Drugs and Buffalos (Opinion)

9 min readJun 16, 2021

[ Opinion: All drugs should be decriminalized federally.]

A for Avocado. B for Buffalo?

My parents had an uncanny predilection to teach me atypical words with each letter of the alphabet.

‘Buffalo’ was first just three funny syllables, then a four-legged animal, and then a seven-letter word. By age six, I was confident I had mastered all there was to know about the buffalo.

Fast-forward a few years, I was enthralled in my YouTube learning adventures and I came across a TedEd video. It was titled “Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.” In what was perhaps the most absurdly significant revelation of my life, I learned that the word could be used eight times consequently and form a legitimate sentence: a play on the homonym as a proper noun, common noun, and verb.

Translated with some commiseration to its reader, the sentence would read, “buffalo (animal) from Buffalo (place) that are intimidated by other buffalo (animal) from Buffalo (place), sometimes intimidate yet another set of buffalo from Buffalo.”

The world was not ingenuous anymore. This oddly specific, impractical sentence had shattered my naivety.

I had a similar revelation earlier this year. A friend, whom I shall not name for anonymity’s sake (or in their words: snitches get stitches), proclaimed to me that all drugs should be decriminalized. I scoffed at the idea instantly and was quick to incriminate the drugs that the friend was on for such an outrageous remark.

And then, I started to read about it.

Nixon started the War on Drugs almost exactly 50 years ago on the 18th of June, 1971. Through their time in the White House, Nancy and Ronald Reagan decided to make it their mission to double down on this policy. It was the ’80s and no one wanted to talk about the breakdown of the New Deal, the stripping of the education budget, and the alarming unemployment rates. So we decided to talk drugs.

Reagan’s Administration launched the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 which incorporated marijuana, rigorously expanded penalties, increased minimum sentences, and set off measures for civil forfeiture. During just his first term as President, he expanded the federal annual budget of the FBI’s drug enforcement wing from $8 million to $95 million. Reagan set off a ‘punishment for possession’ campaign that changed the landscape of American incarceration completely.

Today, the United States is by far the most incarcerated nation in the world not only as a proportion of its population but also in raw numbers. This is more than China, Russia, Cuba, and North Korea. And these are countries that the United States has no issue calling oppressive and authoritarian. And the leading cause for incarceration in America? Ding ding ding. It’s drug possession.

Why is it bad to lock up lots of drug abusers? That’s a great question with

For now, in the interest of brevity, let’s start by asking who these people are.

The criminalization of drugs is inherently racist. In the title of his OpEd piece with the New York Times, which I highly recommend you watch, Jay-Z asks,

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

He talks about the Rockefeller Laws in New York City which distinguished between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. The same drug, with only two differences- how you consume it, and who consumes it. So while white bankers in Manhattan consumed cocaine in broad daylight, low-income disproportionately Black users of crack in Brooklyn filled up the prisons.

Jay-Z’s example from his hometown is not an exception. In every state in the United States, the chance of incarceration for Black adults is greater than that of white adults. In Manhattan, Black people are nearly 11 times as likely as white people to be arrested for drug possession.

Next, is the issue of disenfranchisement. Criminalization makes any person found with possession of even an object with traces of a drug on it guilty for life. This means losing the right to vote, the ability or potential to get employed, to find housing, or just about any part of peacefully coexisting or reintegrating in society. If this doesn’t convince you, read the interview excerpts by Human Rights Watch that I have shared at the bottom of this article. Being “caught” when you are a victim of substance abuse is not simply the ~ two-decade sentence that the court issues you, but a life sentence of dehumanization, seclusion, and societal exile.

Even in the states where certain drugs are decriminalized (or even legalized), ex-felons (read: people who were arrested for something that is now legal) can’t be entrepreneurial because they have a federal criminal record. Here, venture capitals (and I’ll let you guess their predominant race), get to reap the benefits.

“… mhm,” you say, “so what’s the solution?”

While I’m tempted to get needlessly philosophical about free will and the problems with social policing of what one does to oneself, let’s indulge practicality. Let’s say lots of people doing drugs in their own backyard is a societal problem. The answer to this overwhelming drug problem is not to overwhelm our prisons — it’s rehabilitation.

Remember, decriminalization is not legalization. It is simply a change in perspective from the apprehension, persecution, and disenfranchisement of perpetrators to the diagnosis, rehabilitation, and reform of victims. Drug abuse and addiction should be tended to by mental health professionals, psychologists, and therapists, rather than the police, DEA agents, and prison wardens.

A drug-decriminalized State would look like, let’s say, Portugal. Here, they treat substance abuse as a public health issue as opposed to a criminal one and responds to it accordingly. Such a nation would have centers for rehabilitation and withdrawal, trained psychiatrists and social workers for reformation efforts, and systems in place to reintegrate victims of drug abuse back into society without (a) felony/criminal records, and (b) social stigmatization. It would not disenfranchise victims or isolate and uproot them from societal existence.

