Drug Policy Forum of Illinois

ISU Student Group Recommends Drug Policy Reform

Mobilizing Activists and Students for Hemp, a student group at Illinois State University, recently presented a report to the ISU's state-wide Economic Development Policy Conference. The report contained specific recommendations for Illinois' new Governor, Rod Blagoyevich, in his Herculean task of closing the state's $5 billion budget deficit. The recommendations call for comrehensive drug policy reform including de-prioritizing non-violent drug crime, studying industrial hemp and considering medical cannabis as a means of addressing high prescription drug costs.

The report, titled "A Report to the Illinois Economic Development Policy Conference on the Economic Impact of Policies Relating to The Cannabis Plant and Drug Prohibition," is available at:

http://war.thelivingcanvas.com/EconomicReport.html

Focus on Illinois

Nowhere in America is the war on drugs more keenly focused on African-Americans and Hispanics than in Illinois. A quick look at our Illinois Drug War Facts shows that:

Illinois leads the nation in racially disproportionate drug sentencing;
Hispanics have been racially profiled by ISP drug interdiction officers;
the automatic transfer of juvelile drug offenders to adult court falls almost exclusively on minority youths.

All this despite the fact that involvement with illegal drugs breaks down fairly evenly along racial lines and the great majority of those involved are white.

Illinoisians soon will be confronted by the reality that continuing this war on minorities is purchased at the expense of schools for our children, affordable prescription drugs for our seniors, and tax relief for wage-earners and homeowners.

The Drug Policy Forum of Illinois is dedicated to informing the public about alternatives to the war on drugs. We're pointing the way toward harm reduction strategies that address the problem of drug abuse without injury to the general welfare.