Originally written October 21, 2009
Despite
nearly a century of efforts focused on stopping illegal narcotics from coming
into the United States, it has become impossible to deny that the same way
Prohibition did in the twenties, the war on drugs, has only led us closer to
the brink of destruction. Drugs of all
kinds are cheaper than ever and increasingly accessible to almost anyone
anywhere. The numbers don’t lie - we
have accomplished a lot in last few decades on the war on drugs. Billions of dollars of taxpayer money have
been spent each year; a flourishing black market has been established with
illegal suppliers, both domestically and abroad, who rake in exorbitant
profits; millions die in crimes related to the illegal drug trade; our prisons
are overflowing with non-violent drug offenders incarcerated on possession
charges; and our sick and suffering are denied needed medicine by doctors who
are in perpetual fear of being targeted by law enforcement. There must be a better way. The following is an examination of why the
war on drugs is failing us and how it must be replaced with reasonable, common
sense policy that approaches the problem from a realistic perspective. I will also discuss how the evidence produced
from legalization and decriminalization experiments throughout the globe
directly refute some of the most common arguments made by those opposed to
legalization, such as drug prohibition is working, legalization of drugs will
lead to increased drug use and increased addiction levels and legalization and
decriminalization of drugs has been a dismal failure in other countries.
The
consensus has been, for a majority of this country’s history, that drugs are an
evil in society. Drugs destroy lives,
families, careers, and turn otherwise productive individuals into addicts, or
even worse, criminals. Yes, drugs can
have extremely harmful effects. But much
like many things in life, when used in excess, abused, it can have devastating
effects. Most people have vices of one kind
or another. If you’re lucky, your vice
might be white chocolate macadamia cookies or fruit flavored lip gloss. If you’re less lucky, your vice might be
cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, Gucci purses, or sex. From an objective, evidence-based perspective,
anything can be a drug, and many activities can have a drug-like effect on
individuals, causing addiction. More
than ever we see people with food addictions, sex addictions, shopping
addictions, pornography addictions, and the list goes on. So why is it that some substances, like
tobacco, alcohol and caffeine are legal, while others are not? Each drug has its own history and before
there were registered lobbyists, the wealthy tobacco farmers, for example,
exerted plenty of influence on the government and the people. In the case of the ubiquitous weed, the
Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, which effectively criminalized cannabis at the
national level, was in large part the result of an aggressive anti-cannabis
media campaign staged by newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst. While the media campaign focused on the
plant’s psychoactive effects, it has been commonly argued that Hearst’s true
intention was to stop the hemp paper industry, which would have threatened his
interests in timber-derived paper with a cheap, fast-growing, renewable
alternative.
How can
a system that uses arbitrary criteria to decide which drugs are legal and which
ones are not have the respect and the support from the community that it needs
to succeed? In research published in
2007, Professor David Nutt of Britain's Bristol University put forth a proposal
for a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the
actual risks posed to society. Their
rankings listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances. Heroin and cocaine were ranked most
dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and
tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and almost at the bottom
of the list was Ecstasy. In fact, the
study indicates that Tobacco accounts for 40 percent of all hospital illnesses,
while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency
rooms (Study, 2007).
We need
not look very far into our historical past for evidence that prohibition
doesn't work. Ninety years ago, the
United States tried to rid itself alcohol, and it led to an explosion of
violence of legendary proportions.
Today, it's hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the drug-related
mayhem that plagues most of our cities, has spread farther into rural areas,
and especially along our southern border.
In less than two years there have been some 10,000 drug war related
deaths in Mexico alone, as the government there battles an army of killers
which appears to grow every day.
When
the government created a barrier between alcohol producers and consumers in
1920, one of the most lucrative enterprises in our history was created and
along with it the major crime syndicates – causing the U.S. murder rate to
increase tenfold. The staggering profits
from illegal alcohol gave the mafia the financial power to overtake legitimate
businesses and expand into casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and
extortion. The Roaring '20s were then
interrupted by the Crash of '29, and when the funds were gone, the fight
against alcohol was a luxury the country could no longer afford. In 1933 Prohibition was repealed, and over
the next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half. Sadly, today it is back to where it was at
the peak of Prohibition - 10 per 100,000 - an increase clearly connected to the
war on drugs (Gray, 2000).
To make matters worse, not only
have billions of dollars been spent on the war itself and caused no discernible
decrease in drug consumption, but the United States remains the leader in drug
demand around the world with our prisons overflowing with drug offenders of all
levels. Although people may think that
the Drug War targets drug smugglers and 'King Pins,' in 2008, 49.8 percent
(half) of the 1,702,537 total arrests for drug abuse violations were for
marijuana - a total of 847,863. Of
those, 754,224 people were arrested for marijuana possession alone. By contrast, in 2000 a total of 734,497
Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses, of which 646,042 were for
possession alone. (Source: Crime in
America: FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2007 - Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice,
2008) This does not stop many of our
local and national leaders from using the drug war as political capital by
touting their so-called “toughness” on drugs as evidence for effective
leadership. The war on drugs is a
subject that sparks fear in the hearts of most ordinary citizens who want to
protect their children from the evils of drug use, and with good reason. Unfortunately, the public loses when
politicians exploit this fear in the interests of maximizing their votes and
thereby undermining any rational debates on the subject.
There
is hope for change and we are beginning to see a few small victories for the
drug policy reform movement. In October
of last year, attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told government lawyers that
federal prosecutors should focus only on cases involving higher level drug
traffickers or people who use the state laws as a cover story in 14 states
where medical marijuana use is legal.
