President Barack Obama is saying no to the war on drugs, as a part of his approach to treat drug abuse as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice matter. Interestingly, when the nation’s long-running war against drugs was defined by the crack epidemic and impoverished, predominantly black urban areas, the public response was defined by calls to be tough on crime, zero tolerance and stiff prison sentences.
Now that heroin use has skyrocketed among whites; nearly 90 percent of those who tried heroin for the first time in the last decade were white, the country’s approach to drugs are changing. White families are using their power and influence to alter the language around addiction and prodding government to treat it not as a crime, but as a disease.
