

:38:25. > :38:30.coin the term a war on drugs, what most people don't realise is that

:38:30. > :38:35.under Nixon, two-thirds of the drug war budget was devoted to drement

:38:35. > :38:40.rather than -- treatment rather than law enforcement A programme of

:38:40. > :38:44.law enforcement alone is not enough. He understood the need to address

:38:44. > :38:49.addiction. This means that on the treatment of addicts, we must go

:38:49. > :38:59.parallel... He did things that were progressive, by standards of what

:38:59. > :39:03.came after him. The more I learned about Nixon, the more confusing he

:39:03. > :39:07.became. Privately he knew he would be more successful with drug

:39:07. > :39:11.treatment than enforcement but publicly Nixon returned to the

:39:11. > :39:15.simple crime fighting rhetoric that worked for him before. We must wage

:39:15. > :39:20.what I have called total war against public enemy number one in

:39:20. > :39:25.the United States, the drug of dangerous drugs. Nixon is re-

:39:25. > :39:35.elected... As his tough talk proved a recipe for electoral success,

:39:35. > :39:59.

:39:59. > :40:05.I am very much a law and order kind of guy. I would rather have ten

:40:05. > :40:07.police cars than one soup kitchen. But sometimes I think we need to be

:40:07. > :40:15.smarter about what those police officers are actually out there

:40:15. > :40:22.doing. Maybe because he's seen the epitome of a hardened prison

:40:22. > :40:32.official. I think a long time ago we made drugs into this huge thing

:40:32. > :40:36.and we've made it so illegal and we've made it such a national issue

:40:36. > :40:41.with that tough on crime stance, you can't get elected few don't

:40:41. > :40:45.profess to be tough on crime. have tone sure drug dealers are

:40:45. > :40:50.punished, swiftly surely and severely. You can't stay elected

:40:50. > :40:54.few don't do things to be tough on crime. Beef up law enforcement and

:40:54. > :40:57.build new prison space for 24,000 inmates. Nobody can afford to be

:40:57. > :41:02.the first guy to say wait a minute we can't afford what we are doing,

:41:02. > :41:12.let's do something different. If you made a noise like like you are

:41:12. > :41:32.

:41:32. > :41:38.going to be soft on crime, you People It is like they are paying

:41:38. > :41:41.for our fear instead of paying for their crime. I heard the same

:41:41. > :41:44.frustration, that political rhetoric robs them of the resources

:41:45. > :41:48.they need to do their jobs. People want to lock people up and keep

:41:48. > :41:52.them locked away and then when their sen sense is over they expect

:41:52. > :42:01.the person to be reformed or a different person. If you haven't

:42:01. > :42:08.given them skills, how can they be. I am a cabinet making here, when

:42:08. > :42:12.these guys get out of prison we help them get a job. He's got one

:42:12. > :42:16.strike against him, but he can say I am a licenced electrician or

:42:16. > :42:20.carpenter. For a lot of guys you have they are had self-respect, I

:42:20. > :42:23.guess. It's been false self-respect, because they were tough or because

:42:23. > :42:28.they stole a lot or because they sold a lot of drugs. This gives

:42:28. > :42:32.them the chance to anchor themselves to something good in

:42:32. > :42:36.these rehabilitation programmes. Prison is not a nice place, but I

:42:36. > :42:41.am glad I came here, it's made me a better person. This programme is

:42:41. > :42:45.the best thing that happened to me in my life. We are seeking change,

:42:45. > :42:50.accepting we cannot change our past but can change our future.

:42:50. > :42:52.problem is when you get into lean budget times, the citizens of

:42:53. > :42:58.Oklahoma say if we have to spend money on something, let's spend

:42:58. > :43:03.money on fences, handcuffs, cell doors. The rehabilitation

:43:03. > :43:08.programmes are the first thing to get cut. If we don't have the

:43:08. > :43:13.resource available, that equates to not not being able to give an

:43:13. > :43:23.offender a trade or skill and they go back to the same behaviour on

:43:23. > :43:46.

:43:46. > :43:51.I am Larry Cearley, the marshal here. Magdalena is a small spot. We

:43:51. > :43:55.are 250 miles from the Mexican border. We have US Highway 60, a

:43:55. > :44:00.main corridor for drugs. For the last 29 years I have been working

:44:00. > :44:10.in law enforcement, the the major thing that's changed is drug

:44:10. > :44:10.

:44:10. > :44:18.trafficking. At first glance he seemed from a bygone re of law

:44:18. > :44:22.enforcement. But as enforcing drug laution has

:44:22. > :44:32.become the the primary focus for police here, the nature of his work

:44:32. > :44:50.

:44:50. > :44:53.We are fishing, but you look at trucks like this, that is an

:44:53. > :44:56.Arizona truck, somebody has been driving for 24 house because they

:44:57. > :45:03.don't want to get caught. This is telling me this person right here

:45:03. > :45:11.could be a drug trafficking. What is giving you that impression?

:45:11. > :45:16.truck and fast food. It is supposed to be illegal to profile, but after

:45:16. > :45:19.working so long, you kind of know who is doing something. Is it sort

:45:20. > :45:24.of phoney when people say they don't profile? It is all phoney. It

:45:24. > :45:28.is all phoney. If you don't profile vehicles, you are not in law

:45:28. > :45:38.enforcement. That is the way it is, man. Come on. What about profiling

:45:38. > :45:48.

:45:48. > :45:56.What the war on drugs did was destroy the police deterrent in a

:45:56. > :46:02.subtle and unintended way. Going up to 15th street and dixie, he's

:46:02. > :46:06.going to have crack. We are sargeants in narcotics and we don't

:46:06. > :46:14.do street level drug deals. We do larger quantity cases, looking for

:46:14. > :46:20.dealers and and suppliers. A world away in the streets of Miami, I

:46:20. > :46:30.began to see the real impact of the drug war in law enforcement

:46:30. > :46:34.

:46:34. > :46:41.Totally unrelated to the drug deal, but we stumbled on a house with a

:46:41. > :46:45.lot of money, marijuana. Sometimes that is how things happened. Nobody

:46:45. > :46:51.respects police work more than me. There are a lot of detectives who I

:46:51. > :46:58.admire for their professionalism and craft. The drug war created an

:46:58. > :47:03.environment in which none of that was rewarded. A drug arrest does

:47:03. > :47:08.not require anything other than getting out of your radio car and

:47:08. > :47:13.jacking people up. Probably cause, are you kidding? There is a good

:47:13. > :47:18.number of people in this area that are involved in drug dealing.

:47:18. > :47:23.problem there is a real tendency on the part of law enforcement to

:47:23. > :47:28.think geographicically to throw resources at an area. It is fish in

:47:28. > :47:34.a barrel for law enforcement. When you need to make an arrest, you

:47:34. > :47:39.trawl through there. People who are in the area not not committing

:47:39. > :47:42.crimes get stopped. It makes everybody angry. Watching arrest

:47:42. > :47:46.after arrest, I began to see for the first time the destructive

:47:46. > :47:51.impact of drug laws not only on those they target but on those who

:47:51. > :47:54.enforce them as well. The problem is that cop that made that cheap

:47:54. > :47:59.drug arrest, he is going to get paid. He will get the hours of

:47:59. > :48:01.overtime for taking the drugs Doug. He is going to get paid for

:48:01. > :48:06.processing the prisoner. He is going to get paid for sitting back

:48:06. > :48:10.at his desk and writing the paperwork and he is going to do

:48:10. > :48:20.that 60 times a month so his base pay might end up being half of what

:48:20. > :48:22.

:48:22. > :48:26.he is paid as a police officer. We are paying a guy for stats. Compare

:48:26. > :48:33.that guy to the one guy doing police work, solving a murder, a

:48:33. > :48:39.rape a robbery, if he gets lucky he makes one arrest for the month. He

:48:39. > :48:42.gets one slip signed. At the end of the Monday, officer A made 60

:48:42. > :48:48.arrests, officer B made one arrest. Who do you think they make the

:48:48. > :48:53.sergeant. In a city like Baltimore, our percentage of arrest for murder

:48:53. > :48:58.rape and robbery are half of what they once were. Our drug arrest

:48:58. > :49:03.stats are twice what they once were. It makes the city unlivable. Nobody

:49:04. > :49:07.can solve a fucking crime. Beyond the incentives that exist for

:49:07. > :49:11.individual officers it turns out whole departments have a monetary

:49:11. > :49:15.interest in increased drug arrests. Most people don't realise that the

:49:15. > :49:18.financial incentive is built into the system, virtually guarantee the

:49:18. > :49:23.overwhelming majority of drug arrests in the United States will

:49:23. > :49:28.be for non-violent, low level drug offences. A couple of months ago we

:49:28. > :49:33.did a two day operation and arrests 200 people, majority of them for

:49:33. > :49:37.selling drugs. A lot of the money comes out of seizures from the drug

:49:37. > :49:47.profits, the bigger players are making off this. So I guess that

:49:47. > :49:48.

:49:48. > :49:53.If I leave this room but go out there and get in my old truck and

:49:53. > :49:58.drive down the highway with $5,000 cash in my pocket that I earned, if

:49:58. > :50:03.I am pulled over by a state trooper, defective tail light or something s

:50:03. > :50:10.they can take that that $5,000, never charge me with a crime, take

:50:10. > :50:16.my truck, keep them forever. It goes on every day in counties all

:50:16. > :50:26.over this country. Can we get a toe slip for this fine piece of

:50:26. > :50:30.

:50:30. > :50:36.$25,000 I got out of a seizure. police department operates on the

:50:36. > :50:46.money it seize s? Sometimes. This is legal within the state of New

:50:46. > :50:49.

:50:49. > :50:58.Mexico. It is legal. What happens is with every successive encounter

:50:58. > :51:05.with a citizen that goes awry... The guy was upset, that we were

:51:05. > :51:11.stopping him illegally. He feels he was violated. Is that fair? Maybe

:51:11. > :51:15.not. Despite their commitment to their work, officers expressed

:51:15. > :51:20.growing concern not only about the effectiveness of drug laws but also

:51:20. > :51:26.their larger impact on the police and the public. How much time the

:51:26. > :51:32.community has spent feeling like they couldn't trust the police, it

:51:32. > :51:41.is one of the biggest problems. Providence, officers who appeared

:51:41. > :51:44.on TV as the picture of tough on crime cops to years, seem

:51:44. > :51:54.conflicted over what a better approach might look like. If you go

:51:54. > :52:01.out there and cause chaos, and sent to boot camp, national service.

:52:01. > :52:04.Something. We are doing our part out here and it is frustrating for

:52:04. > :52:09.us because it it seems likes because they are addicts they find

:52:09. > :52:19.themselves committing the same crime, that put them in jail, a

:52:19. > :52:23.

:52:23. > :52:28.week or so prior. Can I see your ID please. Some responsibility lies

:52:28. > :52:33.with the parents. Straighten your kid out. That is easier said than

:52:33. > :52:36.do, when you have absentee patients. Sometimes the father is non-

:52:36. > :52:46.existent, the mother is trying to raise a family. Those kids, the

:52:46. > :52:51.percentage of kids that break out of that is really really low. If

:52:51. > :53:01.you keep having kids and you can't afford them, you know what, you

:53:01. > :53:03.

:53:03. > :53:11.have to have a certain amount of responsibility. I am not saying

:53:11. > :53:19.spay them, but come on. I pay them 5,000 dollars to get a vasectomy or

:53:20. > :53:26.something, it's cheaper in the long run. Why are you laughing?

:53:26. > :53:30.Watching seasoned drug warriors struggle for answers. I wondered

:53:30. > :53:35.what it was about drugs that made them such a perceived danger in the

:53:35. > :53:45.first place. You have to understand the war on drugs has never been

:53:45. > :53:52.

:53:52. > :54:02.Looking to find out more about the longer hestry of drugs in America,

:54:02. > :54:02.

:54:02. > :54:08.I found an unlikely source in Lincoln historian Richard miller.

:54:08. > :54:14.Historically anti-drug laws have always been associated with race.

:54:14. > :54:18.In the 1,800s certain kinds of drugs were common in this country,

:54:18. > :54:26.cocaine was widely used. Heroin. People using drugs was something

:54:26. > :54:30.that was just ordinarily accepted. Opium for example was used by

:54:30. > :54:34.middle-aged successful Whitehouse wives in the south. If people were

:54:34. > :54:39.addicted or abusing drugs they were viewed sympathetically as people

:54:39. > :54:44.who had to be helped. It was Seen as a public health issue. One of

:54:44. > :54:49.the first changes was on the west coast when smoking opium was made a

:54:49. > :54:53.criminal offence. Why would opium smoking be illegal in California

:54:53. > :54:56.but not in Mississippi. What was going on in California that was a

:54:56. > :54:59.concern about smoking opium. It had nothing to do with opium itself.

:54:59. > :55:06.The concern was with the people associated with smoking opium and

:55:06. > :55:09.that was the Chinese. Who had come to this country and many of whom

:55:09. > :55:13.were in California, working hard, working for very little pay, and

:55:13. > :55:18.becoming part of the American success story. But their success

:55:18. > :55:23.was taking jobs away from white workers, so politicians got

:55:23. > :55:27.together and decided they got to find something about the Chinese

:55:27. > :55:30.for which they can be criminalised to get them out of the way. You

:55:30. > :55:35.can't throw people in jail because they are Chinese, but you can throw

:55:35. > :55:40.them in jail because they smoke opium. In the same way we saw

:55:40. > :55:44.things going on with cocaine. It was mid sl aged successful people

:55:44. > :55:48.in this country, business executives, physicians, house wives.

