5 Reasons Why This Week Was Historic for Ending America's War on Drugs and Cruel Incarceration Policies

Stop-and-frisk is ruled unconstitutional and Sanjay Gupta changes his opinion about marijuana on national TV.

It happened at a dizzying pace. One big victory for the drug and prison reform community after another. The Attorney General addressed our massive prison problem, the DEA continues to be scrutinized for its shady law enforcement tactics, a federal judge ruled the NYPD's stop-and-frisk tactic unconstitutional, a major media personality admitted he was wrong about marijuana's health risks, and New York City's Comptroller released a report explaining why marijuana should be legalized.

All of this is great news for advocates of sensible drug policy, civil rights, privacy rights, and prison reform.

1. Eric Holder Gets "Smarter On Crime"
On Monday, US Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in which he announced a major shift in criminal justice policy aimed at addressing unfairness in the justice system. Although the US has only 5 percent of the world's population, it has 25 percent of its prisoners. Almost half of federal inmates are serving time on drug charges. "The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old," Holder told NPR earlier this month. "There has been a lot of unintended consequences. There's been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color."

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