Being smarter about the "Drug War" defunds police the right way.
We're not going to get anywhere by "directly" calling for defunding police. It's a loser politically and, more importantly, will be ineffective. Deal with the root cause of the disease, not the symptoms. Defund bad policing "indirectly." Change our base approach to managing the perils and temptations of drug misuse and a host of problems would evaporate, including the present police brutality problem.
If you want to defund bad policing, you have to do it by legislating and funding better approaches to drug abuse's risks and damage. You have to lessen the harm and increase the health. Legislation is fundamentally important. Bad approaches and good approaches without payrolls and legislation behind them have one thing in common. They die.
Unfortunately, policing the Drug War is the easy money, the gravy train, and the recruiting bait of bad policing. If we just cut police funding, PDs and unions will drain police brainpower first in an effort to keep bulk jobs in the drug war "field." The whole criminal justice system will just reorganize to prioritize easy money over hard. Prosecutors will do more plea bargaining. Prisons will keep imprisoning. Republicans will make hay. Every single unsolved murder will be the result of "liberal" police budget cuts.
The Drug War started because of racism and Republican politics. It now feeds racism and Republican politics. We need to vote out every single last Republican right down to the dogcatcher. Then stop bad things by displacing them with good things.
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