:55:48. > :55:56.Around the turn of the century cocaine began being associated with

:55:56. > :56:03.blacks. They can with stand - they can work hard all day long again

:56:03. > :56:07.threatening the jobs of white workers. They were arresting these

:56:07. > :56:15.people because they committed some sort of drug violation. Next we see

:56:15. > :56:20.the change in reputation that hip has had. It was a crop from

:56:20. > :56:25.colonial times. Then in the '30s, it changed into something vicious

:56:25. > :56:28.and fearsome called marijuana because at that time marijuana

:56:28. > :56:32.smoking was being associated with Mexicans, working hard, working

:56:32. > :56:39.cheap and what was being outlawed was not being Mexican but some

:56:40. > :56:44.habit associated with Mexicans. These laws set a very dangerous

:56:44. > :56:46.precedent of control. It seemed time and again drug laws targeted

:56:46. > :56:50.any immigrant group seen as a threat to the established economic

:56:50. > :56:54.order. But how then did black Americans who came to this country

:56:54. > :56:59.over 200 years ago become the primary targets of drug laws in the

:56:59. > :57:02.modern era. The way to think about African-American history is an

:57:02. > :57:07.immigrant story. The transition from the rural to the urban, it is

:57:07. > :57:11.one of the great mass migrations in the history of the world. When

:57:11. > :57:15.blacks came out of slavery they were heavily concentrated in the

:57:15. > :57:19.south and farming type jobs, as industries were expanding in the

:57:19. > :57:25.north, blacks were recruited to come to work in factories. This

:57:25. > :57:29.gave rise to the great migration of blacks flowing into urban areas.

:57:29. > :57:32.Before she came to work for my family Nannie Jeter joined the wave

:57:32. > :57:38.of black Americans who moved north during the great migration. She

:57:38. > :57:44.took me to her childhood home in southern Virginia. We grew up with

:57:44. > :57:48.a beautiful outside life, the Old Vic role la would play and we would

:57:48. > :57:53.dance and it was a completely different world. I loved life in

:57:53. > :58:03.the south. In that environment that seemed so wonderful in the south y

:58:03. > :58:07.

:58:07. > :58:11.did you decide you wanted to leave the south? I left the south because

:58:11. > :58:19.I had. Black people couldn't say they were raped if they were raped.

:58:19. > :58:23.You never heard a rape, only the white lady got raped. But the black

:58:23. > :58:28.woman - I was innocent but people didn't think I was innocent. No-one

:58:28. > :58:35.knew I was leaving. I wanted to bring my children up different. The

:58:35. > :58:41.north was the way out. I thought it would make a dig difference -- big

:58:41. > :58:44.difference. She had never spoken so openly about her past and what

:58:44. > :58:49.compelled her north. But as I learned more about her life I began

:58:49. > :58:53.to see the deeper roots of the drug war for black American families.

:58:53. > :59:00.Sadly what many of these families came to find is that they had not

:59:00. > :59:06.really escaped Jim Crow at all. But found themselves in a new system of

:59:06. > :59:09.racial control, a new Jim Crow. Racially discriminatory laws across

:59:09. > :59:15.America ensured that poor people of colour, migrating from the south,

:59:15. > :59:21.would be confined to certain parts of the city that we now think of as

:59:21. > :59:24.ghettos. Very few people know this but if you look at how African-

:59:24. > :59:29.American housing patterns were established in the '30s and 40s as

:59:29. > :59:33.a result of the new deal, the FHA, a democratic New Deal Programme to

:59:33. > :59:37.inspire home ownership did more to create ghettos than any other

:59:37. > :59:39.federal programme before or since. Why? Because when they were

:59:39. > :59:43.creating the culture of home ownership in America, they were

:59:43. > :59:47.exclusionary to black people. They put them in the areas that maybe a

:59:47. > :59:53.bit economicically depressed and subject to heavy rentorship. They

:59:53. > :59:57.red lined those areas and they would not write FHA mortgages in

:59:57. > :00:06.those areas. Once the areas were red lined that was designed for a

:00:06. > :00:11.ghetto. In 1950, people were poor but had jobs. Industries had moved

:00:11. > :00:14.out of the inner city, leaving behind concentrated populations of

:00:14. > :00:19.poor people, vulnerable to drug trafficking and all the other

:00:19. > :00:23.problems associated with joblessness. What happens when

:00:23. > :00:27.groups are denied to the core economic engines in a society, they

:00:27. > :00:32.create their own, out of pro hinted comins. That was true of the

:00:32. > :00:35.Italians and Jews and everybody else who came to the cities a

:00:35. > :00:42.generation before African-Americans arrived. In 1969 during that time,

:00:42. > :00:46.I couldn't get a job.. When I came to work for your parents, I was

:00:46. > :00:53.happy just to have this job. Do you remember the first time you saw me?

:00:53. > :01:00.Yes. It was about three days old, your mum brought you home from the

:01:00. > :01:05.hospital. You were a beautiful baby that I fell in love with. You

:01:05. > :01:15.became my baby. I loved your family. I I guess I never dreamt you guys

:01:15. > :01:17.

:01:17. > :01:23.would ever leave new hefen. -- Newhaven. We moved to a comfortable

:01:24. > :01:29.suburb of New York City. I didn't know how this impacted Nannie and

:01:29. > :01:38.her family. Your mum said my husband will double your pay if you

:01:38. > :01:45.can go with us. I was always working in New York, whilst my kids

:01:45. > :01:51.were in Newhaven. My youngest son James, he started to smoke

:01:51. > :01:55.marijuana at 14 and at 20 he started to really go into drugs. It

:01:55. > :02:01.is still amazing how you spend your life providing, loving your kids

:02:01. > :02:06.that you don't see the mental power that is going on in their life.

:02:06. > :02:10.Then you look at white kids, they have their parents and they have a

:02:10. > :02:20.house keeper that loves them. But yet still your kids are most of the

:02:20. > :02:28.

