The Defund the Police Movement is Coming for the DEA

Critics say the Drug Enforcement Administration has fueled mass incarceration and is a “100 percent failure” at curbing drug trafficking. Sociology professor Alex S. Vitale is unambiguous in his assessment of the Drug Enforcement Administration and its stated mission of reducing drug trafficking in the United States: “They have been a 100 percent failure by any measure you can think of.” Vitale, coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and the author of The End of Policing, said the DEA hasn’t saved any lives, nor has it made drugs less available. “Anybody in America can get any kind of drugs they want,” Vitale said.

The idea of defunding the police has become more mainstream in recent months, as part of the wider discussion around police brutality towards Black people stemming from the police killing of George Floyd. So far, the focus has largely been on local police forces rather than federal law enforcement agencies. But drug and police reform advocates believe dismantling the DEA, which they say is responsible for carrying out a discriminatory war on drugs, should be a priority. In June, a group of 76 former DEA agents put out a statement decrying systemic racism within the agency. Last week, the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization that advocates for ending prohibition, announced a framework for decriminalizing possession of all drugs federally. One of the major tenets of the policy is taking away the DEA’s authority to classify drugs under the Controlled Substance Act and giving that power instead to the National Institutes of Health. More broadly, the Drug Policy Alliance argues drugs fall under the jurisdiction of public health authorities rather than law enforcement.

“The DEA has been completely ineffective at stemming the flow of the drugs. We have more people dying of accidental overdoses than we ever have before,” said Matt Sutton, spokesman for the Drug Policy Alliance. Preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows 2019 was the deadliest year in U.S. history for overdoses, with nearly 71,000 deaths. Even so, the DEA received more than $3.1 billion this fiscal year, and is on track to get even more money next year.

In an email statement, Sean Mitchell, acting chief of DEA media relations, said the DEA is the “only U.S. law enforcement component that possesses the authorities and capabilities to disrupt and dismantle the most prolific drug trafficking organizations domestically and across the globe.”

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https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dyzkvq/the-defund-the-police-movement-is-coming-for-the-drug-enforcement-administration