End the War on Drugs

It is time to end the war on drugs. Let me repeat this, and make myself perfectly clear, because I know that it will be most difficult to break through the hysteria and emotion that surround this issue, "the third rail of American politics(9/30)." But I intend, in this campaign, to spell out the moral and intellectual arguments against this failure in public policy as rationally and as reasonably as I can, in order to counter the propaganda that has so influenced personal and political opinion over the last 80 years. It is time to end the war on drugs in America because that war has been, and will continue to be, a failure.

It has failed, and will continue to fail to accomplish its stated objectives because:
1) its fundamental premise is flawed;
2) its social costs far outweigh its supposed benefits;
3) it creates violent crime while incarcerating an ever increasing number of nonviolent users;
4) it is a waste of resources, as more and more tax dollars are lavished on enforcement without any real diminution of usage;
5) it spreads corruption throughout our society, touching police forces, prosecutors and judges; and
6) it destroys the lives of millions of individual Americans and their families.

Former New York governor Mario Cuomo once said, "There is a big difference between ideas that sound good, and good ideas that are sound." Surely, it is the conventional wisdom among politicians to sound tough on crime and tough on drugs. But "the war on drugs" is clearly a case of an idea that merely sounds good. And as George Patton said, "If everyone is thinking the same thing, then someone isn't thinking." In 1988, Congress passed a resolution proclaiming its goal of "a drug-free America by 1995." There is no such thing as a drug-free America... not in 1995, nor anytime in the future.

U.S. drug policy has failed persistently over the decades because it has preferred rhetoric to reality and moral finger-pointing to mature pragmatism. We have to grow up and acknowledge drugs are here to stay and that we have no choice but to learn how to live with them so that they cause the least possible harm.

Yet we continue to have a drug policy that creates the most possible harm. A policy created and maintained by generals, politicians, and self-proclaimed guardians of public morality who make pronouncements and assertions with no basis in fact or science... who ignore the independent commissions appointed to evaluate programs and policies when the results differ from their self-righteous opinions... and who stifle serious debate and ridicule anyone who dares to question the legitimacy of their arguments or point out the fallacies of their thinking. So I already know that I am going to open myself up to severe criticism. But I believe I have the facts on my side, and I sincerely sense that the American people are beginning to understand that this is the second time in this century that Prohibition has failed.

The first flaw in the arguments of the drug warriors is that drugs are wrong, and that drugs are dangerous and, therefore, should remain illegal. Let's take the second point first, that drugs are dangerous.

Fact 1: Most people can or could use most drugs without doing much harm to themselves or anyone else. Approximately 85 million Americans have, at one time or another, consumed or exposed themselves to an illegal drug. Yet it is estimated that there are not more than 1 million regular cocaine users, less than a million heroin users, and 5 million Americans who regularly smoke marijuana. Of an estimated 70 million who have tried marijuana, only a tiny percentage of them have gone on to have problems with that or any other drug. The same is true of the tens of millions of Americans who have used cocaine or hallucinogens. So we can reasonably deduce that Americans who abuse a drug or have a serious drug problem are a very small percentage of these who have experimented with or continue to use drugs without any observable distraction in their lives or careers.

Fact 2: Drug-related deaths--which average under 15,000 per year--are far less then those attributed to alcohol, and are dwarfed by the 400,000 yearly deaths due to cigarettes, yet no one is advocating jailing the Marlboro man, and no serious person would suggest we attempt to make alcohol illegal again. And while one has to admit that there is a tiny percentage of our population that has serious drug problems, the argument cannot be maintained that, as a society, we can justify spending billions of dollars a year on the basis of the dangerous aspects of presently illegal drugs.

As for marijuana, even the drug warriors acknowledge that it is without lethal effect. No one has ever died from smoking too much pot. Both President Nixon's National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (known as the Shafer Commission) in 1972, and the National Academy of Sciences in 1982, recommended decriminalizing marijuana, pointing to its non-deleterious effects... yet we continue to arrest over 500,000 Americans for possession of pot every year.

