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On September 5, 2021, security video captured a drug transaction in Brooklyn, NY – the transaction that allegedly resulted in 54-year-old actor Michael K. Williams’ overdose death the next day. Now, four people have been charged with a narcotics conspiracy, and one with causing his death!
But is that really what Williams would have wanted?
The media is celebrating the NYPD for “cracking” the high-profile case. NYC police commissioner Keechant Sewell named it an example of “criminals peddl[ing] narcotics and prey[ing] on the innocent.”
But Williams was actually staunchly against the war on drugs while he was alive!
Research shows that the criminalization of Black and Latine drug users and sellers makes things WORSE. 43% of dealers have substance abuse disorders themselves.
Dealer incarceration increased by 3,000% in the past few decades – but the drug crisis is still here.
“Instead of providing people with rehabilitation and treatment programs,” Williams wrote in 2016, “let alone education and job training, we have put them into cages and have left them untreated, forgotten and ignored.”
The criminal legal system passes blame on individual dealers and consumers, while ignoring and perpetuating the overarching systemic causes for this public health crisis.
They don't care about our health. They just want someone easy to blame so they can get lauded as heroes, while continuing to destroy our communities.