:02:28. > :02:33.time alone. What happened with James? He died with AIDS from using

:02:33. > :02:36.needles. As Nannie and I returned to Newhaven together I saw my

:02:37. > :02:40.birthplace with new eyes, processing so much I hadn't

:02:40. > :02:45.understood about the intersection of James's life and my own. But

:02:45. > :02:49.what else had I missed. Growing up in the wake of the civil rights

:02:49. > :02:52.movement, I guess like many people I imagined things were going to get

:02:53. > :03:02.better for black America but as it it turned out in many ways the

:03:02. > :03:07.worst was yet to come. Growing up in Florida, I remember thinking I

:03:07. > :03:11.never wanted to leave Florida. I used to tell my parents before we

:03:12. > :03:21.would go out and do something illegal, I used to say God is on

:03:21. > :03:29.our side because he knows we are poor and I so he understands what

:03:29. > :03:32.we are doing. I actually believed that shit. Carl Hart was part of a

:03:32. > :03:36.generation of black men who experienced first hand the most

:03:36. > :03:41.dramatic escalation of the drug war in American history. Today a

:03:41. > :03:45.Professor of psychology at New York's Columbia University his past

:03:45. > :03:48.experience remains a driving force in his work. Growing up in the '70s

:03:49. > :03:55.and '80s, many of my friends, family members got caught up in

:03:55. > :03:59.drug use. I was always interested in drugs abuse. What I do today, I

:03:59. > :04:04.give people drugs in the lab to study the effects of drugs like

:04:04. > :04:07.meth am fete meet, marijuana. Karl's research is on the science

:04:08. > :04:11.behind addiction, his own experience has shown him how often

:04:11. > :04:17.drug laws are shaped less by scientific concerns than political

:04:17. > :04:22.ones. In the '80s, I was concerned about the havoc that drugs were

:04:22. > :04:26.wreak nothing our community. Or the havoc I thought drugs were reeking

:04:26. > :04:30.in our community. That brings us to the major effort that I am

:04:30. > :04:34.announcing this morning. In the long history of the drug war, no

:04:34. > :04:39.single chapter would turn out to impact black America more deeply

:04:39. > :04:45.than the eight years of the Reagan presidency. What will you do when

:04:45. > :04:49.someone offers you drugs? Just say no. While Nancy Reagan's popular

:04:49. > :04:59.slogan took what would seem a mother approach to drug prevention,

:04:59. > :05:00.

:05:00. > :05:05.her husband took a tougher approach. We intend to do what is necessary

:05:05. > :05:15.to end the drug menace and eliminate this dark evil enemy

:05:15. > :05:18.

:05:18. > :05:22.When Reagan announced he was plan to go rev up the drug war, it was

:05:22. > :05:26.political opportunity more than ever. At the time drug crime was

:05:26. > :05:29.actually on the decline. Less than 2% of the American population even

:05:29. > :05:39.identifies drugs as the nation's top priority. But then of course

:05:39. > :05:44.they got lucky. Crack cocaine... Crack co kaib. Crack hit the

:05:44. > :05:49.streets and suddenly there was hysteria about this brand new

:05:49. > :05:55.demon-like form of cocaine. Today there is a new epidemic. Smokable

:05:55. > :05:58.cocaine, otherwise known as crack. It is an uncontrolled fire. The

:05:58. > :06:03.American people want their government to get tough and go on

:06:03. > :06:11.the offensive and that is what we intend with more ferocity than ever

:06:11. > :06:14.before. If smaller cities don't have a crack crisis now, they will

:06:14. > :06:18.soon. They are just carrying on like it is their living room, like

:06:18. > :06:24.this is their home, like they belong here. They don't belong here.

:06:25. > :06:31.What we saw were images of black urbanites on TV smoking crack

:06:31. > :06:41.cocaine over and over and over. And then using incredible stories were

:06:41. > :06:49.

:06:49. > :06:59.associated with crack cocaine. They If you go back to the '20s and 30s

:06:59. > :07:03.this is what people were saying about marijuana. If you say that

:07:03. > :07:06.now in our society, people would look at you as if you were crazy.

:07:06. > :07:10.When you have a new drug introduced into society, you can say

:07:10. > :07:15.incredible things about that drug and people will believe you.

:07:15. > :07:19.society is now infested with drug abusers. There is a tremendous fear

:07:19. > :07:23.of this epidemic that was going to overcome all of us, not only with

:07:23. > :07:29.drug addiction, but with violence and terror that was going to come

:07:29. > :07:39.out of this. Tremendous fear led to this view the criminal laws would

:07:39. > :07:47.save us. The laws raced through Congress in record time, there were

:07:47. > :07:51.no hearings held, no consultation with experts. This is something

:07:51. > :07:56.that had to be dealt with, election year fever did take hold of some

:07:56. > :07:59.people. With overwhelming support Reagan signed into law an

:07:59. > :08:08.unprecedented array of mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes,

:08:08. > :08:15.but no drug would receive harsher penalties than crack The penalties

:08:15. > :08:18.were outrageous. The acceptance of coke is widespread commonplace

:08:19. > :08:22.among professionals. Whilst were using powder cocaine in board rooms.

:08:22. > :08:32.Blacks were using crack cocaine in public housing and on the street.

:08:32. > :08:41.What is the response? I want to know why I am I am being treated

:08:41. > :08:45.like I murdered somebody. Many people, including judges, began to

:08:45. > :08:51.question the disparity in sentences between crack and powder. That's

:08:51. > :08:55.the major reason why I have agreed to be interviewed. In my view it it

:08:55. > :09:00.is not fair to have 100-1 disparity in the difference between powder

:09:00. > :09:05.cocaine and crack cocaine. Let me explain what that means. A crack

:09:05. > :09:10.defendant with 5 grams of crack cocaine is treated the same as a

:09:10. > :09:14.powder cocaine defendant with 100 times more weight, in other words

:09:14. > :09:17.500 grams of powder cocaine. I don't think most people realise

:09:17. > :09:22.this. What is the difference between powder cocaine and crack

:09:22. > :09:29.cocaine? Do you know? All crack cocaine comes from powder cocaine.

:09:29. > :09:37.The difference is you add baking soda, water and heat from an oven.

:09:37. > :09:40.That is the only difference. I run a group called Familys Against

:09:40. > :09:45.Madatory Minimums. I think what I didn't know was how hard it would

:09:45. > :09:52.be to change the laws. Julie Stewart first learned about the

:09:52. > :09:58.severity of mandatory minimums when a family member was picked up on

:09:58. > :10:08.marijuana charges. I started meeting other families who kids

:10:08. > :10:08.

:10:08. > :10:13.were in for so much longer. In her fight, Julie took her cause to the

:10:13. > :10:19.US sentencing commission where she found an unlikely ally. I was the

:10:19. > :10:22.first federal judge in the nation to search as the first chair in the

:10:22. > :10:29.sentencing commission. sentencing commission vote today

:10:29. > :10:32.make crack and powder cocaine exactly the same. Is crack

:10:32. > :10:38.dangerous, yes it is, but the commission looked at this on many

:10:38. > :10:44.occasions and found that crack cocaine is00 to 1 was unjust.