Although this is a step in a positive direction, too much law
enforcement resources and man hours are poured into ridding communities of
hated drugs that everyone becomes a suspect and some people pay the ultimate
price.
On July
29, 2008, Berwyn Heights, Maryland Mayor, Cheye Calvo’s home was invaded by
Prince George’s County SWAT in search of a box of pot. The masked officers, surrounded the house,
broke down the door without warning and first shot 7 year old lab, Payton, in
the jaw, neck and chest, then pushed down and handcuffed his mother-in-law,
then shot 3 year old lab, Chase, in the legs and chest while he was attempted
to get away, and finally handcuffed mayor Calvo while they ransacked his house
in search of evidence (none was found) for nearly four hours as Payton and
Chase lay bleeding on the ground.
In a
Washington Post chat Calvo stated: “Let me say first that I have never done
drugs and have a fairly deep personal opposition to them. That said, I also have a serious problem with
public policy by metaphor -- and the ‘war’ allusion is especially
dangerous. Clearly, the current policy
is a failure, and there needs to be a genuine public discussion here. A federalist at heart, I think that states
should have greater leeway to try new approaches. There has to be a middle ground between
outright legalization and a military state (Witt, 2009).”
A
startling glimpse at drug-war expenditures revealed the following: in 1992, on
reducing consumption of cocaine alone, the U.S. government spent the $783
million in source-country control efforts, $366 million for interdiction, $246
million for domestic enforcement, and only $34 million for treatment. However, by 1992, the number of cocaine users
had only decreased to 7 million as compared with its peak in the 1980s of 9
million. Even then, this apparent
improvement is misleading, because the decline in the number of light users has
masked an increase in the number of heavy users maintaining the total rate of
cocaine consumption around 300 metric tons per year, which is where it peaked
in the mid-1980's (Rydell, 1994).
After
years of witnessing firsthand the ineffectiveness of drug policies Peter
Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of
"Cop in the Hood" and his colleague Neill Franklin, a 32-year law
enforcement veteran who both served as Baltimore City police officers and are
members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said the following in editorial
to the Washington Post: "Cities and
states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom
drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved
lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn't work perfectly, but
it works well enough. Prescription drugs
are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system
of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and
high-volume incarceration... Drug
manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of
unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined
responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free
market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of
violence: street-corner drug dealing."
In
discussing more effective and more fiscally responsible alternatives, they
added, "California and its medical marijuana dispensaries provide a good
working example, warts and all, that legalized drug distribution does not cause
the sky to fall… Having fought the war
on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all
of us, especially taxpayers. While the
financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are
substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by
a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug
war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33
billion. Without the drug war, America's
most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people
could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role
models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most
important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die."
In fact,
there are many successful experiments happening right now that address the
problem from a public-health perspective and are yielding far better
results. Portugal, for example, which
decriminalized in full, the use and possession of every drug, seven years
ago. Interestingly, none of the horrors
put forth as likely consequences by opponents of decriminalization actually
became true. "Lisbon didn't turn
into a drug haven for drug tourists. The
explosion in drug usage rates that was predicted never materialized. In fact, the opposite happened. Once Portugal decriminalized, a huge amount
of money that had gone into putting its citizens in cages was freed up. It enabled the government to provide
meaningful treatment to people who wanted it, and so addicts were able to turn
into non-drug users and usage rates went down (Gillespie, 2009)."
Further,
in focusing the funds available into public health efforts and education, will
allow for more effective programs to be available to the population and make it
more likely that drug users will in fact use them because they will no longer
have to fear prosecution. For example,
syringe exchange programs have proved extremely effective in reducing harm to
users and restricting the spread of HIV / AIDS and Hepatitis C, two of the most
serious disease epidemics of our time.
In addition, doctors will no longer live in constant fear of having
their licenses revoked for prescribing needed medicine to those who are ill and
in pain.
The
choice is clear. It is no longer
possible to continue to deny the overwhelming evidence against prohibition and
the war on drugs. An open and honest
debate based on credible scientific evidence, not prejudice and misconception,
with the goal of reaching practical solution for the short and long term, needs
to be a priority. The power must be
removed from the hands of the drug cartels and paramilitary law enforcement and
given back to the government for regulatory responsibilities and health and education
professionals for treatment responsibilities.
We owe this to our children, our families, our communities and our
country to start taking action now in securing for them a better, healthier and
safer future.
References
Gillespie, N.. (July, 2009). Drug Decriminalization in
Portugal. Reason, 41(3), 13. Retrieved
March 11, 2010, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1747646861)
Gray, M., (2000), Drug Crazy: How we got into this mess and
how we can get out. New York, NY:
Routledge.
McVay, D., (2007), Drug War Facts: Compiled from reliable
sources by Common Sense for Drug Policy, 6th Edition, Canada. Retrieved at http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/
Moskos, P. & Franklin, S., (August 17, 2009). It's Time
to Legalize Drugs. The Washington Post,p. A.13.
Retrieved March 11, 2010, from ProQuest Newsstand. (Document ID:
1833332411).
Rydell, P., Everingham, S. (1994), Controlling Cocaine:
Supply Versus Demand Programs, Prepared for the Office of Drug Control Policy,
Rand
Study: Alcohol, tobacco worse than some drugs. (March 23, 2007) Associated Press
Trebach, A.S., (2005). The Great Drug War and Rational
Proposals to Turn the Tide, Bloomington, Indiana: Unlimited Publishing.
Witt, A., (February 1, 2009) Deadly Force, Washington Post
Magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment