For Release Sunday, July 4th, 2010
© 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
Profoundly immoral — and fiscal folly, to boot.
That’s how the United States’ continuing “war on drugs” and its horrendous impact on our neighbor Mexico deserves to be seen.
Why?
First, it’s our appetite for official forbidden drugs — marijuana, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine — that’s driving the chaos on our southern border and deep into Mexico. President Felipe Calderon expected — but has clearly failed — to crack the vicious drug rings through police and military power. But he’s dead right on one score:
“The origin of our violence problem begins with the fact that Mexico is located next to the country that has the highest levels of drug consumption in the world. It is as if our neighbor were the biggest drug addict in the world.”
The conclusion is simple: if the United States were to decriminalize drugs, end the criminal prohibition on growing or selling them, prices would plummet.
This means that the massive profits the Mexican druglords reap — their “take” on an estimated $15 billion a year cross-border trade — would literally evaporate.
That, in turn, would put an end to most of the barbaric drug-driven crimes — shootings, kidnappings, beheadings — and that are currently being committed by the Mexican gangs as they struggle with each other, and with sometimes-complicit police, for bigger slices of the market.
Annual drug-related killings in Mexico total 22,000 since 2007, according to a leaked Mexican government report. At the scale of deaths reported since January, the total could top 13,000 just this year. Late in June the remains of 64 people, some decapitated, were discovered in a 50-story former mining pit near the tourist town of Taxco. From the wounds, it appeared many were alive when they were thrown down the shaft.
So how are we supposedly moral, righteous Americans reacting? Mostly with indifference, as if it’s “someone else’s” problem. Even the supposedly progressive Obama administration, while saying it wants a shift from interdiction to prevention and treatment of drug abuse, won’t make the connection between our drug prohibition laws and the mass killings in Mexico. Rather, it’s funneling more cash to the Mexican police and armed forces, money to support a bloody, unwinnable war.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, interviewed by the Associated Press on a trip to Mexico City, was asked why the U.S. pursues its clearly-failed, decades-long war on drugs. Her reply:
“This is worth fighting for because drug addiction is about fighting for somebody’s life, a young child’s life, a teenager’s life, their ability to be a successful and productive adult.”
But does U.S. drug prohibition accomplish that, when our teenagers report it’s easier to get a marijuana joint (because it’s unlicensed) than a six-pack of beer (its sale to minors government-enforced)?
Let’s assume drugs were decriminalized in the United States. And let’s acknowledge some added addiction occurred (even though the predicted rise in use is not reported in countries such as Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland, where decriminalization has been introduced).
Even if more Americans would have to battle with addictions, we need to ask: Are American lives so precious, so superior, that Mexicans can or should be obliged to suffer tens of thousands of deaths because we’re too timid to lift our legal prohibition on drugs? Is this kind of behavior, belief in our moral immunity, what our chest-thumping Fourth of July celebrations are all about?
And then there’s the fiscal folly point. For Mexicans, the continued drug horrors darken any prospects for an economically successful nation — one that’s an effective trade partner with the United States, and able to provide strong incomes for its families so that fewer feel compelled to immigrate north across the border.
And for the the U.S. economy there are big stakes too. We could save tens of billions of dollars — at a time when the federal and practically all state and local budgets have moved into deep deficit territory — by moving rapidly to terminate our war on drugs.
There’s strong parallel to the Great Depression time of the early 1930s. Repeal of the Prohibition Act, which outlawed liquor from 1920 to 1933, not only quashed the Al Capone-style crime rings but created tens of thousands of new legal jobs.
A parallel move today would also stop the epidemic of drug arrests that have driven our prison populations — and costs to taxpayers — to world-record levels.
A 2008 survey by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron found legalizing drugs would save $44 billion yearly in government prohibition enforcement for arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations. State and local governments could enjoy $30 billion of the savings. And government taxes on drugs, by Miron’s estimates, would yield taxes of $33 billion — even if the rates were set no higher than current alcohol and tobacco levies.
Morals and fiscal common sense both dictate that we end our drug prohibition. And not some decades from now, but quickly.