As to the suggestion that drugs are "wrong".. . well, many people think that many kinds of behaviors their neighbors indulge in may be "wrong." Yet, as a free society, we understand that criminal sanctions can not, and should not, attempt to prohibit personal conduct which does no harm to others, regardless of how we may view that behavior. What always surprises me when I hear so-called "conservative" politicians fulminate against drug use is the seemingly forgotten tenet that America is supposed to be a society committed to individual liberty and personal responsibility. Certainly, liberty must extend to what, when, and how much of which substance a citizen can ingest.

In 1859, British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant." That is to say, we may feel that body-piercing, or watching too much TV, or getting fat on Twinkies is wrong, yet we cannot make these, or other acts like it, illegal. We live in a country where closing the garage door and filling your lungs with carbon monoxide for the purpose of inducing death is legal, but it is illegal to fill those same lungs with marijuana smoke for the purpose of inducing pleasure... or relieving pain.

And while it is perfectly appropriate to sanction behavior which may harm others, such as driving under the influence of drugs, or selling drugs to children, we cannot continue to exist as a free society if we continue to prohibit and punish behavior that is only harmful to the person indulging in it... which may not even be the case with drug use to begin with. So the arguments that justify the "war on drugs" on the basis of danger and morality simply don't hold up under scrutiny.

Another argument used to justify our "war on drugs" is that if drugs were legal, everyone would do them, producing, in short order, a nation of tripped-out zombies. Further, keeping drugs illegal discourages drug use. The facts simply do not bear out this argument in either respect. Indeed, the history of substance use and abuse has shown us that the legal status of drugs has no substantial effect an drug consumption. Prohibition had little or no effect on the consumption of alcohol. Marijuana use, which has been illegal since the 1930's, remained fairly rare, as were arrests, until the social changes of the '60's brought a massive increase in pot-smoking--against which the criminal law had no effect. Witness all our present national leaders who admit to blowing joints in their youth.

Experience with harder drugs shows similar patterns. In 1906, cocaine was legal and inexpensive. By 1980 it was illegal and costly, yet the rate of consumption was twice that of 1906. Drug use has held at pretty consistent levels for many years, even though politicians love to point to minor rises and falls, mostly for partisan purposes around election time. In fact, all the numbers seem to suggest that if the illegality of drugs is meant to discourage use, than prohibition is clearly not achieving that objective. While expenditures in the war on drugs have increased tenfold in ten years, the number of Americans using drugs has remained relatively constant at 40 million, with steady users estimated at 6 million, and 1 to 2 million with serious disorders.

Similarly, legalization of drugs also seems to have little effect on usage. Ten states have legalized small amounts of marijuana for personal use over the past few decades, with no apparent increase in consumption. Holland legalized marijuana de facto in 1976 and teenage marijuana use subsequently dropped by 40%. The rate of teen marijuana use in Holland and Spain, where cannabis was decriminalized in 1983, is only two-thirds that of Britain, which enforces its anti-marijuana laws strenuously. Mexico is awash in cheap drugs, yet our own State Department says that Mexico does "not have a serious drug problem."

So another set of arguments of the drug warriors cannot withstand rational scrutiny. Keeping drugs illegal does not, in fact, discourage their use, while decriminalizing them would not necessarily lead to epidemic levels of consumption.

So we have a situation where our present drug policy is clearly not achieving the aims for which it is ostensibly in place; a policy whose fundamental logic is flawed, and whose entire supposed rationale for existence is untenable. But then what are the actual results of our policy, if, in fact, the intended results are nonexistent? What are the effects of our 80-year experiment with prohibition?

Drug prohibition is responsible for nearly 50% of the million Americans who are in jail today. Between 1990 and 1995, the number of people arrested for drug offenses jumped 27%, and the number sentenced accounts for half the growth in the prison population over the past 15 years. In 1982, 10,000 women were locked in prisons nationwide. Last year the number topped 116,000. More than 80% of these women were convicted exclusively for nonviolent drug offenses. In 1996, 641,642 people were arrested for marijuana, 85% for possession, not sale, of the drug. Prohibition occupies an estimated 50% of the trial time of our judiciary and takes the time of 400,000 policemen, nationwide, with some 18,000 cops devoted exclusively to anti-drug units.

