'We Should Be Committed to Decriminalizing If We Want to Help Communities of Color'

Janine Jackson

Janine Jackson interviewed the Drug Policy Alliance’s Maritza Perez about the war on drugs and overpolicing for the June 12, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

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Janine Jackson: As Derek Chauvin crushed the life out of George Floyd, one of his colleagues said to appalled onlookers, “Don't do drugs, kids.” The police who broke into Breonna Taylor's home and killed her say their no-knock warrant was related to drugs.

US law enforcement can be violent and racist even without the so-called war on drugs, but it often provides pretext for their actions, and reading that a victim of police brutality was “on drugs” can put an asterisk on the story for many. Understanding the use of the war on drugs should be part of our general understanding of law enforcement's war on black and brown people.

Maritza Perez is director of the office of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. She joins us now by phone from Washington, DC. Welcome to CounterSpin, Maritza Perez.

MP: Hi, thanks for having me.

JJ: Let's get right into it. Drug Policy Alliance released a statement this week on the new piece of police reform legislation in Congress, the Justice in Policing Act. How much do you think the act, as is, would do—in reality, on the ground—and what won't it do that's still needed?

MP: So first, we'll start off by saying that the act does have some really good elements to it; the first time that we would have legislation around creating a national use-of-force standard, also around data collection; the first time we would have a national database keeping track of police misconduct, also use-of-force incidents. There are other things in there, like banning chokeholds, which is great. So there are things in the bill that are good, but the bill is still lacking in areas, specifically in areas that are related to the drug war, which is why we haven't been able to fully support the bill.

On one hand, we definitely appreciate that Congress is taking a hard look at police reform. This is one of those areas in Congress that is always really, really hard to move on, for a number of reasons. So the fact that they even have a bill, a comprehensive bill at that, is a feat. But we also think that this moment and this opportunity requires something that is much bolder.

Breonna Taylor

So some things that we have specifically said that we need to change about the bill are around the war on drugs. For instance, the bill does provide a ban on no-knock warrants, which, as you said in the segment before this interview, that's what happened in Breonna Taylor's case. She was shot while she was sleeping in her own bed. The officers who came to her home had a search warrant in the form of a no-knock warrant, which means that they didn't have to notify Breonna that they were on the premises, didn't have to notify folks about their intent before ramming into the home.

No-knock warrants are actually really prevalent. Thousands are issued every year. It's actually really easy to get sign-off from a judge on a no-knock warrant. Usually they're used in the context of drugs, so the officers will just have to say that, “We think that if we give notice, our lives will be in danger," or "people will dispose of the evidence, or the drugs." So it's very rare that a judge will not sign off on a no-knock warrant. And they’re often used in SWAT deployments, which just makes it even more deadly, and it's certainly a deadly combination.

So the bill does prohibit no-knock warrants. However, it doesn't also prohibit quick-knock warrants, which are legally slightly different from the no-knock warrant, but in practice, it's the same thing: It's the police officers barging into your home before you have any idea of what's happening, before you can respond, before you have time to react, and this is what leads to deadly incidents.

Because this practice is not just deadly for civilians, although it is definitely more deadly for civilians than police officers. But it also affects law enforcement, because officers have lost their lives using these types of warrants. Why? Because if somebody barges into your home, your first thought is going to be that it's somebody trying to break in. So you might try to retaliate.

So we think it's very important, especially in drug cases, that officers announce their presence, and give the occupants time to answer their door, to avoid death. So one thing that we've been pushing for with this bill is to include quick-knock warrants in the prohibition around no-knock warrants.

Militarized SWAT team at Ferguson protests (cc photo: Jamelle Bouie)

Something else that we think is missing from the bill is the fact that this bill attempts to reform the Department of Defense's 1033 program. The 1033 program is a program that's been around for approximately 30 years at this point. It allows the Department of Defense to transfer military-grade equipment to local and state police departments.

I think the public really became aware of this program around the time of the Michael Brown protests in Ferguson. I think people were really just astonished to see that local law enforcement had access to things like tanks, riot gear, the types of things that you think you would see in a war zone, not in a community or in a neighborhood.

But the reason that law enforcement has this is because over the years, this program has allowed billions—more than $7 billion worth of equipment—to get transferred to local and state departments.

This program is also notorious for being mismanaged. In fact, a couple of years ago, the Government Accountability Office conducted a report and review of the program. And they actually created a fake law enforcement agency, and were able to get military-grade equipment from the program, pretending to be this nonexistent law enforcement agency. So that just kind of paints a picture of how little-managed and how little oversight there is of this program, which is scary because, again, it's military equipment going into the hands of police officers, and who knows who else.

The bill does include reform around the program, but we don't think reform is enough. We think that the program needs to be abolished. One reason that law enforcement can make a case for getting this equipment is saying that they are conducting counter-narcotics investigations. The bill would take that piece out, but law enforcement would still be able to get the equipment through other ways, including saying that they are conducting counterterrorism investigations; that could be another way to get this equipment.