Neal Peirce’s e-mail is npeirce@citistates.com.
For reprints of Neal Peirce’s column, please contact Washington Post Permissions, c/o PARS International Corp., WPPermissions@parsintl.com, fax 212-221-9195. For newspaper syndication sales, Washington Post Writers Group, 202-334-5375, wpwgsales@washpost.com.
22 Comments
Comment received rom Melanie Brown, Basalt, Colorado –
This article on legalizing drugs to help save Mexico and our economy is so sensible – when will get off our high horse and take some ownership for the tragedy’s that are on going?
Comment received from my professional colleague, Storm Cunningham:
My wife (who is from Mexico) and I really appreciate your getting a message out to the public that we (and most Mexicans) have been saying privately for a couple of decades now.
Drug prohibition and its associated War on Drugs is worse than ineffective. As Neal posts here, it is a blood-drenched, bullet spattered failure that has not kept drugs out of the hands of Americans but has driven Mexico to the brink of national dissolution and civil war.
Therefore, rather than hearing our national leaders like Secretary Napolitano pontificate about the evils of drugs, we need to take a less ideological and more pragmatic approach that addresses drug use in cost/benefit terms. Legalization and regulation make far more sense than continuing with what really is the nation’s longest, and most futile, War.
I expected more pragmatism and common sense from the Obama administration. So far, I don’t think anyone wants to be seen as “soft on drugs” or “soft on Afghanistan”, etc. for fear of political retribution. Like the “soft on Communism” fears of the fifties and sixties that drove many failed and bloody foreign policy decisions, this politically based fear will lead us to continue to do things which are not in the national interest.
As usual, thanks, Neal, for raising the issue.
Thanks Neal for an excellent analysis. Indeed, as long as 23,000 Mexicans are dying for our prohibition, we do not care….at least enough to repeal this prohibition.
Money and death aside, my profession (police) will arrest a lot more DUIs and pedophiles when we stop chasing the Willie Nelsons and Rush Limbaughs of the world. The FBI will have an additional 1500 full time agents to go after public safety threats, like people flying airplanes into buildings. It is a no-brainer. The govt can not fix stupid -via its police force.
Comment received from Bill Harris
One need not travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to the ongoing open season on hippies, commies, and non-whites in the war on drugs. Cops get good performance reviews for shooting Phish-fans in a barrel. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance global credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are
flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. Behold, it’s all good. When Eve ate the apple, she knew a good apple, and an evil prohibition. Canadian Marc Emery was extradited to prison for helping American farmers reduce U. S. demand for Mexican pot.
The CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) reincarnates Al Capone, endangers homeland security, and throws good money after bad. Fiscal policy burns tax dollars to root out the number-one cash crop in the land, instead of taxing sales. Society rejected the plague of prohibition, but it mutated. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon passed the CSA on the false assurance that the Schafer Commission would later justify criminalizing his enemies, but he underestimated Schafer’s integrity. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA shut down research, and pronounced that marijuana has no medical use.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership or an act of Congress to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. God’s children’s free exercise of religious liberty may include entheogen
sacraments to mediate communion with Him.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity.
Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common law holds that adults are the legal owners of their own bodies. The Founding Fathers undersigned that the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Mortal lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration. Liberty is prerequisite for tracking drug-useintentions and outcomes.
A bunch of laudatory notes about the column have come in — my guess not because the column’s so brilliant, but because the logic of the case is so total! — N.P.
From David Hump, Hood River, Oregon:
Your column on the so-called “war on drugs” is right-on and a badly needed statement to counter the diversion of such high-profile, yet misstated issues as immigration.
Although you don’t mention it, I’m sure you know that part of this war with the Mexican cartels included unprecedented gun-running across the border, yet only recently has the atf been added to the burgeoning “security” team.
It is quite appalling, as is napolitano’s pathetic statement you’ve quoted.
I don’t believe obama has the courage to take this on.
Not the least of the forces at work is the gigantic jail industry that our “war on drugs” has produced, everything from police to judges to privatized jail operation.
Through all of this, i certainly don’t feel more secure.
From Tom Hathaway, Building Maintenance Superintendant, Summit County Jail, Akron, Ohio:
I have been preaching legalization, licensing, regulation, and taxing of drugs to anyone who would listen for as long as I can remember. Our so called “drug war” has been a farce forever. I am afraid, however, that so many enforcement jobs would not be needed that we will never see this in our lifetime as the enforcement community has there own interests to protect.
If we, as a nation, spent even a fraction of the money we spend on feable attempts at enforcement, on treatment centers, there would be no problem. I have worked in a county jail for 21 years and see these problems first hand every day. Your comparison to Prohibition is one that I have used many times.
The enforcement people that I work with every day, (deputies, counselors, mental health professionals, etc., seem to be pretty universally against it. My view is pretty simple: If you’ve been trying something for 40 years and it’s NOT working, isn’t it time to change your tactics?
Here’s the bottom line: If you take away the huge financial incentives for these people, (drug lords, cartels, etc.), they will simply fade away.
From Kirk Muse, Mesa, Arizona:
More than 23,000 have been killed by drug prohibition caused violence since December of 2006 in Mexico.
Even though caffeine is a drug that is more addictive than marijuana, neither Mexico nor the United States has any murders caused by it.
Why? It’s legal.
Nicotine is a drug that’s much more addictive than any illegal drug, yet we have no murders caused by it.
Why? It’s legal.
From Robert Stever, M.D.
Terrific column very well written about our useless war on drugs. I don’t use them except some alcohol, but totally agree that we need a DRAMATIC change in how to approach drug use in USA. Those countries you named in the article have different ways of making drugs and treatments available at no cost. Criminal activity is mostly gone. Americans are playing ostrich by trying to ignore, even pray problems away. Get real. Change is never perfect, but what we have is a disaster. I think poppies in Afghanistan also make their way to the west and USA ending up funding the endless war
Send Obama your column of today. Rattle some cages till they understand it’s even worse than prohibition. YOU are on the right track big way.
From John Hammerback, Redmond, Washington
Short note to congratulate you on your superb analysis of Mexico’s problems with drug-gangs and of the US’s responsibilities for those problems. Let’s hope that somehow, someway our political leaders read and understand your argument and then enact your solution. At the very least, Americans ought to be made more aware of the misery that they are causing by their drug use.
From H.M. Sutton, Seattle:
Fantastic piece! Paste it on billboards all over the country! Why the hell can’t we all view the reality of the situation as it truly exists? And it has great parallels with the situation of Mexicans sneaking across the border to find work here so they can send funds back home. They come because the money is here and not at home. Both cases follow the money.
I view the situation as an economic thing as you mention in the later part of your piece, but would like to see you follow this piece with an analysis of what the stupidity of our current system (law enforcement, arrest/jail housing/feeding/, court costs, prison/housing/feeding/guarding, prison construction, rehab (if at all), probation, etc.–and break it all down to the “cost-per-taxpayer”. (I like it when that kind of figure comes out, for example with the “war in Iraq/Afganistan” as per individual citizen’s tax share). Make it individually plain and clear what we pay for the luxury of such a totally system. Maybe with the economy so bad, it could provide a (massive?) selling point to do away with this nonsense?
Interesting message from Dr. Joseph H. Talley of Shelby, N.C. — I’ll respond in the next comment in this chain:
This is in response to your column, “The case for legal drugs.” I agree with your premise that most currently prohibited drugs should be legalized, however in one respect your history and your logic is flawed.
I had a 40 year career as a primary care physician, much of it devoted to the prescribing of controlled drugs. That is, struggling to decide who would benefit from an opioid, benzodiazepine, or psychostimulant, as opposed to who was seeking them for the wrong reasons.
I strongly agree that marijuana should be legalized (and heavily taxed.) It has the therapeutic potential to become one of the major medical breakthroughs, if we were ever freed up to research and explore its potential. Not to mention being one of the safest, most non-toxic psychoactive medications. Likewise I believe opioids (heroin) should be legalized and decriminalized, given their great therapeutic need by many people currently unable to receive them, along with their great safety profile.
The case for legalizing amphetamines, cocaine, and some other currently illegal drugs is harder to make, given their greater dangers and their potential to precipitate criminal behavior when used, but the same arguments for ending alcohol prohibition would still apply.
But there is one down side to legalizing all of the above that I believe you have missed, and it should also be addressed and considered. I agree that legalizing the above drugs would introduce profound disruption to organized crime, both in Mexico and here, but history has shown that it would not put the criminals out of business. It would only cause them to resort to other illegal activity, with even worse consequences to society in general. It is naive and disingenuous to suggest that all the American and Mexican drug dealers and gangs, when confronted with the loss of their current business, would simply shrug, disband, and turn to more legal ways of making a living.
There is one major factual error in your column, regarding America’s past history. Where on earth did you get the idea that the repeal of alcohol prohibition “quashed Al Capone-style crime rings”? That view would only be shared by the late J. Edgar Hoover! Instead, the end of prohibition only forced the Capone-type gangs to turn to more labor-intensive and vicious activities, such as extortion, hi-jacking of non-alcohol products, taking over of labor unions, and even murder-for-hire. Capone himself may have been done in by the IRS and syphilis, but there is no evidence that his gang even missed a beat after prohibition’s repeal. They continued to operate under the leadership of Nitti, Ricca, Giacolone, and others. Repeal also forced the erstwhile bootleggers, who previously warred mainly against each other, to organize more efficiently, under the likes of Luciano, Genovese, Bonanno, et al. The result was that they gained influence and control in our lives beyond anything that Capone ever dreamed. And for many years, even major influence in our government.
So as much as I would like to see the criminalization of useful drugs ended, I worry about what the current criminal element would do next, if this highly-profitable cash cow were eliminated. I don’t imply that we should continue prohibition of drugs just to keep organized crime happy, but I do suggest we cannot simply assume, as you suggest, that once prohibition is ended they will forsake their current lawlessness and get a life.
Another example of my concern: You would probably agree with me that a huge number of people are currently locked up for violating these laws that we believe ought to be repealed. You are also aware of the decrease in violent crime for the past thirty years, and all the debate over how to explain it. One frequently-advanced theory is the relatively large portion of Americans currently imprisoned. My worry is that this prison population, many of which were convicted on drug charges, are the same people who, if freed today, would be committing armed robberies, kidnappings, extortion, and worse. So our drug laws may have furnished us with a convenient way to put away bad guys before they did even worse.
So the overall question — “What would the current drug dealers do, if they couldn’t sell drugs any more?” — is one I have not seen addressed much by the media. I would certainly welcome your views on that.
Dr. Talley raises (prior message) an interesting point about what activities the Mexican drug gangs would get into if the lucrative U.S. market faded. Not a pretty set of activities, to be sure– a lot of brutality, and criminal organizing skill, has been learned. On the other hand, the process of new recruits, intimidation and compromising of officials, and indeed any real point to murder and kill for control of a disappeared market, would diminish dramatically. The mafia in the U.S. (his next point) did continue to exist after Prohibition, but without the capacity to operate extensively across the entire country, and with the millions of customers it has during Prohibition. Violence did drop dramatically. The U.S. should certainly cooperate with Mexican officials in a post-Prohibition period, helping our neighbors restore normal conditions. (And hopefully we’ll also move to stem the incredible gun-running from this country into Mexico, a major component in the carnage there).
Dr. Talley’s last major point – Has the decline of violent crime in the U.S. been due to filling our prisons with drug offenders – had a beneficial effect? My first reply would be that the violation of the rights and life prospects of those arrested on inconsequential drug charges deserves to be our first consideration. And that working with community policing, counseling for young “at risk” folks, personal and drug counseling, and a major education push (the biggest known depressant to crime), is where our attention, as a humane – and smart – society should go. There are also massive issues of racial equity, with out heavy hand in imprisoning African-Americans and Hispanics. Unless we change our approach, we remain in effect a police state, continuing to incarcerate at world-record setting levels, ad infinitum – a terribly depressing thought in this “land of the free.”
