... of Research and Academic Engagement Drug Policy Alliance MELISSA MOORE Director, Civil Systems Reform Drug Policy Alliance Introduction Since President Richard Nixon launched the contemporary war on drugs fty years ago, decision-makers have responded to people who use drugs with punishment, racial pro ling...

...-quality drug-conviction and sentencing data enable sentencing commissions and legislatures to act decisively on the basis of reason and not anecdotes. Commissions can play a vital role in understanding the decades-old war on drugs and charting a path for the future. This article provides an overview...

... the flaws in five key aspects of the Standard Story: its argument that the War on Drugs is of central importance, that trends in violent and property crimes are relatively unimportant, that longer sentence lengths drive growth, that the “criminal justice system” is a fairly coherent entity advancing...