So one result of prohibition has been the criminalizing of our population, the clogging of our courts, and the misuse of hundreds of thousands of law enforcement personnel who could be engaged in the much more useful activity of combating violent crime. In addition, with mandatory sentencing in some drug cases, we have locked up some first-time offenders for ten years, while turning out of prison and back on the streets violent offenders, murderers, and rapists, who actually pose a real threat to society.

And, of course, the final irony is that it is drug prohibition itself, like alcohol prohibition in the early part of this century, that is by far the largest cause of crime in America. It is prohibition that puts the very lucrative drug trade--some $60 billion a year spent by Americans--into the hands of organized crime. When the law makes trade in a particular commodity illegal, it naturally becomes the exclusive domain of criminals. We saw it with Al Capone and the mob during the Roaring Twenties, and we see it again today. There's an old joke, not too funny, that says: "Kill a drug dealer, create a job opening." The incredibly huge profits to be made in the drug business, because of its illegality, will guarantee, forever, an endless supply of criminals willing to take the risk for the potential payoff.

At the point of export, the price of cocaine is roughly 3-5% of the street price eventually charged to the user. The economic incentive is enormous and most drug-related crime is the result of turf wars, drug-deal disputes, and the battle with authorities... not the desperate addict looking for a way to afford a fix. (Although it is estimated that if hard drugs were controlled by the government, a $1000-a-week habit would only cost about twenty bucks, thereby diminishing that level of petty, but nonetheless real, crime.) The end of alcohol prohibition in 1933 was also, not coincidentally, the end of most bootlegger violence. And though our current political culture equates decriminalizing drugs with being soft of criminals, it is prohibition itself that guarantees wealth and power for gangs, pushers, and drug lords with attendant crime and mayhem!

We have seen how this endless, escalating spiral of violence and counter-violence has achieved absolutely nothing except more and more wasted tax dollars (the annual combined federal and state budgets for drug interdiction and enforcement in the U. S. is about $30 billion) and more and more draconian enforcement measures directed against the American people. The continuing failure of the war on drugs has led many American jurisdictions to subvert the protections of the Constitution and is leading this nation down the frightening road to a police state. (Read from transcript of ABC News's 4/03/98 Nightline program on how Bill McCollum justifies stopping drivers on the highways... just because they're black!)

In America, property can now he seized without the owner being charged with a crime... so long as evidence of drug use is found on the property. Police departments can have the value of these seized assets added directly to their own budgets. Congress has created a system of fines up to $10,000 that can he imposed administratively, when prosecutors feel they cannot get enough evidence for a criminal prosecution.

What has become known as the "drug exception to the Fourth Amendment," has allowed the issuance of warrants based on anonymous tips and tips from informants known to be corrupt and unreliable; the warrantless searches of fields, barns, and private property near a residence; and the upholding of evidence obtained under defective search warrants, if the officers state that they acted in "good faith."

It is another astonishment to me that it is the so-called conservatives in our Congress who have no problem allowing the Bill of Rights to be trampled on in the name of this "war" on American citizens, in the name of protecting citizens from themselves. We have seen this kind of behavior before in the world; as Americans we must challenge and denounce it at every turn.

But even when drug use is proved, the punishment is often out of all proportion to the crime. In Vermont, a man was given a suspended sentence by the state court for growing six marijuana plants; but, under U.S. federal law, his family lost their 49-acre farm. At least he can he grateful he was charged in Vermont; fifteen states have life sentences for many nonviolent marijuana crimes. And if the amount of marijuana had been larger, federal law would have allowed the death penalty, even for a first offense. No wonder many judges across the land are refusing to even hear drug cases in their courtrooms rather than be a party to this mad rush to incarcerate, and possibly even execute, otherwise law-abiding citizens!

All over this country lives are being ruined, families devastated, and ordinary citizens put at risk-- not by drug use, but by drug prohibition. If there ever were a case in which the remedy is worse than the disease, this is it.

