0:00:03.311,0:00:05.848
They're drug addicts, and they end up selling sex

0:00:05.848,0:00:07.819
and the way he got them to come with him ...

0:00:07.819,0:00:10.055
He had cash and drugs with him.

0:00:10.055,0:00:12.554
There was a serial killer operating

0:00:12.554,0:00:15.084
The police wouldn't say that these women were missing,

0:00:15.084,0:00:19.484
and they didn't want to ever investigate them as unsolved murders.

0:00:19.484,0:00:23.099
It took them from 1997 to 2001 to actually arrest him.

0:00:23.099,0:00:27.448
What's coming out in the trial now is that the police knew

0:00:27.448,0:00:31.245
his name, they had witnesses saying that they had seen women go there,

0:00:31.245,0:00:34.799
and they wouldn't act on it, they wouldn't put a warning out to the

0:00:34.799,0:00:38.727
women and they wouldn't go and arrest him or get a search warrant.

0:00:38.727,0:00:42.943
The police never solved the crime, it was solved by this girl's stepmother.

0:00:42.943,0:00:45.906
She was going to the farm and climbing the fence

0:00:45.906,0:00:49.316
and looking for her daughter's body, or any of the ...

0:00:49.316,0:00:51.361
cuz they knew waht had happened,

0:00:51.361,0:00:53.651
and the police still wouldn't go and arrest the guy.

0:00:53.651,0:00:55.735
One woman escaped in 1997.

0:00:55.735,0:00:59.831
She was naked with a handcuff on one hand, she ran to the highway,

0:00:59.831,0:01:02.698
and someone stopped their car and drove her to emergency.

0:01:02.698,0:01:06.065
And he was taken to emergency as well, because he was injured.

0:01:06.065,0:01:09.867
And they were in rooms next to each other,

0:01:09.867,0:01:17.772
and they took the handcuff key out of his pocket, and took the handcuff off her wrist.

0:01:17.772,0:01:20.157
They charged him, and they let him go.

0:01:20.157,0:01:23.592
They stayed the charges and did not follow through with the charge,

0:01:23.592,0:01:25.797
because she's a drug user.

0:01:25.797,0:01:28.508
She's (an) unreliable witness.

0:01:28.508,0:01:32.647
And he said, to an undercover police officer,

0:01:32.647,0:02:02.954
that he had killed 49 women.

0:02:02.954,0:02:05.531
People feel that it's important to maintain

0:02:05.531,0:02:10.315
a stigma around drug use, as a means of discouraging drug use.

0:02:10.315,0:02:13.088
And there may be some truth to that.

0:02:13.088,0:02:16.497
On the other hand, for all those who end up using drugs,

0:02:16.497,0:02:19.316
they end up being far worse off

0:02:19.316,0:02:22.256
because of the stigma that comes with the drug war

0:02:22.256,0:02:24.249
with the demonization of drug users.

0:02:24.249,0:02:27.002
Most drug use is non-problematical

0:02:27.002,0:02:29.237
and recreational.

0:02:29.237,0:02:34.103
Most drug users are not patients, they're just ordinary citizens.

0:02:34.103,0:02:36.994
We're talking about 20% of the European population,

0:02:36.994,0:02:40.561
talking about lifetime prevalence, that's one in five people!

0:02:40.561,0:02:45.063
There are studies that show how the average citizen forms their opinion

0:02:45.063,0:02:50.943
about drug problems and addiction, and what they think should be done about drug addiction.

0:02:50.943,0:02:54.765
is from the Public Service Announcments that come from governments,

0:02:54.765,0:02:59.898
which are really intended to create a lot of stigma towards drug users.

0:02:59.898,0:03:03.115
And that's what allows governments to get elected,

0:03:03.115,0:03:06.549
you know, promising these tough love approaches to deal with drugs,

0:03:06.549,0:03:12.651
despite the fact that at the end of the day, it just wastes taxpayer's dollars and leads to more suffering.

