Let’s Celebrate Freedom When Drugs Are Decriminalized (at the Least)

Today, we celebrate America’s 241st birthday. As many would say, we are celebrating freedom. Freedom and liberty and democracy--all the things that make America great (again?). But, while white, educated, middle-to-upper class adults enjoy fireworks, BBQ, and drinking themselves into a dazed but legal stupor, we need to pause and take a moment to reflect on the things that make America not-so-great. Like, say, the criminalization of drug use, which through the perpetuation of the Drug War, has ravished communities and proliferated the opioid epidemic. America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, and drug laws are...