The Progressive Jewish Alliance believes that the current direction of drug policy in the United States, with its emphasis on interdiction and punishment instead of public education and effective treatment for addicts, is fundamentally misguided, if not flawed.

The "War on Drugs" has failed and has led to the incarceration of thousands upon thousands of nonviolent drug offenders and the compromising of our civil liberties without successfully stemming the flow of illegal drugs or preventing addiction.

PJA's concerns about drug policy are grounded in two principles of Jewish legal thought. On the one hand, a central goal of Halakhic jurisprudence is tshuvah. Repentance or tshuvah (literally "returning [from evil]) is understood as a process of religious and psychological development that is integral to the judicial system. (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, 2: 2-5.)

Second, public policy in Jewish Law requires mitigating public policy to reflect the notion that neither the community nor any individual should cause another to sin. This is based on Leviticus 19:14 "and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind," understood by the Rabbis and codified by Maimonides as the principle of not making one's fellow a criminal or forcing one's fellow to do a criminal act. (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Murder and the Preservation of Life, 13:14)

We are therefore, as an organization, committed to the following policy positions:

• Redirecting the bulk of government funding for drug policy away from interdiction and punishment toward public education and effective drug treatment;
• Decriminalizing marijuana and reclassifying it as a legal, taxed, and regulated substance in the manner of alcohol; and, consistent with this, removing obstacles to the proper use of medications for the treatment of pain and terminal disease;
• Repealing mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses and ending incarceration for simple drug possession;
• Restoring constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures;
• Reforming criminal justice strategies to eliminate racial discrimination in investigation, prosecution, and sentencing;
• Reforming forfeiture laws to eliminate abuses in that area;
• Supporting public health strategies, notably needle exchange and other harm reduction programs, to help protect drug users and their families against HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, and other infectious diseases;
• Supporting comprehensive and demonstrably effective substance abuse education and prevention programs and ending support for ineffective programs;
• Increasing the availability of methadone and other effective drug treatments;
• Curtailing drug testing not related to detecting impairment;
• Increasing public funding to make drug treatment available as needed in the nation's prisons and jails

 
We applaud the passage of Prop 36 in the state of California, which mandates diversionary treatment instead of incarceration for first and second time offenders convicted of drug possession. This must be the first step in a comprehensive policy program which must include appropriate testing, adequate and readily accessible treatment facilities, individual and family counseling and job training and placement. 

We further applaud steps taken in the Jewish community to deal with the problem of drug addiction and substance abuse more generally. We recommend long-range planning to address facility personnel and financial support for treatment and prevention programs within the Jewish community, and we recommend that we join in coalition with other communities with similar reform agendas.