:10:44. > :10:49.can be no doubt that the sentences for crack...

:10:49. > :10:54.51% of the crack is used by the white population. In Los Angeles

:10:54. > :11:02.there has not been one white conviction. Not one. Despite the

:11:02. > :11:07.evidence presented by judges and experts, Congress was unyield.

:11:07. > :11:11.my view at least, the findings are very vulnerable. These people are

:11:11. > :11:21.killing our kids. They are disrupting society. These people

:11:21. > :11:28.

:11:28. > :11:34.I don't think people understand how crucial this is, how serious this

:11:34. > :11:38.is, what is going on. Look can at Maurice's case, he is facing a

:11:38. > :11:42.double mandatory minimum from ten years to 20 years. Does he deserve

:11:43. > :11:47.a a 20 year sentence, I don't think so. After years of concern from the

:11:47. > :11:52.bench about unfair sentencing, the Supreme Court rule judges should be

:11:52. > :11:56.given back a certain degree of discretion to determine what a fair

:11:56. > :12:02.sentence would be. Judge Bennett did something historic. I am the

:12:02. > :12:12.first judge to do a One to One sentencing ratio between crack and

:12:12. > :12:13.

:12:13. > :12:18.powder cocaine. He took it from 30 years to 18 years, but it didn't

:12:18. > :12:23.help. In Maurice's case, the justice was Trumped by the

:12:23. > :12:32.mandatory minimum. Judge Bennett's decision to use a One to One ratio

:12:32. > :12:39.turns out to be symbolic. The money mum is ten years and then with me

:12:39. > :12:43.having a prior drug felony, the minimum is 20 years, so I got a 20

:12:43. > :12:48.year sentence today. If I go round the country and see the people in

:12:48. > :12:52.jail unbelievable sentences, how did this go wrong? Well, I don't

:12:52. > :12:56.know it went wrong, it is just I guess the system worked. The system

:12:56. > :13:02.worked the way Congress planned for it to work. They are not going to

:13:03. > :13:08.come home and campaign on the fact that for more lenient sentences for

:13:08. > :13:14.drug dealers. Just the opposite. I want tough sentences for drug

:13:15. > :13:21.dealers. But whether Congress started out with race in mind or

:13:21. > :13:25.not t turns out that minorities are targeted by these mandatory

:13:25. > :13:30.minimums, 100 to one ratio more than others are and that's not good.

:13:30. > :13:35.It is interesting because African- Americans do not use crack cocaine

:13:35. > :13:39.any more than whites. Whites use it more. African-Americans Make up 13%

:13:39. > :13:44.of the population and they are 13% of the crack users. The rest of the

:13:44. > :13:54.users are white and brown, which is amazing, because 90% of the crack

:13:54. > :13:57.

:13:57. > :14:03.cocaine defendants in the federal I came back south for multiple

:14:04. > :14:09.reasons. To attend some court proceedings. Of course I am here to

:14:09. > :14:13.see my family because they are all here. Like so many people I met in

:14:13. > :14:19.the world of the drug war, Carl's story turned out to be more complex

:14:19. > :14:29.than I originally understand. After breaking ouft his past, Carl found

:14:29. > :14:35.

:14:35. > :14:42.himself drawn back into the world I found out Tobias was my son eight

:14:42. > :14:45.years ago. I was 16 when I found out. He is now 26. Nine years later

:14:45. > :14:50.I am still struggling with him because I am responsible for this

:14:50. > :14:56.person being here. But yet I had no influence on how this person was

:14:56. > :15:06.shaped. Right now, he has two charges, he has a cocaine charge.

:15:06. > :15:13.

:15:13. > :15:21.It's not encouraging. I ain't too good. You should make sure you get

:15:21. > :15:25.a small gig, I don't care what it pays. I am just afraid that you go

:15:25. > :15:35.before a judge and then they are going to say how are you getting

:15:35. > :15:35.

:15:35. > :15:39.your loot. I don't care. You can do whatever you want in life. If you

:15:39. > :15:49.have this stuff hanging over your head, you are going to be shackled

:15:49. > :16:00.

:16:00. > :16:07.by the system. Please, man, do It's difficult because I know his

:16:07. > :16:17.fate. It's the same shit we grew up with. It's cycles. Particularly in

:16:17. > :16:21.

:16:21. > :16:25.light of what I am trying to do There's a general belief that black

:16:25. > :16:29.people are using drugs disproportionate to their numbers

:16:29. > :16:35.in the population. I like to see evidence be used in

:16:35. > :16:40.our shaping of public policy. All of this was completely missed in

:16:40. > :16:44.the hysteria in the mid-80s and 90s about crack cocaine. After spending

:16:44. > :16:48.so much career studying drugs and drug laws in the black community,

:16:48. > :16:52.Carl's focus has turned to a new drug and new target for law

:16:52. > :16:57.enforcement. There is a new drug epidemic in the United States,

:16:57. > :17:01.methamphetamine, like crack, it is cheap, potent and leads addicts to

:17:01. > :17:10.serious crimes. All across America, we have got people who are trying

:17:10. > :17:16.to lure children into using meth. By the 1990s we were seeing a

:17:16. > :17:22.similar phenomena as we saw with crack co kaib. -- cocaine. The

:17:22. > :17:30.people associated with methamphetamine use are trailer

:17:30. > :17:36.parks and gay folks, two despised groups. When we think about the

:17:36. > :17:39.country's response to meth, meth users have been vilified and the

:17:39. > :17:48.reason we have to recognise it is so we can be careful or more

:17:48. > :17:58.critical than we were with crack cocaine. Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri,

:17:58. > :18:00.

:18:00. > :18:06.the heart land of the methamphetamine use.

:18:06. > :18:10.For a long time crack cocaine was the drug populating prisons. Meth

:18:10. > :18:15.has rapidly caught up with it and probably overtaken it. Today the

:18:15. > :18:20.average person I sentence at a drug case is a non-violent, blue collar

:18:20. > :18:23.worker who lost their job and then turned to manufacturing

:18:23. > :18:33.methamphetamine to support their habit and we treat them like they

:18:33. > :18:34.

:18:34. > :18:38.With their rates of incarceration rising, white inmates have start

:18:38. > :18:48.today receive the kind of harsh sentences that blacks have faced

:18:48. > :19:04.

:19:04. > :19:10.My name is Kevin Ott, I am in here for trafficking met amphetamine. I

:19:10. > :19:20.start my 14th year in a couple of months and I will be here until I

:19:20. > :19:43.