And a P.S. — It was state lotteries that deprived low-income neighborhoods of their numbers games, a big source of under-the-table income. Since states weren’t willing to tax openly for essential services, they created a way to siphon money out of a predictably lower-income clientele. Many of today’s drug runners would have been numbers runners earlier on — “illegal” activity, as we defined it, but dramatically less harmful.
Comment received from Peter McLean
My response will be in the comment immediately following– N.P.
You article in favor of legalizing drugs in the US is a little bit oversimplified.
1. The laws in countries like Portugal, The Netherlands and Switzerland were changed to decriminalize drugs for the benefit of the elite who can afford them. The cost of illicit drugs is set mainly by the demand in the US. If the US were to decriminalize drugs, the cost would go down and more ordinary people in these countries would then become addicted.
2. The economies of whole countries would be adversely affected by the drop in drug prices that would result if drug use were decriminalized in the US. Think of Afghanistan and Columbia. Production would increase, but the prices would plummet. The crops that produce drugs would just be another commodity, like coffee. Added to that is the fact that more and more growing of crops for drugs would shift to the US thus cutting off the revenue to these poor countries. Unrest would develop in many areas of the globe. We would have to spend even more on defense than we do now.
3. Whole minority neighborhoods in the US are dependant on the income of the residents who deal drugs. It’s a form of wealth transfer from the elite who buy the drugs to the boys in the hood who support their families. These neighborhoods would become even more desperate and unstable than they are now with the legalization of drugs.
4. The global financial entities that prop up many marginal economies depend on the drug money to filter down in the form of taxes to pay off the mega billion loans to these countries. Many of the banks that form the backup for these global financial entities are US banks. Loss of the revenue from drug fueled taxes would make the recent financial collapse seem minor.
5. The savings that you mention from not having to chase drug dealers down the road would be soon eclipsed by the additional medical, social and financial costs of having huge numbers of people use drugs that would be more affordable with decriminalization. Unemployment would soar as more and more people could not hold down a job due to their incapacitation from drug use. Crime would rise as these dysfunctional people turned to crime just to survive. The prisons would not be empty for long.
6. People always want a higher high. The decriminalization of known drugs today would fuel the development of ever more potent, and illegal, drugs and the attendant illegal distribution system. You have to draw the line somewhere.
7. The government would of course regulate this new and legal business. The FDA would get involved. Standards would be set for potency and purity. Just begging for a supply of more potent, and illegal versions of the legal stuff. You’ve heard of designer drugs?
Usually, when I read an article like yours, it’s all about the elite wanting to have their drugs at a lower cost without the risk of a criminal record. The elite can just skip a day or two from work if they have a bit of a hangover from drug use. Most of the little people cannot. They have to show up for work every day on time. So, if you are going to write about drug use in this country, keep the little people in mind, and what effect any change to the status quo might have on them.
The hundreds of billions of dollars in the global illicit drug business have a profound effect on the global economy. That has to be taken into consideration when proposing any change, not just the convenience for the elite consumer. The drug trade is the biggest mechanism for wealth transfer that the world has ever created.
My rejoinder to some of the assertions in the Peter McLean comment immediate above:
1. The European countries have their classes, and poorer citizens too. So there’s no reason to believe the mild reaction of decriminalization of drugs there – including some decrease in use — would produce different results in the United States.
2. Mon Dieu! We should keep the drug trade alive in Afghanistan, Colombia, etc., for their own sake?! Does that include U.S. financing of toxic herbicides to kill off the drugs? (Actually Afghanistan’s crop should be bought out to create affordable pain-killing morphine, etc., for the millions of the world who suffer pain but are deprived access to morphine because of the U.S.-led global anti-drug crusade).
3. So we help out our low-income neighborhoods’ economies by keeping drugs – the source of mass incarceration of less advantaged Americans – illegal? Sounds like a form of permanent subjugation to me. Better (as I mentioned in commenting on another comment) to discontinue state lotteries and recreate what was once a fairly benign form of low-income neighborhood income.
