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Rethinking the “Drug Dealer” We are the Drug Policy Alliance and we envision new drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. Please join us. Copyright © December 2019 The report and more information can Drug Policy Alliance be found on the Drug Policy Alliance website: drugpolicy.org/drugsellers All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 4 Recommendations 7 Introduction 9 Looking Ahead: Legal Regulation of Drugs 11 Aron Tuff’s Story 12 Four Common Myths about Drug Selling and Distribution 17 Drug-Induced Homicide and the Overdose Crisis 21 “Offender Function” According to the United States Sentencing Commission 24 Caswick Naverro’s Story 27 How Many People are Incarcerated for Drug Selling or Distribution, and Where? 28 What Does the Current System of Criminalization Look Like? 33 Louise Vincent’s Story 36 Who is Most Harshly Criminalized by Selling and Distribution Laws? 39 Miguel Perez Jr.’s Story 45 Rethinking the Criminalization of People Involved in Drug Selling or Distribution 42 Corvain Cooper’s Story 50 Kenneth Mack’s Story 55 Where to Begin 58 Looking Ahead: Key Questions for Reformers 61 Endnotes Executive Summary Policymakers in the United States increasingly were not involved in selling at all. Politicians and prosecutors recognize that drug use should be treated as a who say they want a public health approach to drug use, but public health issue instead of a criminal issue. harsh criminal penalties for anyone who sells, are in many Most, however, continue to support harsh criminal cases calling for the imprisonment and non-imprisonment of sentences for people who are involved with drug the very same people.8 selling or distribution. Many imagine these people are “predators” or “pushers” who force drugs on the Beyond being merely ineffective, the harsh criminalization of vulnerable, contributing to addiction, overdose and supply-side drug market activity may actually make drug use violent crime.1 more dangerous, increasing overdose deaths and leading to more violence in communities. Law enforcement crackdowns With more than 68,000 people in the U.S. dying from on drug trafficking may incentivize the introduction of accidental drug overdose in 2018 alone,2 many people are more potent, riskier drugs such as fentanyl – a synthetic searching for someone to blame. Pointing the finger at people opioid 30 to 50 times as potent as heroin9 – into the drug who sell drugs is, in some ways, a natural emotional response supply.10 Aggressive prosecution of people who sell drugs to loss of this magnitude. It is also consistent with decades may undermine 911 Good Samaritan laws, making it less of drug policies based on the assumption that people who likely that people will call 911 at the scene of an overdose.11 sell or distribute drugs are responsible for causing drug use. Indiscriminately putting people who sell drugs in prison also Politicians of all stripes have argued that long sentences for means removing trusted sellers from communities, forcing drug sellers will reduce drug availability and make remaining users to buy from people they don’t know and making an drugs more expensive, driving down demand. But this is not already unregulated and unpredictable drug supply even less how drug markets actually work.3 predictable.12 Imprisoning people who sell drugs does not reduce the drug The relationship between drug markets and violence is supply, increase drug prices, or prevent drug use. As Mark complicated. In some contexts, drug prohibition has fueled Kleiman, a highly-regarded drug policy expert, has explained, organized crime and been associated with horrific violence “We did the experiment. In 1980, we had about 15,000 and corruption.13 But drug markets are much more diverse people behind bars for drug dealing. And now we have about than stereotypes suggest: many of them experience little or 450,000 people behind bars for drug dealing. And the prices no serious violence, while many markets that sometimes do of all major drugs are down dramatically. So if the question is experience violence operate relatively nonviolently most of the do longer sentences lead to higher drug prices and therefore time.14 Law enforcement crackdowns may actually increase less drug consumption, the answer is no.”4 When a person violence in these markets by disrupting the interpersonal who sells drugs is imprisoned, they are inevitably replaced relationships and territorial agreements that keep some drug by a new recruit or by remaining sellers, as long as demand markets operating smoothly.15 remains unaffected.5 A Maryland police officer once described arresting drug sellers as “playing whack-a-mole” and “banging While different individuals who work on the supply side your head against a wall,” because they can be so efficiently of the drug economy have differing goals, priorities and replaced.6 knowledge levels about drug safety and harm reduction, there is evidence that some people who sell drugs take steps to Framing people who sell drugs as