:19:43. > :19:49.die. I have life without parole for Pnchts Ifucked up, but I don't

:19:49. > :19:53.think I should die for it. I have life without parole. I will stay in

:19:53. > :19:59.prison until I die. It is a slow death sentence. I have to wait

:19:59. > :20:03.until I die. The reason I started with meth was because I got laid

:20:03. > :20:07.off. Somebody said, here, try to sell some of this and get you a

:20:07. > :20:12.little extra money. Then I started using it. Then I had to sell it to

:20:12. > :20:17.pay for it. How much is three ounces? It would fit in a small

:20:17. > :20:21.envelope. If you have been busted for two prior drug charges, smoking

:20:21. > :20:26.pot or having pot or meth, whatever it is and then you get a

:20:26. > :20:34.trafficking charge, they give you life without parole, it's mandatory,

:20:34. > :20:38.life without parole. Kevin has always been a good son. His father

:20:38. > :20:44.was drafted and was sent to Vietnam. He looks very much like a boy, he

:20:44. > :20:49.was a boy. He went to Vietnam and came home a very damaged boy. He

:20:49. > :20:54.saw people that were maimed, injured, shot and killed and I

:20:54. > :20:59.think he became addicted to heroin to help ease his personal pain.

:20:59. > :21:05.After losing Kevin's dad, Kevin stepped up and felt like he was the

:21:05. > :21:10.man of the household. When I first came in, there was only a few of us,

:21:10. > :21:15.five or six at the most. A couple of years ago I heard that there

:21:15. > :21:22.were 92 people in the state of Oklahoma that had life without

:21:22. > :21:26.parole for drugs and it keeps growing. I fought it and it's over

:21:26. > :21:31.with. It's been over with probably nine years. I took it all the way

:21:32. > :21:41.to the Supreme Court and they wouldn't hear it. So here I am,

:21:42. > :21:58.

:21:58. > :22:04.waiting for the law to change or The time I have been locked up, my

:22:04. > :22:13.mother has lost two of her brothers, one of her brothers daughters

:22:13. > :22:19.directly relate today drugs. Then my sister, my younger sister was

:22:19. > :22:29.coming to visit me in prison and died in a car wreck. It's been

:22:29. > :22:29.

:22:29. > :22:33.pretty bad for my mom. She's pretty strong. Today people have to

:22:33. > :22:38.understand the drug war is actually a war on all Americans and I think

:22:38. > :22:43.people keep saying that is about them, no, it is about you. No-one

:22:43. > :22:47.imagines when they saw somebody African-Americans getting locked up,

:22:47. > :22:51.that it would apply beyond the black community, but it does.

:22:51. > :22:57.Unemployment at 9%, America is struggling through the worst

:22:57. > :23:02.recession since... Thousands of people, job job ps and

:23:03. > :23:12.hopeless look for a way out. Before I got into drugs, I looked down on

:23:13. > :23:22.

:23:22. > :23:28.A funny thing happened on the way to the 21 century. We shrugged off

:23:28. > :23:32.so much of our manufacturing base. For the the types of jobs you could

:23:32. > :23:41.raise a family and be a meaningful citizen. We got rid of so much of

:23:41. > :23:46.that, we marginalised a lot of white people. Lo and behold, white

:23:46. > :23:49.people when they are denied meaning, denied meaningful work, they become

:23:49. > :23:55.drug addicts too and they become involved in the meth trade and

:23:55. > :23:58.start turning themselves over to the underground economies.

:23:58. > :24:02.Capitalism is fairly colour blind in the end. Our economic engine,

:24:02. > :24:07.when it doesn't need somebody, it doesn't need somebody s it doesn't

:24:07. > :24:16.give a damn who you are. White people found that out a bit later

:24:16. > :24:19.After hearing so much about the failure of the drug war and the

:24:20. > :24:24.harm it does, I wanted to understand what drives it. Far from

:24:24. > :24:28.the frontlines of the war I discovered a vast and less visible

:24:28. > :24:33.world of people who play a part. This chair in comparison to other

:24:33. > :24:43.types of restraint chairs is the most humane. The person in the

:24:43. > :24:45.

:24:45. > :24:50.chair can breathe easily and it is The war on drugs has to be a war at

:24:50. > :24:56.every level. It has to be a war on the streets of the cities. It has

:24:56. > :25:01.to be a war at the state level and has to be a war at the federal

:25:01. > :25:08.level. Before in the prisons I guess the only choice was you could

:25:08. > :25:11.get a Torah or a Bible. Things have changed now. All sorts of people

:25:11. > :25:17.get a vested interest, the financial financial interest in

:25:17. > :25:23.keeping the system going. It is a growing market, there are a lot of

:25:23. > :25:29.prisoners in the United States. That's what I mean by growing. Now

:25:29. > :25:33.you got me feeling awkward because of the camera. Put it down. We are

:25:33. > :25:37.the largest in the world as far as private prisons and jails. We are

:25:38. > :25:41.profitable, we are highly rated in the stock market. It homes your

:25:41. > :25:46.ability to do it less expensively. Because we have to earn profit.

:25:46. > :25:56.There is a whole range of corporations Taser gun

:25:56. > :25:57.

:25:57. > :26:03.manufacturers, private health care proviteders, than depend on prisons

:26:03. > :26:07.as their primary employer. these people are not try to go do

:26:07. > :26:12.anything wrong, they are trying to make society better, but their

:26:12. > :26:17.actions become part of the thrust that makes bad parts of the drug

:26:17. > :26:22.war more feasible. The question we have to ask is, why given that it

:26:22. > :26:28.seems to be a failure, why is it persisting. I am beginning to think,

:26:28. > :26:34.maybe it is a success. What if it is a success by keeping police

:26:34. > :26:38.forces busy. What if it is a success keeping legal establishing

:26:38. > :26:41.justified. Maybe it is a success on different terms than the publicly

:26:41. > :26:44.stated ones. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was people on the

:26:44. > :26:48.inside who turned out to be most aware of the dangerous pressures

:26:48. > :26:53.that outside forces exert on the system.

:26:53. > :26:56.My job is to keep the people inside who are supposed to be inside. I am

:26:56. > :27:02.going to do my job. As I have come along in corrections over the last

:27:02. > :27:07.20 years, I have watched it grow into this thing, it is almost a

:27:07. > :27:10.self-fulfilling prophecy, you build a bed, they fill the bed. It grows

:27:10. > :27:16.and grows and grows of its own accord. You almost can't stop it.

:27:16. > :27:24.You can't afford to stop it. So now you start talking about we could

:27:24. > :27:28.cut corners and reduce, if we reduce by closing that facility.

