AIDS, addiction, violence and corruption are ravaging our cities. Instead of humanitarian solutions, public officials offer us only more violence in the form of prison for adults, boot camps for teens and psychiatric intervention and forced medication for children.

America's "War on Drugs" has failed because it treats drug control as a criminal justice issue for the police instead of a public health issue for medical personnel.

It is time to do away with the police and military forces and the massive prison industry, that, like a domestic cold war, take the place of jobs, housing and health care. Drug users are human, and as such should be treated with dignity and given a role in the policies that affect their lives.

This crisis requires immediate and decisive action, from the highest levels of government to the smallest local communities. We propose creating peace by shifting "War on Drugs" funding from law enforcement to a three pronged harm reduction approach.

OUR GOALS:
1- Legalize possession and over-the-counter sale of hypodermic syringes to reduce the spread of infectious disease.

2- Fund and Fast-track medical research to make realistic and non-coercive drug treatments available on demand.

3- Separate "soft" and "hard" drugs but decriminalize all personal use - including up to six cannabis plants to ensure medical access.

CURES not WARS was founded in New York in May 1994 as a grassroots response to the deteriorating quality of life in America. We are a coalition of concerned citizens, drug-reform activists, health-care and drug-treatment providers, drug users and social-justice activists committed to direct national actions toward the legalization or marijuana.