Substance Misuse Deemed Public Health Crisis
December 2, 2016
11/30/16 – The US surgeon general recently declared substance misuse a public health crisis that “must be treated with skill, urgency and compassion.” This new approach, commented The Atlantic, could “profoundly impact the criminal-justice system, where addicts often end up.” As part of a series of articles on mass incarceration in the United States, Issues has also examined the impact of drug policies, noting, among other things, that intensified enforcement of drug laws has “contributed not only to overall high rates of incarceration, but also especially to extraordinary rates of incarceration of African Americans and Hispanics, who now comprise more than half of our prisoners.”