perpetrators and people ensure that their clients stay as safe as possible.16 Some people who use drugs as victims is also misguided because there is who use drugs report high levels of trust in the people from extensive overlap between these two groups. A 2012 survey whom they buy, although in an unregulated drug market even found that 43% of people who reported selling drugs in the most ethical drug sellers have limited ability to know the the past year also reported that they met the criteria for a composition of the product they are selling.17 substance use disorder.7 In addition, laws against drug selling are so broadly written that it is easy for people caught with The current system of supply-side criminalization drugs for personal use to get charged as dealers, even if they disproportionately impacts people at the lowest levels of drug 2 Rethinking the “Drug Dealer” supplying hierarchies. Available data suggest that the vast majority of people in prison for drug selling or distribution are not high-level suppliers or “kingpins”18 and have no history of violent conduct.19 The current system also has a discriminatory impact on communities of color,20 despite the fact that the available data suggest that white people are slightly more likely than either Black or Latinx people to report having sold drugs.21 Our current approach to people who sell or distribute drugs in the United States does not reduce the harms of drug use or improve public safety. It is built on a foundation of stigma, ignorance and fear rather than evidence, and creates new problems while doing nothing to solve those that already exist. The Drug Policy Alliance believes it is time to rethink the “drug dealer”. We must urgently assess what type of people actually fall into this category and how we as a society can respond to them in ways that will keep people and communities safer and healthier. Despite the challenges of discussing supply-side drug policy reform in the midst of an overdose crisis, we cannot be silent while policymakers repeat the discriminatory, ineffective, expensive and dangerous mistakes of the past. “I served my time. I should go back home.” — Miguel Perez Jr. (Read his story on p. 39) www.drugpolicy.org 3 Recommendations Our recommendations are based on three broad principles. Prosecutors should decline to prosecute certain selling- and First, to the maximum extent possible, society should deal distribution-related offenses altogether, such as: sharing or with drug-involvement outside the destructive apparatus of giving away drugs for free; subsistence selling; selling by criminalization – and to the extent that the criminal justice people who are struggling to control their own drug use; drug- system continues to focus on drug selling and distribution, it induced homicide charges; and conspiracy charges against must do so with a commitment to proportionality and due low-level actors in drug supplying hierarchies. They should process. Second, we should focus on reducing the harms of also stop prosecuting the family members of people who drug distribution (for example, reducing drug market-related sell drugs for conduct that does not constitute substantive violence), rather than attempting to eliminate drug market involvement in drug selling or distribution, such as witnessing activity. Third, we must take seriously the criminal justice drug transactions or taking phone messages related to drug system’s discriminatory response to the drug trade, and work selling. toward reforms that both repair the harm already done while preventing further harm to communities of color and poor For local, state and federal policymakers: communities. Policymakers should urgently reform all criminal laws and sentencing guidelines that result in disproportionate There are many steps that police, prosecutors, policymakers, punishments for people convicted of drug selling- or service providers, researchers, advocates, journalists and other distribution-related law violations. This includes reforming cultural influencers can take to mitigate some of the worst criminal history sentencing enhancements, expanding safety aspects of the current system. People who are or have been valve provisions, and eliminating mandatory minimum involved in drug selling or distribution must be included from sentences. They should also repeal drug-induced homicide start to finish in developing these reforms. laws. In jurisdictions that specify weight thresholds for possession, lawmakers should review and revise these Below is the beginning of a reform agenda – a series of thresholds to ensure they reflect the amount of a drug that incremental measures that advocates can start pursuing people who use drugs could be reasonably expected to possess, immediately. But beyond these steps, we must rethink the way thus minimizing the number of people who possess drugs we approach drug selling- and distribution-related activity solely for personal use who are punished for drug selling or on a more fundamental level.

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