0:03:12.651,0:03:15.482
There are far more people that use drugs

0:03:15.482,0:03:20.217
that look very different than what is depicted on TV.

0:03:20.217,0:03:23.873
"I did meth for the first time, now all I do is meth!"

0:03:23.873,0:03:24.857
All I do is meth ...

0:03:24.857,0:03:26.678
-You did it.[br]-Oh, this is yours.

0:03:26.678,0:03:28.224
We're gonna be shooting up together,

0:03:28.224,0:03:29.891
steal together, sleeping together ....

0:03:29.891,0:03:33.446
(Screams) ... Don't do it ...

0:03:33.446,0:03:34.828
Don't do it!

0:03:34.828,0:03:37.382
The stigma is when someone judges

0:03:37.382,0:03:40.891
another person, based not on his personality,

0:03:40.891,0:03:43.992
or not on relations with this person,

0:03:43.992,0:03:47.337
but based on some label that is attached to this person.

0:03:47.337,0:03:50.787
It's an inability to see us in our complexity,

0:03:50.787,0:03:52.291
in our diversity,

0:03:52.291,0:03:56.045
because there's a desire to think that we are all the same,

0:03:56.045,0:03:59.741
and that we can all be cured or changed,

0:03:59.741,0:04:04.771
or managed or rescued through simple solutions.

0:04:04.771,0:04:07.913
The reality is that drug use is very complicated.

0:04:07.913,0:04:10.082
It has many different routes,

0:04:10.082,0:04:13.015
has very many different pathways and experiences,

0:04:13.015,0:04:21.539
and we are a diverse and rich community.

0:04:21.539,0:04:25.628
Drug based stigma justifies ...

0:04:25.628,0:04:28.447
The shooting that was down in the streets, by the police,

0:04:28.447,0:04:30.544
It shows up as fear.

0:04:30.544,0:04:32.659
It shows up as isolation.

0:04:32.659,0:04:35.217
It shows up as shame.

0:04:35.217,0:04:37.477
You know, and silence. And neglect.

0:04:37.477,0:04:40.185
And as a result, people are not coming out

0:04:40.185,0:04:44.458
with what they need because they're hiding.

0:04:44.458,0:04:46.039
If you go into a hospital, and if I'm not a drug user,

0:04:46.039,0:04:48.414
They go, "Ok, we'll take an xray,"

0:04:48.414,0:04:50.262
"We'll give you a cast, da-da-da-da (etc),"

0:04:50.262,0:04:52.426
But if I'm a drug user and they know I'm a drug user,

0:04:52.426,0:04:55.018
then they go, "Oh, you're probably just drug-seeking."

0:04:55.018,0:04:57.881
So you're not going to get care for another two hours.

0:04:57.881,0:05:00.898
And I've seen people wait in hospital rooms hours-and-hours-and-hours,

0:05:00.898,0:05:11.561
and literally their arm is broken, you can see the bone.

0:05:11.561,0:05:14.164
In the US, the first drug prohibition laws,

0:05:14.164,0:05:16.054
with opium were about Chinese,

0:05:16.054,0:05:17.866
with concaine were about blacks,

0:05:17.866,0:05:20.128
with marijuana were about Mexican-Americans.

0:05:20.128,0:05:22.374
If you look in China, Australia, Canada,

0:05:22.374,0:05:24.167
anti-Chinese sentiment.

0:05:24.167,0:05:26.904
So these fears have always played a roll.

0:05:26.904,0:05:29.589
The impact of the war on drugs tends to be

0:05:29.589,0:05:32.456
felt most keenly

0:05:32.456,0:05:35.468
amongst already marginalized and vulnerable groups,

0:05:35.468,0:05:38.765
because they tend to be the ones who are on the receiving end

0:05:38.765,0:05:40.063
of enforcement efforts.