:27:28. > :27:31.You can't do that, my community will dry up and blow away. The

:27:31. > :27:35.private prisons, they actually go to a town and say if you use your

:27:35. > :27:39.tax money to buy the land and build the facility, we will rent it for

:27:39. > :27:44.you and you will get rich and we will all be rich together. That

:27:44. > :27:50.only works if there are prisoners in the bed. Now you start to find

:27:50. > :27:55.people who fit the criteria. Now it is going to grow faster. You can't

:27:55. > :27:58.let that town fail. So you can't change the way you think about

:27:59. > :28:08.locking people up. You need a new enemy? It is the same enemy, you

:28:08. > :28:15.just need more of them. Though my journey had begun with a simple

:28:15. > :28:23.question, it was forcing me to confront unsettling realities

:28:23. > :28:27.facing the country. Instead of saying let's get rid of these drug

:28:27. > :28:31.addicts and dealers and once we throw away the key on them, we will

:28:31. > :28:35.solve the problem, why not say this, all these Americans that we don't

:28:35. > :28:41.need any more, the factories are closed we don't need them, the

:28:41. > :28:45.textile mills are gone, GM is closing plants, we don't need these

:28:45. > :28:50.people, let's just get rid of the bottom 15% of the country, lock

:28:50. > :28:56.them up. Let's see if we can make money money off off locking them up.

:28:56. > :28:59.Even though it is going to destroy families, where these people are

:28:59. > :29:03.probably integral to the lives 6 other Americans, let's get rid of

:29:03. > :29:13.them. Why not just say kill the poor, if we kill the poor we are

:29:13. > :29:14.

:29:14. > :29:17.going to be better off. That is what the drug war has become. Of

:29:17. > :29:25.father was a war crimes investigator in Europe. We often

:29:25. > :29:29.talked about his experiences. I was reading the work of someone who

:29:29. > :29:35.wrol about the destruction of European Jews in the Holocaust.

:29:36. > :29:41.have long known that the process of destruction was an undertaking step

:29:42. > :29:47.by step. I realised there was a chain of destruction, what he was

:29:47. > :29:51.talking about could be expressed by links in a chain. Round-the-world

:29:51. > :29:58.in more than one society, people do the same things again and again,

:29:58. > :30:02.decade after decade. Century after century. Now this chain of

:30:02. > :30:05.destruction begins with the phase we can cull identification, in

:30:06. > :30:10.which a group of people is identified as a cause for problems

:30:10. > :30:15.of society. People start to perceive their fellow citizens as

:30:15. > :30:18.bad or evil. They used to be worthwhile people but for some

:30:18. > :30:22.reason now their lives are worthless. The second link in the

:30:22. > :30:26.chain of destruction is ostracism by which we learn how to hate these

:30:26. > :30:30.people, how to take their jobs away, how to make it harder for them to

:30:30. > :30:35.survive. People lose their place to live. Often forced into ghettos

:30:35. > :30:41.where they are physically isolated, separate from the rest of society.

:30:41. > :30:44.The third link is confiscation. People lose their rights. The laws

:30:44. > :30:49.themselves change so it's made easier for people to be on the

:30:49. > :30:53.street, patted down and searched and for their property to be

:30:53. > :30:57.confiscated. Once you start taking people's property away, you can

:30:57. > :31:01.take the people away. The fourth link is concentration. Concentrate

:31:01. > :31:05.them into facilities such as prisons, camps, people lose their

:31:05. > :31:11.rights, they can't vote any more, can't have children any more. They

:31:12. > :31:18.are exploited often. Final link in the chain of destrix is

:31:18. > :31:22.annihilation. This might be indirect with medical --

:31:22. > :31:26.withholding medical care. Or might be direct where death is inflicted,

:31:26. > :31:35.where people are deliberately killed. These steps tend to happen

:31:35. > :31:39.of their own momentum. A lot of people would be disturbed and

:31:39. > :31:45.outraged by the thought of any part of this process could be going on

:31:45. > :31:48.in America. But it wasn't until I began studying the drug war that I

:31:48. > :31:53.realised some of these same steps were happening. For instance,

:31:53. > :31:57.identification. All of us agree the greatest domestic threat facing our

:31:57. > :32:02.nation today is drugs. The way to take a problem and make it a huge

:32:02. > :32:06.problem is first you ask the wrong question and then you feed us the

:32:06. > :32:11.wrong answer. Who is responsibility? Let me tell you

:32:11. > :32:16.straight out. Everyone who uses drugs S everyone who sells trution.

:32:16. > :32:21.And everyone who looks the other way. You identify people, their

:32:21. > :32:26.characteristics, you make them other, using fear mongering as if

:32:26. > :32:31.they are the cause of our problems. These people are killing our kids.

:32:31. > :32:37.These people are wrecking our society. Secondly ostracism.

:32:37. > :32:43.Society learns to hate drug users. If you are a casual drug user, you

:32:44. > :32:48.are an accomplice to murder. apply special laws to them. These

:32:48. > :32:52.people who have been identified as drug users become criminals. If you

:32:52. > :32:57.break the law you no longer have a home in public housing.

:32:57. > :33:00.ultimate effect is isolation, being cut off from mainstream society.

:33:00. > :33:06.started out, we identify them, figure out who they are, start

:33:06. > :33:10.making laws laws to prevent them from being around our children.

:33:10. > :33:14.Where do they go. The area of the least opposition, the modern

:33:14. > :33:18.American ghetto. We manage to isolate the poor economically.

:33:18. > :33:24.force them out of the place where they can live and work be

:33:24. > :33:27.successful and now you make them criminals. Once the economics has

:33:27. > :33:37.done its business, then you can have different levels of policing,

:33:37. > :33:41.

:33:41. > :33:51.Confiscation, any property they find on you can be subjected to

:33:51. > :34:06.

:34:06. > :34:14.In the drug war, there is more that is being confiscated. It is being

:34:14. > :34:18.taken from them, all hope in the future. With the drug war we have

:34:18. > :34:22.gone as far as the concentration phase. My government says we are

:34:22. > :34:26.fighting a heroic war against drugs and the war against people who use

:34:26. > :34:29.drugs. Francsly a lot of them -- frankly a lot of them will have to

:34:29. > :34:33.be locked up. Extraordinary numbers of people are in prison because of

:34:33. > :34:42.drugs, yet it is not a place to get drug treatment. They come out and

:34:42. > :34:47.then we are surprised we have the highest re-offending rates. This

:34:47. > :34:51.concentration of people, who it is in inner city ghettos or prisons,

:34:51. > :34:55.creates a culture of hopelessness that is incredibly corrosive. When

:34:55. > :35:01.they don't have any prospects, people turn to drugs. Then we will

:35:01. > :35:04.pursue them and be able to to hire a bunch of prison guards and parole

:35:04. > :35:11.officers and drug treatment people. In the short-term some people have

:35:11. > :35:16.jobs. Annihilation, that is not happening with the drug war in this

:35:17. > :35:23.country. But there are subtle but real ways that don't involve

:35:23. > :35:33.indiscriminate mass killings, such as preventing births. Violence in

:35:33. > :35:41.

