The Drug War, which has been going on in full force since the phrase was coined by President Nixon, has been an unmitigated policy disaster. It is time for us progressives to speak out on this issue.
I want to be clear that in no way am I condoning drug abuse; nor am I claiming that drugs are wonderful, or harmless, or anything like that. But no serious observer of the Drug War could claim that the policy has been a success.
Annually, our combined federal, state, and local spending on enforcing the Drug War have exceeded $30 billion. That's an estimated half a trillion dollars since 1990. Annual arrests for non-violent drug crimes have hovered around 15 million people. These include approximately 650,000 arrests for marijuana posession, alone.
And yet, a U.S. Health Dept. study from 2004 estimated that some 30 million Americans -- that's over 10% of the population -- used some illegal drug in the previous year. (The vast majority of those used marijuana only.) What is worse, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, American high-schoolers say that it is easier for them to buy marijuana than cigarettes or beer. That's right -- despite all the money spent on enforcement, all the mandatory sentencing, all the low-flying police helicopters, we've managed to create a system in which supposedly illegal drugs are easier to get than legal, regulated ones.
It kinda makes you think maybe we'd do better at keeping drugs out of the hands of young people if instead of being illegal, these drugs were taxed and regulated, similarly to the way alcohol and tobacco products are treated. And don't think that this is some out-there, far-left position to take. Indeed, a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, composed primarily of retired law enforcement and criminal justice professionals has come out strongly in favor of ending the Drug War. As LEAP founder Jack Cole states in what could be thought of as LEAP’s manifesto,
After nearly four decades of fueling this war with over a trillion dollars of our taxes and creating increasingly punitive policies toward drug users, what are the results? Our court system is choked with the escalating number of drug prosecutions and our quadrupled prison population has made building prisons this nation's fastest growing industry; with 2.2 million incarcerated today and another 1.6 million arrested every year for nonviolent drug violations - more per capita than any country in the world. Where will it end? The United States has 4.6 percent of the world's population and 22.5 percent of its prisoners (14) - right here in this "land of freedom"! There is something wrong with this picture.
And despite all this money so ill spent, all these lives wasted, drug barons continue growing richer every year, terrorists make fortunes on the trade, and our citizens continue dying on our streets. The final outcome to this terrible story is that today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier for our children to get than they were 35 years ago when I first started buying heroin on those streets. This represents the very definition of a failed public policy.
OK, so we've established the Drug War is expensive, and leads to lots of arrests, and hasn't really prevented much drug use. But, I hear you skeptics thinking, wouldn't things just be so much worse if drugs were legal? Wouldn't we have a society filled with junkies? What kind of message would that send to our children?
Let me take these points on one by one.
One. Wouldn’t things be worse if drugs were legal? Let’s answer this by thinking back to another time – the time when alcohol was prohibited in America. Back then, the nation witnessed the rise to power of Al Capone and other gangsters, who derived their money and influence largely from the illegal sale of alcohol. So powerful and wealthy were these gang leaders that they soon were able to bribe police officers and low-level politicians into looking the other way when illicit activities were to take place. And then, of course, there was the violence. Gangland murders, turf wars, and the like. Gangsters, policemen, and innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.
Does any of this sound familiar? Take a look at what goes on down in Mexico, or worse, Colombia, with near civil-war conditions in some areas as drug cartel leaders battle government forces and one another. Take a look at DRCNet’s Drug War Chronicle, which has a weekly "This Week’s Corrupt Cop Stories" to see what kind of corruption the drug war is causing right now, right here in the old U.S. of A.
And now, recall the fact that when alcohol prohibition was ended, these problems went away. Can you remember the last time you saw the proprietors of two liquor stores or two rival vineyards taking up arms against one another? Of course you can’t – because alcohol is legal and regulated.
Two. But what about all the new drug addicts we’ll create? Remember way back at the top of this diary, I mentioned that drugs are easy to get? Well, it’s true – they’re easy to get. Will ending prohibition make them easier to get? Possibly, in the sense that a drug addict would be able to get his or her drugs from, say, a pharmacy or an otherwise specially licensed retailer, as opposed to from an armed thug in a convenience store parking lot. But that does not mean that there will be a whole slew of new addicts. Personally, I’ve never snorted cocaine, and I have absolutely no intention of doing so no matter how easy it is to get.
But the question was about junkies, i.e., addicts, and that raises an important point. One prohibited drug, namely, cannabis, is significantly less addictive than alcohol or nicotine. Indeed, cannabis is not technically addictive in that it does not produce physical withdrawal symptoms, although like gambling, video games, chocolate, and other vices it can be quite habit-forming. Nevertheless, all the evidence shows that draconian cannabis laws do not reduce cannabis use. In fact, when about a dozen states decriminalized cannabis in the 1970s, usage rates typically decreased slightly in those states.
I should add that it is true that when alcohol prohibition ended, alcohol use did increase. However, it’s far from clear that alcohol abuse increased. And certainly, the fact that alcohol production was unregulated during prohibition led to large numbers of deaths due to toxic bathtub gin, another problem that went away with the end of prohibition.
Three. What about the children? Ah, yes, the children. Those innocent babes whose mention can be used to justify many ridiculous policies. Well then, what about the children?
According to LEAP, it is because of drug prohibition that young people have easy access to marijuana. It is because of drug prohibition that young people become drug dealers. It is because of drug prohibition that kids are exposed to hard drugs. And it is because of drug prohibition that teenagers are taught to believe that the law is a joke.
I am a parent, and I care about my child’s safety more than anything. I am terrified of the world that drug prohibition has created, terrified of exposing my child to that world. It is my hope that when she is old enough for it to matter, this long national madness will finally have ceased.