It is finally becoming clear to many thinking individuals--liberals, conservatives (including William Buckley and Milton Friedman ), white, black, rich, poor--that the effects of the underworld drug economy, the debasement of the rule of law, and the undermining of fundamental fairness and individual rights under the war on drugs all combine to require that the criminal prohibition against drug use and distribution be ended. The "war on drugs" has failed. How long must we wear the worn out clothes of a public policy that has caused so much harm in so many ways to our society? How long must we tolerate the sanctimonious moralism of self-serving politicians and self-appointed guardians of public piety before we come to our senses and solve the real problems before us?

The drug problem must be taken out of the criminal justice system and placed in the hands of those responsible for our public health. ( Read transcript of ABC News's 3/18/98 Nightline program on this subject.) Persuasion and education must replace persecution and incarceration. Drug abusers must no longer be demonized, criminalized, and imprisoned, but helped and treated.

How many nonviolent drug users would he spared the devastation of prison and financial ruin from overzealous prosecutions and hysterical witch-hunts? (Go to PBS's Moyers on Addiction "Current Policy" Site) How many inner cities would he freed from the crime and misery of drug-related violence and how many ordinary Americans would he protected against the erosion of their Constitutional rights?

(9/20) This past week, in a stunning display of bipartisan demagoguery and election year posturing, the US House of Representatives "considered" and quickly passed HR 4300, the "Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act." Among other components, HR 4300 authorizes $2.3 billion over the next three years to--it claims--reduce the amount of illegal drugs coming into the country by 80%. The funds include such items as: $430 million for 10 radar aircraft to monitor airspace over Peru, Bolivia, and Columbia; $300 million for a new U.S.airbase to support counternarcotic efforts; and $72 million for six helicopters for the Colombian National Police.

One after another, members from both parties fell over each other to see who could claim to be "toughest on drugs." They all intoned their deep concern for our youth who are being killed by the "poison" coming across our borders, and lamented how drug abuse is destroying our cities, communities, indeed, the very fabric of our national life. All this breast-beating was truly a pathetic sight, coming from the same Congress that routinely votes against programs that would actually give teenagers viable alternatives to a life in the streets, and whose members’ re-election campaigns are awash in Tobacco Company cash.

Of course, what was most interesting about the floor "debate" was the number of Congressmen who actually admitted that, after decades of fighting drugs with interdiction and counternarcotic efforts, we are in the exact same place we were in years ago. So what is their plan of action? More of the same! Bill Moyers said it best on his recent PBS special, On Addiction: "The ‘War on Drugs’ is this generation’s Viet Nam. We keep on doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results."

Indeed, the US government has already spent more than $25 billion on interdiction programs and efforts to disrupt drug production in source countries. But prices for both heroin and cocaine have actually declined over the last 15 years, as drug production has moved around the globe from Turkey, to Southeast Asia, to Afghanistan, to Mexico, to Colombia, to Bolivia, and to Peru. As Coast Guard Vice Adm. Roger Rufe Jr. has stated, "When you press the balloon in one area, it pops up in another... it’s a market economy."

HR 4300 is just another example of the "drug warriors" throwing more good money after bad for counternarcotics programs that have produced only failure. Florida’s 8th District Representative, Bill McCollum, sponsor of the bill, claims that if you "prevent drugs from entering the country... you drive up the price of drugs. Drive up the price of drugs and you save lives." But supply reduction efforts have actually had the opposite effect. Prices do increase, at first, but this has always attracted new, more violent producers and distributors to the market, which leads to death-dealing turf wars, and eventually prices are driven back down again.

Drug abuse is bad. The "War on Drugs" is worse. HR 4300 is another dangerous and ill-considered attempt to solve a problem by doing the same thing over and over again in a vain attempt to produce different results. When it fails to accomplish its intended results--and fail it will--I wonder how many legislators will have the "toughness" to admit that Congress was wrong, that it was merely pandering to the fears and hysteria of a population that has been fed anti-drug propaganda for so long that it can no longer apply reason and thoughtfulness to an admittedly difficult problem. Who will rush to the well of the House and finally ask, "How long do we have to fail at something before we try another way?"

The "war on drugs" is, clearly, another example of a public policy that is worn out. In the name of decency, fairness, and enlightened self-interest, can we not muster the political courage to end this war, and demand, for our future as a free and compassionate society, a new suit of reason and understanding? It's time for a new suit!