Our concern is that the equipment would still go to them, and it would still be used against people, and that's what we don't want. And I do want to point out that military equipment, and no-knock warrants, are super tied. I mentioned before that no-knock warrants are often used in conjunction with SWAT raids. The police will often use quick-knock, no-knock warrants during SWAT deployments, specifically during drug investigations, disproportionately against people of color in drug investigations. So we really think that reform won’t save the program; the program needs to be done away with. We just need to put an end to militarized policing.

Maritza Perez: "I think this bill really does fail to imagine what public safety could look like. That's our biggest problem with it. They're not listening to people on the ground."

And then lastly, what we think the bill fails to do is just really reimagine what public safety can look like. It's still relying on federal funding to encourage police officers and law enforcement to do the right thing. It’s still saying, “Well, if you do these things, if you implement these policies, we won't take away your funding.” But, ultimately, it's still diverting resources to law enforcement. And, in fact, there are other areas within the bill that give law enforcement money to implement some of these rules. It's not just being used as a stick, saying, “Well, we'll take your money if you don't do this.” It's also like, “We'll give you money so you can do X, Y and Z.”

And I think that Congress really needs to listen to people on the ground, who are saying now is the time where we need to divest from law enforcement and invest in our communities, invest in things that actually create public safety and create safe communities, things like quality education, things like jobs and living wages, things like safe and affordable housing, things like harm reduction.

If we're talking about people who use drugs, I think a better investment would be in harm reduction services, and programs for people who really need them; that would save lives. That would reduce violence.

I think this bill really does fail to imagine what public safety could look like. That's our biggest problem with it. They're not listening to people on the ground. And we're trying to just help Congress think through what people are actually asking. They're not saying, “Fund police” right now. In fact, they're saying the opposite. They're saying, “Invest in our communities.” This bill doesn't go far enough.

So unfortunately, as the bill currently is written, we cannot throw our support behind it. We hope that in the coming days, Congress gets the bill to a place where we could support it, because, like I said, there are a lot of good things in the bill. There are some good things in there, and Congress hasn't acted on police reform in quite some time. So this is a really great opportunity, but we think they should seize the moment and really push for something bold. The moment today requires bold action, and this bill is just not it.

JJ: Let me ask you, also: I think that some people think, “Well, cannabis is legal now. Is the war on drugs really still happening?” I think they imagine there's been a sea change in that. When you're answering how the war on drugs fits in the overall picture of police racism and of overpolicing, how do you explain it to people? Like that it's still going on; just because you can go to the dispensary and get some pot doesn't mean that people are not still being policed and harmed by law enforcement under the guise of a war on drugs.

MP: I think that's one reason that we actually have, for a long time, been saying that we need to think beyond marijuana legalization, and we need to think about all drug decriminalization. Because as long as we criminalize things that are low-level, one, and then things that a lot of people turn to for survival, for example, drug selling or sex work—those are things that some people do just to survive. And as long as those things remain criminalized, it's giving police cover to go after black and brown people for things that are crimes on the books, even though they may not be harming anybody, even though the crime may not be a threat to public safety.

The fact is that we would have criminal laws on the books, and a number of criminal laws will always disproportionately hurt minority communities, people of color, because we feel the brunt of police enforcement. So we need to chip away at all of those things; really, we need to ask ourselves, “Is this actually something that needs to be criminalized, that will actually endanger public safety?” And if the answer is that it won't, then we should take it off the books, because we need to make sure that they don't have excuses to continue to harass and target our communities, because it's just going to continue to happen.

Marijuana dispensary, Eugene, Oregon (cc photo: Rick Obst)

I think what you said earlier about marijuana being legalized, you can go to a dispensary—I think, unfortunately, people just have different experiences in America based on your skin color. I think if you're white and you don't experience police harassment, you might think marijuana legalization did it, right? I can go get my weed from a store and things are fine, nobody's harassing me.

But data says something different. Even if you look at states that have legalized marijuana, the people who are still being disproportionately arrested for marijuana activity, the people who are still being cited, are black and brown people, the people who feel the brunt of all police enforcement.

So I think we should all just be committed to just decriminalizing things, getting things off the books, if we really want to help communities of color. But also, we just need to rethink law enforcement. I mean, do we really think it's a good use of taxpayer resources to throw somebody in jail, or give somebody a life record, for smoking marijuana, something that's legal in most states at this point? So it's a good question, and something that we should reconsider. I think policing is a good start, but I think we also just need to continue to chip away at criminal justice, and have a conversation about criminal justice reform.

JJ: We've been speaking with Maritza Perez of the Drug Policy Alliance. You can follow their work online at DrugPolicy.org. Thank you so much, Maritza Perez, for joining us on CounterSpin.

MP: Thank you for having me.