Jay Z says the war on drugs is an epic fail

'Why are white men poised to get rich doing the same thing African-Americans have been going to prison for?'

(Reuters)

Jay Z is calling the US government’s war on drugs an "epic fail".

Beyoncé's husband recently collaborated with filmmaker Dream Hampton, illustrator and Vice editor Molly Crabapple and the Drug Policy Alliance for a video essay critical of the decades-long policy.

The four-minute video for The New York Times argues that the government’s global fight against drugs has caused mass incarceration and unfairly targeted people of colour.

Jay is a former drug dealer-turned-rapper-turned-business mogul so the collaboration makes sense given his status as one of the most recognizable voices amongst black Americans.

He describes how the war started with President Richard Nixon in 1971, when the role of federal drug control agencies increased and mandatory prison sentences were imposed.

As Jay puts it, Ronald Reagan doubled-down on the effort in 1982, by declaring illicit drugs a threat to national security. “Young men like me became the sole villain and drug addicts ‘lacked moral fortitude,’” Jay says, before blaming the world’s second largest prison population on the war on drugs.

The video comes at a time when politicians, analysts and activists are highly critical of the war on drugs. The Obama administration has previously called the effort counterproductive, and The Brookings Institute condemned the punishment model as a burden on taxpayers, with little opportunity for prisoners to access drug treatments.

Jay also questions the punishment of drug dealers in the present, while states such as Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington have legalised marijuana. The 45-year-old asks, "Why are white men poised to get rich doing the same thing African-Americans have been going to prison for?"

"Venture capitalists migrate to [states where weed is legal] to open multibillion dollar operations, but former felons can't open a dispensary," he continues. "Lots of times, those felonies were drug charges caught by poor people who sold drugs for a living but are now prohibited from participating in one of the fastest-growing economies."

The short has already drawn praise from political circles, most notably, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who tweeted his support. “Jay Z is right,” he said on Twitter. “We have to end the war on drugs.”

However, there are signs that the authorities' strategy is changing. This year is the first since 1980 in which the White House plans to spend more money on research and treatment than law enforcement initiatives.

By the end of the video, Jay concludes that it’s time to rethink our policies and laws since the rate of drug use is virtually the same as it was when the so-called war on drugs began.