0:05:40.063,0:05:45.061
For police, they're rewarded

0:05:45.061,0:05:48.342
for the number of arrests they make,

0:05:48.342,0:05:51.062
So, they go to the places where it's easier to make an arrest,

0:05:51.062,0:05:55.538
where drug consumption is more likely to occur in a public setting,

0:05:55.538,0:05:58.009
and where you can find drug users a little bit easier.

0:05:58.009,0:06:01.188
And so they target minority communities.

0:06:01.188,0:06:03.559
We now have more than 2 million people in prison,

0:06:03.559,0:06:06.639
more than 5 million people under criminal justice supervision

0:06:06.639,0:06:08.625
on any given day in our country.

0:06:08.625,0:06:12.268
And about a quarter of them are there for non-violent drug offenses.

0:06:12.268,0:06:15.217
And the overwhelming majority of them are poeple of color.

0:06:15.217,0:06:18.066
Almost 1% of the African-American male population

0:06:18.066,0:06:21.604
is put into prison every single year for drug use.

0:06:21.604,0:06:24.332
And this is despite the fact that

0:06:24.332,0:06:27.771
African-Americans use drugs at about the same rate

0:06:27.771,0:06:29.438
as other populations in the US.

0:06:29.438,0:06:33.038
To find more racist laws than the implementation

0:06:33.038,0:06:37.227
of the war on drugs, you would literally have to go back to slavery, in my country.

0:06:37.227,0:06:39.983
You have African-American men who are incarcerated,

0:06:39.983,0:06:44.367
who can't vote, just like their fathers who could not vote

0:06:44.367,0:06:45.976
during the Jim Crow era,

0:06:45.976,0:06:49.243
and just like their grandfathers who could not vote during slavery.

0:06:49.243,0:06:53.513
It's turned into as clear a measure of social control

0:06:53.513,0:06:57.224
than we've seen for any other problem

0:06:57.224,0:06:59.603
in our history, I think in our country.

0:06:59.603,0:07:02.697
We have felonized individuals for drug crimes,

0:07:02.697,0:07:07.362
and the felony conviction stay with them once they leave prison.

0:07:07.362,0:07:09.775
What it means then, is that when they leave prison,

0:07:09.775,0:07:12.031
many of them are not allowed to vote.

0:07:12.031,0:07:15.101
So they lose political impact.

0:07:15.101,0:07:18.316
They are not eligible for public housing.

0:07:18.316,0:07:21.453
They lose eligibility for many health benefits.

0:07:21.453,0:07:24.268
They're also ineligible for things like student loans.

0:07:24.268,0:07:27.674
And so you take away all these resources from individuals,

0:07:27.674,0:07:29.831
even after you've put them in prison,

0:07:29.831,0:07:34.062
and they come back to their communities, and they have no way of contributing to society.

0:07:34.062,0:07:36.337
They have no way of becoming members of society.

0:07:36.337,0:07:37.073
There is now, of course, a change.

0:07:37.073,0:07:40.631
One sees it with the leaders of the international AIDS field

0:07:40.631,0:07:42.655
calling for the decriminalization of drugs

0:07:42.655,0:07:44.911
and the de-stigmatization of drug use.

0:07:44.911,0:07:49.578
You should be able to basically live your life as you deem

0:07:49.578,0:07:51.187
necessary for yourself.

0:07:51.187,0:07:56.158
I mean, we have to have respect and consideration for each other as human beings.

0:07:56.158,0:07:59.064
We have to show humility and humanity.

0:07:59.064,0:08:01.594
We have to live on the planet together.

0:08:01.594,0:08:05.033
And I think it's horrible, and I think it's a waste of energy

0:08:05.033,0:08:09.911
for people to actually sit down, put themselves in a position,

0:08:09.911,0:08:22.865
to decide how another person should live.

0:08:22.865,9:59:59.000
Transcribed and Subtitled by Hunter Holliman