:35:41. > :35:44.prisons. People swept up in drug It is important to remember or

:35:44. > :35:48.realise that it isn't the war on drug users is the same that what

:35:48. > :35:53.happened in other societies, but they both are wars on ordinary

:35:53. > :35:58.people, people just like us. have to have an enemy for

:35:58. > :36:02.everything. The way Germany in the '30s rebuilt their infrastructure,

:36:02. > :36:06.rebuilt their industries and rebuilt their pride, their

:36:06. > :36:16.nationalism was by saying that these people, this group of people

:36:16. > :36:20.is the cause of all of our woe, if we hate them, we will be better off.

:36:20. > :36:30.We do say those people are bad for us and if we hate them, our lives

:36:30. > :36:40.

:36:40. > :36:46.will be better. Everybody has to The drug war is a hos kaus in slow

:36:46. > :36:50.motion. It is not somebody organising racial superiority or

:36:50. > :36:54.arguing for the destruction of a given race or religion. That

:36:55. > :36:59.doesn't exist. Let's be honest about what was unique to the

:36:59. > :37:04.Holocaust. But there is an incredible destruction of human

:37:04. > :37:14.life that is class-based, not race- based but class-based that is going

:37:14. > :37:21.

:37:21. > :37:26.on under the guise of a war against I know they want people to learn a

:37:26. > :37:32.lesson, but to be honest, all this time is not really helping anybody.

:37:32. > :37:37.For instance my daughter. It is making her grow up like merks the

:37:37. > :37:44.cycle is -- me, the cycle is just continuing. This is a letter

:37:44. > :37:48.written by your aunt. I just wanted you to know a bit about Maurice.

:37:48. > :37:54.When he was six months old his father was murdered. That was a sad

:37:54. > :37:58.day. My sister then began using drugs lns

:37:59. > :38:04.Of all the years I spent in narcotics, I zbnt out there every

:38:04. > :38:09.day and say let's inflict harm on the community. Unintended

:38:10. > :38:18.consequence was that we probably did inflict harm. Two young kids

:38:18. > :38:23.with the mother. Kevin has been locked up 13 years.

:38:24. > :38:28.So now we write letters and we call and we e-mail and just with a

:38:28. > :38:35.prayer that somebody will hear us. Because our day will come and I

:38:35. > :38:43.believe it will come. I don't think my son is going to die in prison.

:38:43. > :38:46.Walking away and leaving him is the hardest thing that I do. I don't

:38:46. > :38:52.know what the solution is, but I know the solution can't be more of

:38:52. > :38:56.what's got us to this spot. It can't be more of the same.

:38:56. > :39:00.America's drug problem, a result of hundreds of years of history,

:39:00. > :39:04.economic policy, social policy and misunderstanding. Let's not make

:39:04. > :39:08.the most visible manifestation of it, people being out on the street

:39:08. > :39:18.and using the problem. It is not the problem, it is the

:39:18. > :39:24.

:39:24. > :39:29.manifestation of the problem, it is You have to deal with the whole

:39:29. > :39:32.picture. After 40 years of incalculable

:39:32. > :39:37.human cost, it is hard to imagine how something so deeply rooted in

:39:37. > :39:45.American life can possibly be changed. We find ourselves as a

:39:45. > :39:47.nation in the midst of a profound have largely been ignoring at our

:39:47. > :39:51.peril. At many levels across the country there are people trying to

:39:51. > :39:54.change things. After 30 years all my colleagues who are afraid for

:39:54. > :39:59.the politics, we have to go a different way. You have never had

:39:59. > :40:06.so many people on the same side of this issue, we fought a war and

:40:06. > :40:09.have been unsuccessful. How do we prevent people from becoming drug

:40:09. > :40:13.addicts. Too many people in jail that don't need to be there. There

:40:13. > :40:16.is a lot that is not working. recent months, under increasing

:40:16. > :40:20.public pressure, the first signs have emerged that the drug war

:40:20. > :40:24.after decades of failure and unsustainable cost may be changing.

:40:24. > :40:29.Congress took action today to fix what many have called a very unfair

:40:29. > :40:34.gap in federal sentencing rules for crack cocaine as opposed to powder

:40:34. > :40:44.cocaine. President Obama signed a law at the White House today

:40:44. > :40:44.

:40:44. > :40:47.cutting the aish yo to 18--- ratio to 18-1. Despite a few first steps,

:40:47. > :40:53.those experienced with criminal justice know it will take more than

:40:53. > :40:57.experts, activists and a handful of law makers to undo the damage

:40:57. > :41:02.decades of drug laws have caused. The political infrastructure is so

:41:02. > :41:05.wedded to the status quo, they are so consumed with the next election,

:41:05. > :41:15.there will never emerge a shred of leadership that will change the

:41:15. > :41:17.situation. It is up to us. longer can drug laws serve as a

:41:17. > :41:23.stimulus package for prison communities on the back of poor

:41:23. > :41:28.people. We don't need to wait until we get consensus. We need to do

:41:28. > :41:32.what is like. If there are people who are sentencing experts that are

:41:32. > :41:37.supposed to tell Congress and the public what the right thing to do

:41:37. > :41:43.is, I just urge you to do it. believe it is in the interest of

:41:43. > :41:49.every American that we thoroughly examine our entire criminal justice

:41:49. > :41:57.system. You need to care about the person down the the block. If you

:41:57. > :42:01.let their rights be compromised, your rights are compromised.

:42:02. > :42:06.anything ever going to be done about this. It's going to have to

:42:06. > :42:11.come from the people out there. We can't do it from in here. Do you

:42:11. > :42:21.know what it is like to go home at night knowing that did you a

:42:21. > :42:32.

:42:32. > :42:39.personal injustice. I did an Back in 2008 when I began filming,

:42:39. > :42:43.despite the excitement of the election of Barack Obama, the

:42:43. > :42:48.thoughts of Nannie Jeter stayed with me. I feel I cheated myself

:42:48. > :42:52.out of what I could have accomplished. I never knew I wanted

:42:52. > :43:00.to be in politics, to be a voice for someone to say what was wrong,

:43:00. > :43:06.whether it changed or not, but to make known it was wrong. I have

:43:06. > :43:15.learnt so much and I tried to tell it to other people. But it's like

:43:15. > :43:19.people are going down the same road you went down before they learn.

:43:19. > :43:26.You make mistakes through life. Mistakes are always there. You make

:43:26. > :43:31.a lot of mistakes with your life. But when you somehow blow your kids