Nicole Robinson

When Ethan Nadelmann asked the crowd in Zorn Arena Tuesday night to raise their hand if they had ever used drugs, it was clear he was speaking about an issue that hit home with his audience.

Nadelmann, the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, discussed his views on the war on drugs in a speech titled “Building a Political Movement to End the War on Drugs.”

He lashed out at the current execution of the war on drugs and called for an end to what he said he views as an impractical and politically motivated attempt to combat drug use.

“What we know is that the war on drugs has not worked,” Nadelmann said. “It has failed in all sorts of ways.”

He explained that drug criminalization historically has been based on racism.

This process of policy formation has left us with drug laws that simply don’t make sense, Nadelmann said.

Now, because of those laws, too many people are having their lives ruined through incarceration or the stigma attached to drug offenses, he said.

“We have a law on the books now which has resulted in the arrest of roughly 15 to 20 million people in the last 40 years,” Nadelmann said.

He went on to state that about 700,000 people were arrested in each of the last four years as a result of marijuana criminalization.

“We’re stuck with a law that has its origins in racial prejudice and ignorance,” Nadelmann said.

He said he believes the reason no changes have been made to these laws is that people don’t know any other way, and they fear a change would put children at risk.

This, Nadelmann said, represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the effects the war on drugs has had on the accessibility of drugs to children.

“Who in America has the best access to marijuana? The kids,” he said.

Nadelmann said the fundamental flaw with drug laws is that they discriminate against certain drugs and ignore the dangers of others.

“When we deal with addictions to (alcohol, prescription drugs), we say people should go to AA or treatment,” Nadelmann said. “We don’t punish those people until they get behind the wheel of a car and hurt somebody.”

In contrast, Nadelmann said people with addictions to illegal drugs who are in need of similar assistance are sent to prison.

“We’re going to criminalize a disease?” he asked.

Right now, 2.2 million people are in prison in America, Nadelmann said. That’s 20 percent of the world’s population of inmates from a country that represents five percent of the world’s population.

Senior Steve Kruger said he thought Nadelmann’s rationale was worthwhile for students in attendance to hear.

“I think that a lot of kids don’t hear the responsible side of things,” he said. “They only hear the irrational or radical side of things.”

Nadelmann called for an aggressive citizens movement to end the war on drugs and to start acting more sensibly in drug policy.

“If every single person in this room wrote the governor … that would have a revolutionary effect,” he said.

The movement Nadelmann called for already has begun with groups like his Drug Policy Alliance.

“We play a pivotal leading role,” he said. “We are the national connect-the-dots organization.”

He stressed the movement went across political lines, encompassing people on both sides of the aisle.

“It’s across the political spectrum,” Nadelmann said. “Because when you’re talking about freedom, it’s not just a left issue or a right issue.”

As he concluded his speech, the crowd voiced their appreciation with two lengthy applauses and a standing ovation.

Senior Ben Koser, who attended the forum, said he found Nadelmann’s presentation useful.

“I thought he had a lot of good points,” he said.

Ultimately, Nadelmann’s point boiled down to the issue of personal freedom.

“Nobody deserves to be punished simply for what you put in your body,” he said.

Nadelmann’s presentation was the third in this year’s forum series. The next speaker is Angela Davis, a social activist who will discuss the prison-industrial complex in American society on Feb. 7.