Drug War Kills Our Kids and Teens

The propaganda: We wage this war to protect our children.

The devastating and deadly facts:

      Kids and teens have become collateral damage in this grossly failed war.

     *The death and devastation begins on kids before they are even born. Because mothers on drugs are afraid to go to doctors for fear of being arrested or having their babies taken away from them, their fetuses have higher incidences of birth defects, prematurity, and miscarriages. The drugs don't cause these problems; it's the lack of prenatal care

     *Kids placed in foster care when their parents are incarcerated for drug use have four times the death rate of kids left with their parents. 

       *We have deprived millions of children and teenagers of their imprisoned parent(s).

       *Our adult murder rate is four times higher than in the Netherlands where drugs are regulated, controlled, taxed, despite having six times their adult incarceration rate. Much worse, this drug war has created an obscene teenage murder rate that's nineteen times higher than in the Netherlands, where drugs are legally available to everyone over eighteen.

       *The drug war has turned a million of our teenagers into drug dealers, many in deadly drug gangs that have four times the death rate of Texas death row prisoners.

       *We have more teens selling drugs than the rest of the world combined. Why? The tough Rockefeller drug laws provided for mandatory five year sentences for anyone over 18 involved in drugs. The result: drug dealers got 16 and 17 year olds to sell drugs for them and we created the teen drug market. Just another of the many unintended consequences of the drug war.

       *Only 50 percent of high school students graduate in our ten biggest cities and only 40 per cent graduate in NYC, Baltimore and Detroit. In the Netherlands 92 percent graduate; that's No Child Left Behind!