From: Christic Institute <christic@igc.org>
Subject: CHURCHES CONDEMN 'WAR ON DRUGS'
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:48:24 GMT

/* Written 12:44 pm  Apr  8, 1992 by christic in cdp:christic.news */
/* ---------- "CHURCHES CONDEMN `WAR ON DRUGS'" ---------- */
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CAUSES AND CURES: CHURCHES CONDEMN FAILURE OF `WAR ON DRUGS'

By ANDY LANG
Christic Institute, Washington, D.C., March 10, 1992

``Two years and $20 billion since President Bush declared a `War on
Drugs,' addiction to illegal drugs in the United States has
increased by 30 percent. Clearly, the Administration's War on Drugs
has failed.''

With these words the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of
the National Council of Churches, expressed the anger of thousands
of Americans who gathered in more than 100 cities on Nov. 9 for
``Causes and Cures,'' a nationally televised town meeting on the
drug crisis.

The 45-million member N.C.C. is one of 50 national churches and
public-interest organizations represented in the Causes and Cures
coalition. More than 500 local civic organizations, peace and
justice centers, drug treatment programs, religious congregations,
labor unions and town governments are also active in the coalition.

Sara Nelson, executive director of the Christic Institute, says the
national town meeting was the first project of a new national
movement which will educate, organize and mobilize communities
around the country to fight the drug epidemic in the United States.
The Institute--a national interfaith center for public-interest
research and advocacy--organized the Causes and Cures coalition.

[For more information on the coalition, an action handbook for
anti-drug activists, and a resource catalogue of videos, books and
fact sheets available from the Institute, please contact the
Christic Institute at one of the e-mail addresses posted below, or
look for separate articles in this series. Please note: the Causes
and Cures catalogue includes resources on the linkage between
covert operations and the drug trade.]

The Causes and Cures teleconference was carried live by satellite
from the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City to local
conferences in every region of the country. In Los Angeles, San
Francisco and other cities, local organizers assembled panels of
drug-treatment professionals, recovering addicts, journalists,
scholars, politicians, community activists and law-enforcement
officials to debate both the causes of the drug crisis and the
cures--alternatives to the Bush Administration's failed War on
Drugs. 

``We have several hours of serious work before us,'' the Rev. James
Forbes, senior minister of the Riverside Church in New York City,
told the national town meeting in its opening session. ``By the end
of the day, with the help of experts and activists assembled here
in New York City and across the nation, we will have begun to
formulate an action plan for 1992. But more important, we will have
begun to recognize each other as allies in a citizens' movement
that must grow and grow until our nation is cured--cured not only
of the drug epidemic but also of the sickness of racial and
economic injustice upon which the drug trade feeds.''

Drug-treatment specialists, former drug enforcement officials and
other experts testifying at the conference said the
Administration's drug war has failed for three reasons:

--> Drug lords on three continents have used their relationship
with the Central Intelligence Agency to increase their power and
expand into new markets. 

--> In drug-producing countries, the Administration's ``war''
centers on military campaigns against coca and opium crops and
their growers, but ignores the poverty and social injustice that
drive peasants into the drug trade. 

--> At home, the Administration's ``war'' finances police campaigns
in inner-city neighborhoods and long prison terms for drug users
and small-time dealers, while tens of millions of addicts are
turned away from underfunded drug treatment centers--including more
than a quarter of a million pregnant women.

The national satellite debate on the failure of the
Administration's policy was the first step of the Causes and Cures
campaign. At the teleconference, community leaders and religious
activists agreed to support an action plan to press for alternative
policies including: 

(1) breaking cooperative relationships between traffickers and the
C.I.A., (2) supporting alternative development policies for third-
world economies and (3) funding treatment and prevention programs
nationwide.

The heart of the national Causes and Cures coalition is organized
religion--17 denominations representing every Christian tradition
in the United States: Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox
and Pentecostal. Leaders in the Jewish and Muslim communities are
also active in the coalition.

The Ven. Michael Kendall, an archdeacon in the Episcopal Church,
explained why organized religion must play a role in the drug
crisis and other pressing social issues. ``The social, moral and
economic breakdown of our society is a crisis for democracy and
reflects the failure of government to `promote the general welfare'
and the failure of the media to report the truth,'' he said.
``Religious congregations in America--Christian, Jewish and Muslim
--can be alternative communities of conscience that act not on the
basis of self-interest but from a passion for social justice.''

African American churches are playing a key role in the coalition.
``The drug crisis continues to devastate our community and could
affect us for generations to come,'' said Leon West, director of
the National Anti-Drug Campaign of the Congress of National Black
Churches.

Also well represented in the coalition are women's organizations in
religious denominations and other national women's groups. ``Drugs
are killing our children and mortgaging our future as a
civilization,'' said Dr. Marilyn Breitling, executive director of
the United Church of Christ Coordinating Center for Women in Church
and Society, and a member of the Causes and Cures national board.
``Women must find a way to end the madness. We support the Causes
and Cures campaign as a strategy for our time.''

                             *   *   *

The three Causes and Cures Task Force reports--on covert
operations, drug demand in the U.S. and drug supply overseas--are
available in one volume for $7 from the Christic Institute. The
collection is entitled _Policy Report_. Citations are included. The
one-hour Teleconference Highlights videotape includes testimony by
former D.E.A. agents on drug traffickers protected by their
relationship with the C.I.A. It is available for $25 in VHS format.
For a complete catalogue of books, magazines and videos on covert
operations, drug trafficking, addiction and treatment, please use
one of the e-mail addresses posted below or write us at the
following address:

                     Causes and Cures Campaign
                        Christic Institute
                  1324 North Capitol Street, N.W.
                      Washington, D.C. 20002
                          (202) 797-8106

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Lang              151251507 CHRISTIC                   telex
Christic Institute       christic                          PeaceNet
Washington, D.C.         christic@igc.org                  Internet
202-797-8106 voice       uunet!pyramid!cdp!christic            UUCP
202-462-5138 fax         cdp!christic%labrea@stanford        Bitnet
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive