In his CNBC Millennial Money column Is Now The Time To Legalize Drugs? on January 15, recent college graduate Cliff Mason states that "No one believes that illegal drugs are anything but harmful," but criticizes the so-called war on drugs because:
it makes the business of drugs more profitable and more violent, and it sends lots and lots of people to prison.
He then poses the question:
Wouldn't it be better if we could bring this business out into the open, slap some taxes on it, and keep people from shooting each other?
Ah, yes. The fantasy of both the young and the high functioning progressive stoner-activists: a blissful world of cheap, legal recreational drugs in which they can revel without fear of being caught or having to do business with unsavory characters. A copacetic world in which they can get their favorite party favors over the counter, everyone is mellow and happy, and no one gets shot or does time over drugs. Sure. And the heavens will break open and the angles will sing.
Unfortunately, few who expound this argument give the subject matter the objective, in-depth, critical analysis that such a significant, far-reaching shift in law and public policy deserves. It is particularly unfortunate that so many so-called progressives within the Democratic Party bang this drum, since the true consequences of legalizing drugs would do so much damage and reverse so much progress in areas that are central to the Democratic Party's core values, such as violence against women, child abuse and neglect, homelessness, joblessness, poverty, health and mental health, and veterans' welfare.
Mason and others argue that because the war on drugs is failing and our prisons are filled with drug offenders it is wrong for drugs to be illegal. The central fallacy is in the premise that because the tactics are failing the underling public policy must be wrong. All too often, proponents of legalizing drugs such as Mason use Prohibition as the basis to argue against the ban on drugs. As with their view of the subject of drugs, their view of Prohibition is myopic and overly simplistic.
Most people who argue to legalize drugs believe both Prohibition and the ban on drugs stem primarily from olde tyme Christian moralism. There was certainly a moralistic angle to the temperance movement, but why? There is no prohibition against alcohol in the Bible. Quite the contrary. Wine is a Christian sacrament. So why did temperance come to be seen by so many as a virtuous moral imperative?
As in most social movements, the temperance movement was a response to an increased awareness of the serious social and economic ills caused by widespread misuse and abuse of alcohol. Mildly alcoholic beverages had been consumed daily by Europeans and Americans for centuries, but over time use of high proof grain and sugar-based alcohol became more common, both for pleasure and as a tool of control and exploitation, a fact too often overlooked.
Payment in alcohol became a popular "benefit" of employment, but it was, in fact, a subversive tool callously wielded to keep employees dependent, docile and subservient. Alcohol addiction and abuse became rampant, and with it domestic violence and debilitating workplace injury. Companies made back much of the wages they paid out in company scrip by selling cheap liquor at extortionate prices in their company stores, leaving their impaired and chemically dependent employees deeper in debt for basic provisions each week.
The wives and children of such workers were left destitute, battered and starving, with no legal or social recourse and little means of self support. In turn, the desperate needs of such families, the slum conditions in which they lived, and the crime and violence that accompanied them became a blight and a burden on the wider community.
Fighting back against the social and moral evils created by "demon rum" was couched religiously as a battle to save souls, because they believed the evil was actually contained in the alcohol, and that eliminating the alcohol would drive away the evil, thereby alleviating the practical burdens on society and the real threats to public health, peace and safety created as a result of rampant alcohol abuse.
There are distinct similarities and differences between the reasons for Prohibition and the reasons for banning drugs. In both cases, the bans address the grave consequences to individuals and society that result from addiction.
The difference, however, is that unlike the hard designer drugs on the street today, alcohol is not universally addicting nor abused, so banning it universally overreached the target population. In addition, over time other mitigating policy measures came about to address the myriad alcohol-related social ills that gave rise to the temperance movement, including labor laws, wage laws, women's rights, etc. As a result, a complete ban on alcohol is unnecessary to assure domestic tranquility and provide for the general welfare.
Such is not the case with the hard designer drugs of today, many of which are universally addicting, some on first use, and which in some cases will permanently and irreparably alter the user's brain chemistry. As a result, many of these drugs irreparably alter a user's judgement of right and wrong, and impair their impulse control.
Many cases of child abuse and neglect and spousal violence are in conjunction with such drug use, a fact that transcends socio-economic lines. It is not possible to overstate how violent, dangerous and destructive users under the influence of these drugs can become. Nor to overstate the horrific pain and suffering caused each day to the young, the disabled, the aged and the infirm in their own homes at the hands of drug-addled violence, abuse and neglect.
Drug use or impairment on the job is also a major workplace issue across the wage scale. As addiction takes hold, cognitive and physical skills and judgement become increasingly impaired, jeopardizing a user's ability to perform and hold a job, and do so safely. The financial ruin that follows drug-related job loss devastates an entire family, mentally, emotionally, physically and financially.
Contrary to the fantasy, addicts do not panhandle or commit crime for drug money because drugs are expensive, but because the addicts have lost the ability to earn an honest living on their own. Making drugs cheaper will not drive drug-related crime down, as Mason and others suggest, because the causal factor is not the price of the drugs but the lack of any income to support the drug habit that motivates the crime.