The reason I’m writing this article today is that a few hours ago today, US Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that decriminalizes the personal possession of all drugs federally. The Drug Policy Reform Act (DRPA) would put a stop to the inequitable, unwarranted criminal penalties for “personal use” drug possession. It would also expunge criminal records for those affected and shift the regulation from the purview of the Attorney General to the Health Secretary, changing the paradigm of how this problem is viewed in the country. It would help to share this article or the ones linked below to raise awareness about this possibility.

It’s convenient to jump to conclusions that we’ve regurgitated since we were kids and proclaim, “Drugs are BAD”. However, it would be amiss to not acknowledge the obvious lack of consideration for the health and security of victims of substance abuse, and the disproportionate, devastating impact of criminalization on marginalized communities.

Buffalo. There’s more to the word than we think. And there’s more to the world than we think. And hey, while you’re thinking about this might I recommend my best friend’s favorite Spicy Buffalo sauce at McDonald’s. It tastes great when you have the munchies (I’ve heard).

Below are quotes from Human Rights Watch interviewees that emphasize the lasting and destructive impacts of the criminalization of personal drug possession. (Source: Human Rights Watch)

“When you’re a low-income person of color using drugs, you’re criminalized — that means demonized, marginalized, stigmatized…. When we’re locked up, we’re not only locked in but also locked out. Locked out of housing…. Locked out of employment and other services. Locked into a class that’s underclass — you’re a fixed class; you’re not a person anymore, because you had a drug.”
–Cameron Barnes, New York City, arrested repeatedly for drug possession by New York City police from the 1980s until 2012.
“You get thrown in here. You don’t have any contact with the outside world. I’m waiting on everybody else. Everything is crumbling.”
–Breanna Wheeler, speaking from jail in Galveston, Texas, where she was detained pretrial for methamphetamine residue in a baggie. A single mother, she eventually pled to her first felony conviction and time served so she could return home to her 9-year-old daughter.
“I’ve been in here for four months, and [my job] was the only income for my family…. [Their] water has been cut off since I’ve been in here. The lights were cut off…. Basically that’s what happens when people come here. It doesn’t just affect us, but it affects everyone around us.”
–Allen Searle, speaking from jail in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, where he had been detained pretrial for almost 100 days.
“You’re starting life over. You can’t expect to be absent from society and just walk back in. You’ve lost everything — your job, apartment, whatever you had before you’re going to lose that…. Because I caught this felony, I was on the street for five years. I had never been homeless before…. [Y]ou walk out of those [prison] gates and you’re on your own.”
–Charlie West, a former US military medic, describing his re-entry after incarceration for felony possession of cocaine in New York City in 2010.
“I don’t see why [the felony record is] defining. It’s not like we’re a minority; they’re making us a majority. If a matter comes up that is important to me, I can’t vote and make a difference in the world…. You don’t realize — the vote — how important that stuff is until you lose it. I was convicted at 18; I had never been able to vote yet…. I found my voter registration card. I thought, here’s a good high school memory of when me and my friend got registration cards. Now I can’t use it. I just threw it out.”
–Trisha Richardson in Auburndale, Florida, one of three states to impose lifetime disenfranchisement, convicted of possession of Xanax and methamphetamines.
“The felony conviction is going to ruin my life…. I’ll pay for it for[ever]. Because of my record, I don’t know how or where I’ll start rebuilding my life: school, job, government benefits are now all off the table for me. Besides the punishment even [of prison]…. It’s my whole future.”
–Nicole Bishop, speaking from the Harris County Jail, where she was detained pretrial for heroin residue in a baggie and cocaine residue inside a plastic straw.
“Food stamps, you can’t get them for a year. So you go dig in a dumpster. My food stamps are for my kids, not me.”
–Melissa Wright, on probation in drug court after pleading guilty in Covington, Louisiana.
“Trace cases need to be reevaluated. If you’re being charged with a .01 for a controlled substance, … that’s an empty baggie, that’s an empty pipe. There used to be something in it. They are ruining people’s lives over it.”
–Alyssa Burns, speaking from the Harris County Jail, where she was detained pretrial for methamphetamine residue inside a pipe.
“I remember when they said I was guilty in the courtroom, the wind was knocked out of me. I went, ‘the rest of my life?’ … All I could think about is that I could never do anything enjoyable in my life again. Never like be in love with someone and be alone with them… never be able to use a cell phone…take a shower in private, use the bathroom in private.… There’s 60 people in my cell, and only one of us has gone to trial. They are afraid to be in my situation.”
–Jennifer Edwards, speaking from jail in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, about the jury’s guilty verdict. Because of her prior drug possession convictions, she faced a minimum of 20 years to life in prison for possessing a small amount of heroin.

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Hello, this is still a forming opinion for me and I would love to hear what you have to say! Please comment on this or reach out to me at deveshagarwal[at]berkeley.edu. This is also my first time sharing an opinion piece online. I hope you enjoyed the read!

Drugs and Buffalos (Opinion)

Written by Devesh Agarwal