empirical evidence is frequently ignored when drug policy is formulated. - Carl Hart

while in England, I got quite an education about American racism. In England, they have programs on a regular basis like the U.S. PBS series Eyes on the Prize. And I learned a lot about the U.S. sort of civil rights movement and history while in England. And the British were not bashful in their criticism of American racism.

the first priority of law enforcement should be to keep users safe, not to arrest them.

I wrote a piece in The New York Times in August where I pointed out that this isn’t new. Even with crack, there were white—more white users, and those white users got treatment, whereas the brothers and sisters, black brothers and sisters, went to jail. The same sort of thing is happening in this case. Eighty percent of the people who are being currently arrested for the opioids are black and Latino, even though they don’t use those drugs at rates higher than their white brothers and sisters. And so, this is just the American pattern of dealing with drugs. It’s not new. And we continue the same thing. So I’m asking people: let’s not get crazy; let’s just focus on the real problems.