The Drug War
On Monday this week I was invited to speak on a panel about the proposed "Ithaca Plan", put forward by the Mayor's office in the city of Ithaca. This is a comprehensive proposal to treat a drug epidemic in our county which claimed 3 lives over Mother's Day weekend this year.
It was a meeting which ran from 12:30-4:30 (My involvement was about an hour long.) I sat on a panel with a clergyman from Chicago who leads a national movement of Clergy for Drug Renewal, and a former District Attorney from Washington D.C. who also campaigns for drug law reform.
Here are 2 things that I shared that I think are worth passing on to you:
My motivation to speak out - One is the nature of God. The God of the Bible is revealed as a God on the side of the poor, marginalized and rejected. Constantly choosing the younger and weaker to accomplish his purposes. Another motivation is the nature of humanity. Human beings are created in the image of God and because of that fact both deserve respect and love. The tragedy is we have dehumanized addicts and therefore devalued them as well.
An IV drug user has as much human worth as an Ivy League college professor.
Secondly, It is hard to see people who are far away from you. When someone is close to you, you can see them more clearly. Most middle and upper middle class people have never been close enough to speak to a street involved drug addict. Therefore, they have not actually seen them very well. The same is true of drug treatment programs - we simply have not seen them personally in action. It is easy to reject something whose impact you have never seen before.
Upon further reflection, I think we need both enforcement and treatment. Without law enforcement, we do not really have a society any more. Our communities would devolve into anarchic inhuman places. We need laws and men and women who will enforce such laws. And we need places of confinement for those who refuse to obey said laws.
But, we also need treatment. Prison itself cannot reform a heroin addict. The addict needs medical treatment, mental and emotional counseling, love, care and support to deal with the underlying trauma and pain that prompted the initial entry into the eventual prison cell of addiction.
And in treatment, in love, care and compassion is where the church can enter in. Where is the addict go to learn how to re-enter society? If convicted of a felony, many of them cannot get jobs, vote or live in certain areas. It is to these discarded human beings that the church can reach out in love, say their names and partner with God to help them see themselves as human beings once again.
Narcotics have wreaked the most harm in our society than anything else and it is a time for the church to engage this issue head on. 125 people will die of an overdose in America today.
The call to Israel that Moses shared is the same call the church today must embrace:
Life and death is set before us - we must choose life, so that we and our children will live.
It was a meeting which ran from 12:30-4:30 (My involvement was about an hour long.) I sat on a panel with a clergyman from Chicago who leads a national movement of Clergy for Drug Renewal, and a former District Attorney from Washington D.C. who also campaigns for drug law reform.
Here are 2 things that I shared that I think are worth passing on to you:
My motivation to speak out - One is the nature of God. The God of the Bible is revealed as a God on the side of the poor, marginalized and rejected. Constantly choosing the younger and weaker to accomplish his purposes. Another motivation is the nature of humanity. Human beings are created in the image of God and because of that fact both deserve respect and love. The tragedy is we have dehumanized addicts and therefore devalued them as well.
An IV drug user has as much human worth as an Ivy League college professor.
Secondly, It is hard to see people who are far away from you. When someone is close to you, you can see them more clearly. Most middle and upper middle class people have never been close enough to speak to a street involved drug addict. Therefore, they have not actually seen them very well. The same is true of drug treatment programs - we simply have not seen them personally in action. It is easy to reject something whose impact you have never seen before.
Upon further reflection, I think we need both enforcement and treatment. Without law enforcement, we do not really have a society any more. Our communities would devolve into anarchic inhuman places. We need laws and men and women who will enforce such laws. And we need places of confinement for those who refuse to obey said laws.
But, we also need treatment. Prison itself cannot reform a heroin addict. The addict needs medical treatment, mental and emotional counseling, love, care and support to deal with the underlying trauma and pain that prompted the initial entry into the eventual prison cell of addiction.
And in treatment, in love, care and compassion is where the church can enter in. Where is the addict go to learn how to re-enter society? If convicted of a felony, many of them cannot get jobs, vote or live in certain areas. It is to these discarded human beings that the church can reach out in love, say their names and partner with God to help them see themselves as human beings once again.
Narcotics have wreaked the most harm in our society than anything else and it is a time for the church to engage this issue head on. 125 people will die of an overdose in America today.
The call to Israel that Moses shared is the same call the church today must embrace:
Life and death is set before us - we must choose life, so that we and our children will live.
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