Institute for Policy Studies Drug Policy Project

New Summer 2007 -- IPS Video and Speaker Series: Intersections in the War On Drugs

This page does not contain more recent Drug Policy work. For the latest, please e-mail Sanho Tree, Director of IPS' Drug Policy program

May-June 2003 -- The War at Home Our jails overflow with nonviolent drug offenders. Have we reached the point where the drug war causes more harm than the drugs themselves? By Sanho Tree in Sojourners

May 17, 2002 -- Drug Policy Fellow Sanho Tree's speech at the Baker Institute's Moving Beyond the "War on Drugs" conference, April 10-11, 2002, is now available on streaming video. His presentation begins 23 minutes into the video clip. Other presenters' speechs are available here.

The IPS Drug Policy Project advocates for reform by reaching out to non-traditional allies and employing innovative tactics to promote a sustainable, constitutional, and humane drug control policy. The project's mission is to help foster a paradigm shift by replacing the punitive and coercive "social control" model of drug policy with a public health and community economic development model. By encouraging an interdisciplinary discussion of the myriad factors contributing to our social ills, we try to advance policies that address the root causes of the drug problem (such as decaying school systems, lack of inner city and rural jobs, shortage of affordable housing, lack of health care, and social alienation) rather than scapegoating the symptoms (addicts, street corner dealers, overseas peasant drug growers, etc.).

The IPS Drug Policy Project seeks to promote holistic alternatives that address race and poverty as an integral element of drug policy. Internationally, the project examines the social impact of exporting the US drug war overseas. From military "counternarcotics" aid for repressive regimes, to the environmental devastation caused by eradication and fumigation policies, the project highlights the consequences of such programs on the poor and disenfranchised. Domestically, the project works to reform national drug policies in Washington, but it also has local projects in Los Angeles and Baltimore. In Los Angeles, the project sponsored a "Citizens' Fact-Finding Commission on US Drug Policy" that held public hearings in May 1999. The Commissioners examined the social costs of current drug policy, explored government corruption and complicity around the drug war, and promoted sustainable alternatives. In Baltimore, the project works with grassroots activists and community-based organizations to explore the intersection of race and poverty in the so-called "Drug War" – an unwinnable, unjust, and irrational quagmire taking its greatest toll on the most disenfranchised segments of our citizenry. Under the current policies of prohibition, whenever extreme poverty is placed next to the (perceived) riches of the drug trade, the predictable outcome is an unconscionable flow of less-privileged citizens into the criminal "justice" system. These lives are not squandered by necessity, but by political choice and accompanying neglect. We aim to disrupt both.

The Drug Policy Project is directed by Sanho Tree. If you would like more information, contact Sanho at 202/234-9382 ext. 266 (e-mail to stree@igc.org) or write to him at:

    Institute for Policy Studies
    Drug Policy Project
    1112 16th St. NW
    Suite 600
    Washington, DC 20010