Texas’ drug policy exposes challenges to ending ‘War on Drugs’

Legislative developments outline the challenges Texas will face in ending the war on drugs and other policies that contribute to systemic racism, according to a policy brief from Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

During Texas’ 87th legislative session, Gov. Greg Abbott actively worked against concerns about police brutality and racism, said Katharine Neill Harris, the Alfred C. Glassell, III, Fellow in Drug Policy at the Baker Institute.

Abbott and others neglected the governor’s own idea for the George Floyd Act and opposed even “modest proposals to improve the justice system and prioritized legislation that further harms the very communities he claimed to support,” she argues.

“Texas officials, by doubling down on law-and-order politics and dismissing pleas to address the harms caused by a punitive and unequal justice system, put cynical political calculations ahead of effective and responsive governance,” Harris continues. “This failure of leadership is not simply a product of the current administration’s callous ideology, though Abbott and (Lt. Gov. Dan) Patrick are at the forefront of a larger political phenomenon that Adam Serwer, a staff writer at The Atlantic, calls the ‘politics of cruelty.’”

According to Harris, the war on drugs is not just a series of policies, but an ideology – and systemic change will take more than incremental policy changes.

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“As we chip away with policy change, we simultaneously should have an entirely different conversation about drugs that takes place outside of the stale and false presumption that the criminal justice system should have a primary role in drug policy,” she writes.

As far back as 2014, a Pew Research Center poll found that two-thirds of Americans favored treatment over incarceration for people who use drugs like heroin and cocaine. According to Harris, there is broad support for relaxing drug laws — except among a small group of voters.

“In Texas, where turnout is below the national average, just 10% or so of registered voters participate in Republican primaries,” she writes. “This is why, when it comes to issues like cannabis reform, even though roughly 87% of Texans support some relaxation of marijuana laws, the 13% who think cannabis should stay prohibited are the ones whose opinions count most.”

Harris argues that drug-use policies should focus on reducing harm, not abstinence. Harm reduction includes public health options, as opposed to incarceration.

“Instead of a zero-tolerance approach that reveres abstinence, we must accept that the use of mind-altering substances is, for many, part of the human experience and cannot be eradicated,” she argues. “If we start with this premise, we can better educate ourselves about the pharmacological risks of various drugs and the societal conditions that contribute to problematic use and addiction.

“Despite (harm reduction’s) proven track record in public health policy, visible in everything from requiring seat belts to promoting safe sex, harm reduction as an approach to drug use has often been dismissed as too radical or controversial. This is changing,” she continues.

The Biden administration recognizes harm reduction in its drug policy priorities statement, but most Americans live where police and prohibition are the dominant response to drug use.

“So, until it gains broad acceptance, the Baker Institute Drug Policy Program and many, many others will continue to promote harm reduction — because without fundamental changes in how we understand and talk about drug use, the drug war will linger, as will the possibility of its revival by elected officials seeking power,” Harris writes.

“There is extensive documentation of how the drug war fails to curb drug supply and demand, of how it compounds racism in the justice system and society, of how it causes violence and chaos in Mexico and South America, and of how it wastes trillions of taxpayer dollars,” she continues. “To a certain brand of conservative politician, these facts do not matter. Lawmakers who oppose reform know the harms caused by the drug war and either do not care or want them to continue — to quote (Adam) Serwer, ‘the cruelty is the point.’”