4. Keep drugs illegal to prop up the banks? Seriously?
5. No reason to expect mass increase in drug use when marijuana and other substances are already easily accessible.
6. If people always want a higher high, they can get it now.
7. The FDA already approves lots of drugs that people find ways to mis-use. Some people might try to cook up the own designer drugs, but they can do that to fair degree already.
Finally, Mr. McLean suggests we keep selected drugs (a cultural choice of which, of course) illegal to service the world economy? The real effect of legalization would be to return billions of dollars to mainstream economies (taxable, subject to reasonable regulation).
Comment received from Sylvester McGinn:
Thanks for a great article on why we should decriminalize drugs. I am sure that you will receive lots of mail criticizing you but I think that this is long over do. Indeed, the father of conservatism in America, William Buckley preached this for decades. I am hoping that decades from now people will look back at this policy with the same disdain that we now view prohibition.
Comment received from Richard Miller, PhD., Seattle:
A concise and persuasive argument for ending our “war on drugs.” However, he scarcely addressed the most fundamental question, why don’t we end this war, except by the lame quote from Janet Napolitano. I hope the (media) and Mr. Pierce will continue to write about the reasons underlying our failure to end this war on drugs. My understanding is that addiction to prescription drugs are a greater problem than addiction to illegal drugs, and alcohol addiction dwarfs all the others. Why don’t we resume prohibition if Napolitano’s argument is be given any credence?
My answer to this question is that the prison and drug enforcement lobbies are opposed, and politicians are too afraid to lead the effort for fear of attack by the “moral majority” and the “soft on crime” groups.
I hope that you and others in the media will continue to raise the question. “why don’t we end the war on drugs”? We are fighting far too many losing wars.
Message from Jane Miller
I read your editorial in today’s issue of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and must disagree with your argument. Although your conclusion that legalizing drug usage would be the path of least resistance, it would make the drug problem far worse. Only a person who’s never experienced a close friend or family member addiction to drugs would propose such a solution.
May I suggest another possible solution for your consideration? For years, it seems to me that the country’s approach to drug problems has been a colossal failure because the focus has been primarily on supply, not demand. Classic economics has consistently demonstrated that as demand goes down, so does supply. I believe much more could be done to focus attention on the demand.
Many years ago, I heard a program on NPR about how Southeast Asia resolved the rampant drug problem after WWI when almost 50% of the population used heroin. The government issued a notice giving abusers a year to stop using drugs and anyone caught after that time would face an immediate death sentence. According to the report, the results lead to less than 1% of the population using drugs after one year! While I certainly advocate a death sentence for certain drug dealers, I do not advocate it for usage. However, I do believe much more attention and action could and should be taken against drug abusers. One such action could be to encourage employers to follow the example of the military, especially state and the federal governments.
While serving on active duty with the U.S. Navy during the mid 1970s, I clearly remember how serious the drug abuse problem was at all levels of the organization. Because the problem was so alarming, dramatically affected productivity and contributed to many serious accidents, all branches of the military implemented a simple policy called, “No Tolerance.” The program, which includes random, unannounced urine drug screens was an immediate success and continues to this day. Any military member found to have drugs in their urine was immediately released from service under a less than honorable discharge.
Although I don’t know the statistics, I saw first hand the incredible positive effects of the program. Everyone drug user I knew stopped immediately which resulted in an amazing transformation of the work environment and improvement in productivity. Another result I noticed was a beneficial effect on families.
I strongly encourage you to consider other options to resolve this chronic, serious social problem such as promoting the idea that implementing drug screening programs in all working environments which include reasonable and realistic punitive actions when an employee is identified abusing illicit drugs. I believe if the demand was significantly diminished this would lead to a dramatic drop in supply. I’d be interested in hearing what you think about this suggestion.
In response to Jane Miller, there are some 9 million prisoners on the planet and the US has 2.3 million of them. Nearly one quarter of those 2.3 million are there for nonviolent drug offenses. With 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners, how much more coercion do you think we can afford?