The myth that drug use is a victimless crime is a fantasy as ethereal as the smoke in the dorm rooms from which these theories emanate. This is too often played, as Mason does, as a generational issue, as if, after 40 years of drug pop culture, everyone over 30 is still too square to "get it." As if, in another generation or two, everyone will finally agree that drugs are just too cool to suppress.
What Mason and others do not recognize is that most mature thinkers want to keep drugs illegal not because we are square, or prudish, or lack a sense of daring exploration, but because we have lived long enough to experience the emotional and financial burdens of addition first hand. Through experience we know that it is prudent drug laws which are, in fact, truly progressive, protecting and defending the innocent from the inevitable havoc that addiction brings.
We have lived long years trying to hold marriages together while addiction was the silent elephant crashing around the room.
We have taken thousands after thousands of dollars out of our own pockets to try, desperately, to help family members battle through recovery, put food on their children's tables, and stave off foreclosure and eviction, only to hand over thousands more to help them relocate so their families can escape the wreckage of their failed careers and start new lives.
We have dealt with repercussions of colleagues and coworkers too impaired to do their job, or even to show up at work.
And we have watched, helplessly, as loved ones waste away, their bodies ravaged by decades of substance abuse, knowing sadly that a slow, painful death is inevitable for them.
It is not the war on drugs that ruins lives, it is the drugs that ruin lives. Drug possession and use are illegal, and should remain illegal, because more often than not casual drug users soon become drug addicts, and we all deserve to be protected from the havoc and violence that inevitably flow from that.
If the enforcement tactics used to date are flawed, and if incarceration is the least effective means of dealing with the result, then the appropriate course of action is not to abandon the policy and legalize drugs, but to change the flawed tactics. The people of the state of California recognized incarceration is an ineffective way to deal with drug addiction, and that is why we passed a proposition supporting drug treatment in lieu of incarceration - a solution developed and advanced by the judiciary.
Mason closes by saying:
What kills me is that nobody seems to care, not about the human cost, or even about the financial cost.
On the contrary, Mr. Mason. Reasonable, far-thinking, progressive policy makers do care. We care about the safety and well-being of the children of the crack-addicted young mother with no job. We care about the battered wife and children of the meth-addicted trucker, and the drivers he shares the road with. We care about the elderly mother of the coke-sniffing housewife with a quick temper. We care about the classmates of kids on ecstasy. We care about the elderly couple who are burgled and robbed at gunpoint in the night. We care about the neighborhoods riddled with auto theft. We care about the cops called to the scene of a party where some guy hopped on PCP is swinging knives.
We care about the surgical costs when that guy and cops arrive on stretchers in the emergency room of the local county hospital. We care about the family that will go bankrupt trying to save the life of their beautiful young daughter who innocently accepted a drink from a stranger at a frat party and came home a tragically different person.
We care about the skyrocketing public costs of treating the health and mental health consequences of drug abusers who have lost everything. We care about the increased costs of workers compensation resulting from drug-related accidents. We care about the ever-increasing public costs of feeding, clothing and housing children whose parents are too far gone on dope to remember that they have children, much less remember to feed them.
Is it true that the criminal penalties for different drug offenses are slanted by cultural bias? Yes. The answer to that is to eliminate the bias and equalize the penalties, not repeal the law.
Is it true that incarcerating drug offenders is a stupidly ineffective method of dealing with addiction? Yes. This policy is based on the antiquated belief that addiction results from moral weakness, that punishment purifies the soul, and those who do not respond to incarceration deserve to have the keys thrown away. The answer is to treat the addiction as the medical condition that it is, not repeal the law.
Is it true the war on drugs is a failure? Maybe. If it was a complete success, the drug cartels would be out of business and the jails would be empty. The whole underlying theory of a war on drugs is as ridiculous as the idea that you can bomb a country into democracy. What is also ridiculous, however, is that apologists such as Mason believe that if drugs are legalized drug cartels and gangs will suddenly disappear and the shooting will miraculously stop. If anything, the opposite would be true. Competition for the newly expanded markets would be even fiercer and more deadly, and the social consequences and costs of addiction would explode. The answer is to change the tactics, not repeal the law.
As we move into a new administration and, we hope, a modern era of rationality and enlightenment, it is time to cast aside medieval moralism and move to a drug policy based on 21st century medical science. It is also time for folks like Mason, and the myriad others lobbying the Obama Administration to make legalizing drugs a priority, to put their magical thinking about legalizing drugs on the shelf with their toy soldiers and teddy bears.
Drug policy is deadly serious business, one on which the lives of innocent people depend. Anyone who ventures into it should do so objectively, with a clear head and a keen understanding of all angles of the issue. Laws are enacted for a reason. In this case, drug laws have been enacted to protect society from the well known burden and threat that drugs pose. As with all laws, if the drug laws are imperfect the task is to perfect them, not toss them in the bin.