In 2006, 16 year old Rennie Gibbs delivered a stillborn baby. After an autopsy, the medical examiner found trace amounts of cocaine in the stillborn child and ruled that this caused the death. Gibbs was charged with “depraved heart murder:”

The grand jury concluded that Gibbs had “unlawfully, willfully, and feloniously” caused the death of the baby by smoking crack cocaine during her pregnancy. Gibbs, then 16, faced life in prison.

A few weeks ago, a Mississippi judge finally dismissed the murder charge against her. However, prosecutors are suggesting that they may reconvene a grand jury to re-indict Gibbs for manslaughter.

Our failed and punitive ‘drug war’ has conspired to spike the U.S. prison population over the past 40 years. Between 1980 and 2010, the incarceration rate for drug crimes increased tenfold.

Source: Washington Post (4/30/14)

The “war on drugs” has really been a war on people and its effects have been particularly devastating for black people like Rennie Gibbs. While blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population and are consistently shown to use drugs at similar or lower rates as others, they comprise almost 1/3 (31%) of those arrested for drug law offenses and more than 40% of those incarcerated for violating drug laws.

Source: Washington Post (4/30/14)

A couple of days ago, the London School of Economics released a report declaring the ‘drug war’ to be a huge failure: having wasted money, destroyed lives, and caused more harm than good. They suggest that forty percent of the nine million incarcerated people who are incarcerated worldwide are locked up for drug-related offenses.