As for your friend or family member who suffered from addiction, under the current system anyone who wants drugs can buy them. I would like to see a regulated system where we have MORE control over these substances rather than the current anarchy of the black market.
Ms. Miller makes an interesting point but her argument falls short of coherency and I feel compelled to comment from the point of view of a former police officer who worked in the poorest areas of Canada. I have made thousands of drug arrests, from addicts to high level drug dealers, and I observed the ravages that drug addiction can do, regardless of social status, age, ethnicity, or gender. For addicts, the drug is more important than the law, housing, friends, family, food or sex…their lives revolve around obtaining and using their drug of choice, nothing else. Thus, for addicts, the threat of losing a job is far less than the risk of not having that drug. Bearing this in mind I would like to make the following points:
First, as noted by Sanho Tree, the issue of drug abuse and use are social issues which cannot be resolved by criminal sanctions, as the last 40 years have clearly illustrated.
Second, it must be recognized that the policies of drug prohibition (policies that have, in fact, achieved the exact opposite effect as intended, as drugs are now cheaper, more potent and of a higher quality than ever before) have little to do with the issue of drug addiction (which is her concern). And, there are many who argue, along with Mr. Peirce, that it is the prohibition of drugs, not the drugs themselves, which cause the greatest harm to both individuals and society.
Third, it should be made clear that drug use is not the same as drug addiction, the same as a social drinker is not the same as an alcoholic. Her suggested screening programs will detect those who use drugs (for example recreationally, on the weekend, in their own home) rather than those who abuse drugs. If this same logic was applied in the case of alcohol, to screen for anyone using alcohol rather than alcoholics, then the majority of the workforce (including legislators) would be out of work. Even though the abuse of alcohol is far more damaging to society this measure is not undertaken, rather there are treatment programs available for those with problematic alcohol use.
Fourth, The DEA, citing the figures of Federal Government’s Household Survey on Drug Abuse, estimates that 12.7 million Americans have used some illegal drug in the last month and between 30 to 40 million who have used some form of illegal drug within the last year. Of the 12.7 million Americans who use drugs, 10 million are presumed to be casual drug users, and close to 2.7 million are addicts. In other words, the draconian measures suggested by Ms. Miller, would be applied to the ENTIRE working population of the US because of problematic drug use by 2.7 million (most of whom are not part of the work force or work in the lower rungs, such as service areas where such funding and vigilance for her screening program would be less available).
Fifth, if the intent of her measures is to help any of the 2.7 million who abuse drugs and suffer for it, the measures suggested by Ms Miller will only exacerbate their problems as they are denied jobs and assistance for their addiction issues, further marginalizing them (even if they have a job).
Lastly, in a country that prides itself as a bastion of human rights and liberty for all, her proposal, as I understand it is to place the entire working population under constant suspicion and observation for the addiction issues of less than 0.01% of the population overall. It seems a tad extreme, no? And, if history is any guide at all (we can remember Santayana here), her proposal is doomed to fail.
Why is there a constant drumbeat of fear and suspicion as a response to social problems rather than understanding and treatment?
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Comment from Walter Kisser, Washington State:
I enjoyed and agreed very much with your opinion regarding the effect of U.S. drug addictions on our neighbor to the south.
My wife and I spend six months of our year in a small coastal community about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta so are a bit sensitive when it comes to piling all the blame for the problems on our southern border on to Mexico. Poverty is rampant in Mexico and consequently the drug trade is a tempting and exceedingly profitable way to escape destitution.
I have had numerous conversations with friends in the U.S. concerning the U.S. drug policy and the so-called Drug War which in my opinion has been a dismal failure. My argument has always emphasized the profitability of U.S. addiction to many various parties inside the U.S. Lawyers, prison facilities, drug enforcement agencies, police and no small number of bankers number among the segments of our population that profit from the current policies that continue to be praised while failing miserably to stem the flow of drugs. The argument for decriminalizing drugs emphasizes the morality issue and
avoids any discussion concerning the success of decriminalizing drugs in other countries such as the Netherlands.
