CLU screens movie about war on drugs

(THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – April 16, 2013) California Lutheran University will show a documentary about the war on drugs at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 7, at Muvico Thousand Oaks 14.

“The House I Live In” will be screened as part of CLU’s Center for Equality and Justice Reel Justice Film series. A panel discussion will follow.

The movie captures heart-wrenching stories from individuals at all levels of America’s war on drugs, from the dealer to the grieving mother, the narcotics officer to the senator, and the inmate to the federal judge. The film offers a penetrating look inside America’s longest war and reveals its profound human rights implications.

While recognizing the seriousness of drug abuse as a matter of public health, the film investigates the tragic errors and shortcomings and the effect on America’s poor and minority communities. Over 40 years, the war on drugs has accounted for more than 45 million arrests, made America the world’s largest jailer and impacted poor communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer and more available today than ever before.

Award-winning filmmaker Eugene Jarecki directed the film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. His acclaimed book, “The American Way of War: Guided Missiles, Misguided Men, and a Republic in Peril,” was published in 2009.

After the screening, experts will address different aspects of the drug war and field audience questions. Panelists are Bob Stockman, a chaplain for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department; Anthony Normore, chair of CLU’s Department of Educational Leadership and an expert on social justice issues; Richard Brown, a member of the Ventura County Community Advisory Committee and a public advocate on crime, drugs and the California criminal justice system; and Oxnard Police Department Cmdr. Eric Sonstegard, a 1993 CLU alumnus.

Flavio Guzman, co-president of CLU’s Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán (MEChA) student organization and an intern with the Center for Equality and Justice, is coordinating the event. The subject is personal to the Arleta resident, who grew surrounded by people using drugs such as marijuana.

“The way the laws stand any one of my friends or the peers that surrounded me could’ve ended up in jail simply because of possession,” said Guzman, who is pursuing a double major in Spanish and political science with an emphasis in law and public policy. “These are the majority of people who are being locked up, people who simply use the drug. This doesn’t help get the drug off the streets.”

Muvico Thousand Oaks 14 is located at 166 W. Hillcrest Drive.

CLU’s Center for Equality and Justice and MEChA are sponsoring the free event. For more information, contact the center at cej@callutheran.edu or 805-493-3694.