Brad Pitt calls ‘war on drugs’ a charade

American actor Brad Pitt weighs in on the U.S.’s 40-year war on drugs, branding it a failure and calling policies that imprison huge numbers of drug-users a “charade” in urgent need of a rethink.

Brad Pitt, an executive producer of filmmaker Eugene Jarecki’s documentary “The House I Live In,” spoke passionately about the “war on drugs” which, according to the documentary, has cost more than $1 trillion and accounted for over 45 million arrests since 1971, preys largely on poor and minority communities.

“I know people are suffering because of it. I know I’ve lived a very privileged life in comparison and I can’t stand for it,” Brad Pitt told reporters Friday during a screening of “The House I Live In”, calling the government’s war on drugs policy a “charade.”

“It’s such bad strategy. It makes no sense. It perpetuates itself. You make a bust, you drive up profit, which makes more people want to get into it,” he added. “To me, there’s no question; we have to rethink this policy and we have to rethink it now.”

“The House I Live In” was filmed in more than 20 states and tells stories from many sides of the issue, including Eugene Jarecki’s African-American nanny, a drug dealer, narcotics officer, inmate, judge, grieving mother, senator and others.

“The House I Live In” also shows that although the United States accounts for only 5 percent of the world’s population, it has 25 percent of its prison population. Additionally, African Americans, who make up roughly 13 percent of the population and 14 percent of its drug users, account for 56 percent of those incarcerated for drug crimes.

Brad Pitt, who like his partner Angelina Jolie is no stranger to humanitarian and social causes, said that after seeing “The House I Live In”, coupled with his own involvement with aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina, he realized the U.S. government’s war on drugs may not just be about drugs alone.

“That was an interesting premise for me,” Brad Pitt said. “I hadn’t thought about it in that matter (before seeing the film), but certainly what we witnessed after Katrina proved the idea had validity.”

Some critics have attributed the slow response of the U.S. government to Katrina in 2005, and the devastating flooding of poor areas of New Orleans, to race and class issues.

Now, Pitt believes the war on drugs is the greatest obstacle for impoverished parts of society, including African Americans, from getting ahead.

“It’s a never-ending cycle. But then when you look at it after what we experienced with Katrina – this is Eugene’s point and what he wanted to investigate – it is actually being used to cap a portion of our society and holding them back, shackling them,” the actor said, adding that he signed on as executive producer to help promote the documentary.

Eugene Jarecki contrasted the justice system’s attitude to bankers in the 2008 financial meltdown of Wall Street, who “got a slap on the hand,” with its stance toward young drug-takers.

“A kid right now a block from here is going to have a cop find an ounce of something on his person and he’s going spend 10 years in jail. These are all indicators of a society that has lost its way – and it has lost its way in the direction of injustice and unfairness,” Eugene Jarecki said.