In the face of so many profiting from the continuation of our present drug policies I see little chance of change any time soon. You would think that Americans would wake up eventually since almost every family in our nation is touched by drug addiction. The situation is
very sad.
E-mail from Betsy Rice:
Thank you for your excellent article. I was surprised, however, that you did not mention the Drug Policy Alliance which has been saying this – and soliciting funds in order to proclaim it – for a number of years! You may have info about it, but just in case, here it is:
Drug Policy Alliance
Reason. Compassion. Justice
70 W. 36th Street, 16th Floor
New York, N. Y. 10018
http://www.drugpolicy.org
Their 4″x10″ card entitled “Drug Policy Alliance TALKING POINTS” is excellent, in my opinion.
Again, thank you for your article. I do hope we can move on this!
Response: Comment makes a good point– the Drug Policy Alliance provides excellent information on this topic. — Neal Peirce
E-mail received from John E. Sykes, Buckingham, Va.:
Mr. Peirce,
I am in complete accord with your column proposing the legalizing of currently illegal drugs.
Aside from the funds no longer spent enforcing the current laws, additional funds could be raised through tax levies.
Not only would decriminalization put the Mexican drug lords out of business, it would also strike a major blow to the middle east poppy (heroin) business, which I understand funds terrorist groups.
I also feel that prostitution should be legalized and, of course, taxed and regulated. As we know from reading the headlines many prominent individuals have been “caught” with prostitutes. Just as drugs are openly available, so are prostitutes. In this nominally Calvinistic environment legalizing prostitution would be difficult, but it’s no worse than gambling, which in my opinion ruins many more lives than a husband visiting a legal prostitute on occasion ever would.
Maybe a state with really serious financial difficulties will consider it.
E-mail received from Scott Rdid, president of Mechanical; Supply Co., Matthews, N.C.
Mr. Peirce,
This is one of nuttiest editorials you have ever written. And that is saying something.
The President of Mexico calls us the “biggest drug addict in the world”. That isn’t a problem for you however. Our drug use is apparently the cause of violence in Mexico. It is the cause of a weak Mexican economy. Like a good liberal you attribute this to the “indifference” of us evil Americans. Our attempt to control drug use and all the corresponding individual and societal problems they cause is also apparently one of the causes of our huge deficits. Never mind the nonsensical liberal Democratic/socialistic crazy economic, anti business, and entitlement philosophies which are at the real core of our deficits and recession. Towards the end of your diatribe you bring out a real benefit of legalizing drugs….something every good liberal Democrat can love….it can be a source of new taxes! Oh goody!
I have assigned your article to my voluminous file of nutty liberal ideas. Legalizing the very drugs that are ruining and laying waste to millions of lives because it is just too hard to control is a great example of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously referred to as “defining deviancy down.”
Prohibition (of alcohol) in America — What was it like — Readers may want to check columnist George Will’s new column on the topic. Oddly, he fails to mention today’s prohibition of drugs — a direct parallel!
Comment received from Peter Benda — I agree with the thrust of his comments but don’t see positive evidence for his last two conclusions:
As you noted, we have more people in jail than any other western country. I’d rather have those people known to social workers and hospitals and rehab programs, than unknown, sitting in jail cells. I can’t imagine that the cost of educating the public and tending to drug addicts under managed control could be any more expensive that prison. I can’t imagine that drug use would be nearly as high as it is now without drug pushers on the streets trying to develop new customers.
You pose a question: why is no one in the government seriously entertaining the idea of legalizing drugs? I’ve turned from cynic to conspiracy theorist. Surely the reason that so many people fail to see the logic of your argument is that they benefit directly from the status quo:
+ Law enforcement budgets are set by it; it’s an unwinnable war that creates tremendous job security.
+ Military intervention in places we shouldn’t be to begin with (Colombia, for example) is justified by it
+ Fringe agendas, among some on the Christian right, rally support around it
+ There are probably legislators funded indirectly by drug lords who are beneficiaries of the funds flow.
There is an excellent new book about Prohibition, Last Call, by Daniel Okrent, which I highly recommend. It discusses, among other things, the racist implications of the prohibition movement.