Cory Booker Feels The War On Drugs Is Ineffective

By Latifah Muhammad

Cory Booker is still upset with the on-going war on drugs, one which he feels is a losing battle. In a post on the forum Reddit.com, the Newark, N.J. mayor slammed the federal government for failing to regulate drug use in America.  “The so called War on Drugs has not succeeded in making significant reductions in drug use, drug arrests or violence,” he wrote. “We are pouring huge amounts of our public resources into this current effort that are bleeding our public treasury and unnecessarily undermining human potential.

“I see the BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars being poured into the criminal justice system here in New Jersey and it represents big overgrown government at its worst. We should be investing dollars in programs and strategies that work not just to lower crime but work to empower lives.”

In keeping in line with his previous comments about New Jersey’s drug policy unfairly targeting Black men, Booker outlined the pivotal mistakes that the state continues to make. “My police in Newark are involved in an almost ridiculous game of arresting the same people over and over again and when you talk to these men they have little belief that there is help or hope for them to break out of this cycle. And it is a dangerous world for people caught up in the drug trade for it is so associated with violence.” Booker also pinpointed what the city of Newark has done to put a dent in disappointing statistics, which found that over 80 percent of those murdered in the city had been arrested an average of 10 times prior to being killed.

The Democratic mayor is known to be outspoken about several issues, and recently fended off criticism for blasting President Obama’s attack on Mitt Romney, over his tenure with Bain Capital.

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