What is your chosen crime or violence issue? Choose from the following list and provide a brief preliminary overview.
Answer:
Background
Drug Sense is an advocacy group that opposes the criminal prohibition of drugs. The group is concerned that the police have arrested more individuals for possessing drugs than any other crime in United States. The group highlights that it is wrong to arrest an individual for possessing drugs for their own use.
Aim
The main aim of Drug Sense is to advocate for the replacement of the existing criminal justice structure with a public one that will support personal drug use.
Objectives
The major objective of Drug Sense is to offer technical services for drug policy institutions and empowers their workers to manage and share resources and information. Also, the group keeps the reform society and the public involved in the collective mission of ending drug prohibition.
Targets
Drug Sense targets those individuals that are having sentences for crimes of possessing drugs. The group states that prosecution for drug possession can limit individuals from getting welfare assistance or even the voting booth. The impacts of arresting, prosecuting and charging individuals for personal drug use are disturbing. Moreover, most individuals are arrested and prosecuted for small amounts of drugs. In some cases the amount can be so small that the laboratory cannot weigh it.
Preliminary Position Statement
As the research assistant of drug sense, it is important that we involve the media to enhance awareness about our objectives, aims and mission of ending drug prohibition. The Media Awareness Project (MAP) and Drug News Archive will encourage media activism and a drug policy research instrument.
Stereotypes
The research conducted by Drug Sense shows that, although white and black individuals use drugs at equal levels, a black individual is 2.5 times more possibly to be caught possessing drugs. Therefore, Drug sense supports and protects the rights of persons and communities discriminated by the United States drug laws and policies
References
Félix, S., & Portugal, P. (2017). Drug decriminalization and the price of illicit drugs. International Journal of Drug Policy, 39, 121-129.
Taylor, S., Buchanan, J., & Ayres, T. (2016). Prohibition, privilege and the drug apartheid: The failure of drug policy reform to address the underlying fallacies of drug prohibition. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 16(4), 452-469.
