WATCH – LOCK US UP –

May 25, 2021 – You can’t tell the story of Matthews without talking about the War on Drugs. “People were making a lot of money but people was also losing a lot of their livelihoods from the drugs,” recalls Matthews. Growing up in north Portland in the 1980s, drugs ran rampant in his community.”I felt like that was the way to go to get the American dream; to sell drugs to get the money, I could buy the American dream,” he says. “But for me it became the American nightmare because what I thought I could use to gain wealth became my downfall. I became addicted to it.”Matthews became addicted to crack cocaine in his twenties.

“In that process, I was incarcerated a lot of times – in and out of county jail.”Matthews says War on drugs-era policies of “no drug zones” essentially banned him from his community.”This was damaging because I would continually catch cases,” he says. “It kept me stuck in my addiction.” Decades after the War on Drugs, policing looks a lot different.

more@NBC16