nations office on drugs and crime has just released its $2900.00 world drug report the annual study analyzes trends in drug use and abuse looking at supply and demand for opiates cocaine cannabis and found a means and new psychoactive substances the biggest take away from the report is the global scale of the problem some 35000000 people around the world suffer from substance abuse that s 4 and a half 1000000 more than predicted. well the u.n. experts say much of that rise was due to spikes in india and nigeria both carried out new surveys providing more accurate information on drug dependency in those countries well the report also showed that the global manufacture of cocaine has reached an all time high much for coming from south america it s up around 25
sufficient. we need to radically redefine what are appropriate punishments for a broad range of crimes. what should be the purpose of prison for the less serious crimes? i don t think if people if people are not a threat to public safety i don t think we should think of jail or prison. we don t need to spend the kind of money that incarceration costs to manage that population. if we think of drug dependency as a health issue rather than a crime issue, for less money, not only can we keep them out of jails and prisons but help them recover. i represented people for serving life without parole for writing a bad check, stealing a bike, a slice of pizza. those are functions of mandatory sentencing laws. all of that i think we can eliminate. we have to deal with other problems. we have 50% of the people in jails and prisons that suffer from mental illness. 20% are acutely mentally ill. with we need to come up for
i don t think if people if people are not a threat to public safety i don t think we should think of jail or prison. we don t need to spend the kind of money that incarceration costs to manage that population. if we think of drug dependency as a health issue rather than a crime issue, for less money, not only can we keep them out of jails and prisons but help them recover. i represented people for serving life without parole for writing a bad check, stealing a bike, a slice of pizza. those are functions of mandatory sentencing laws. all of that i think we can eliminate. we have to deal with other problems. we have 50% of the people in jails and prisons that suffer from mental illness. 20% are acutely mentally ill. with we need to come up for solutions of helping them that do not involve jails and prisons. children, we began to demonize children, calling them super predators in the 80s and sent thousands to prison that created
we don t need to spend the kind of money that incarceration costs to manage that population. if we think of drug dependency as a health issue rather than a crime issue, for less money, not only can we keep them out of jails and prisons but help them recover. i represented people for serving life without parole for writing a bad check, stealing a bike, a slice of pizza. those are functions of mandatory sentencing laws. all of that i think we can eliminate. we have to deal with other problems. we have 50% of the people in jails and prisons that suffer from mental illness. 20% are acutely mentally ill. with we need to come up for solutions of helping them that do not involve jails and prisons. children, we began to demonize children, calling them super predators in the 80s and sent thousands to prison that created a lifetime of criminality for them. that s something else we can do. if we look at what are
they ve seen people get killed. they have seen family members get locked up, so they re already broken, already people who have gone through so much, and then when they get in trouble, they end up back in that same system and so we need to find ways that are better you have to figure out how to get to these at-risk kids before they become incarcerated. exactly. so i spent so much time focusing on schools and i still do. we focus on helping make sure that teachers that are doing great a great job are getting their solutions funded and getting their work seen around the country so that we improve our schools, improve the instruction quality that we have for the kids. make sure that the resources they need are there. may sure if they have emotional traumas that they ve gone through that we offer support for them. but it s also important that for the kids that slip through the cracks who all these interventions haven t gotten to yet that we find solutions that aren t always all abo