NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – A new report about the drug war in New Jersey says there are way too many people in jail and not enough investment in public health services.
The state has spent more than $11 billion over the last decade on drug arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations, according to a report by Jenna Mellor, with the NJ Harm Reduction Coalition.
Mellor said it hasn’t resulted in any positive change.
“People have not reduced substance use. Overdose deaths have not declined. We are not safer and our quality of life is not higher because of the drug war,” Mellor said.
Her report—titled “A War on Us: How Much New Jersey Spends Enforcing the War on Drugs”—shines a light on public health services, like harm reduction, which Mellor said should be heavily invested in.
“It asks, ‘What do you need right now? What would be helpful?’ And if that is housing. If that is access to new syringes. If that is evidence-based drug treatment. If that is support with a phone or reconnecting with a family member. That is what a harm reduction program will support you with,” Mellor said.
She said a myth about harm reduction is that lawmakers thought it would make people use drugs more. CDC research has debunked that.
Mellor also suggests decriminalizing all drug use, which she said worked in Portugal.
“There was no increased drug use for young people, and there was an 80% decline in overdose deaths,” she said.
A lot of it has to do with equity, Mellor said. White people are as likely to use and sell drugs as people of color, but Black people are arrested at more than double the rate of white people.