It's Time for a Cease Fire In The War On Drugs (Joe Rothstein's Commentary)

June 19, 2009

By Joe Rothstein
Editor, EINNEWS.COM

Want to buy some marijuana? Go ask nearly any high school student you know and he or she can tell you who's selling it. Cocaine? If it's crack, the open air markets are not hard to find. Not crack? Someone at your bridge club probably has a source. Meth? It's everywhere.

Nearly 30 years ago the U.S. launched a “War on Drugs.” One weapon in that war was a campaign to undermine public demand for it. “Just Say No,” was Nancy Reagan's battle cry.

Hundreds of billions of dollars later, millions of people sent to jail later, destabilization of whole nations such as Columbia, Mexico and Afghanistan later, horrendous and deadly gang wars later, drugs are more pervasive than ever. And as we travel further and further down the uncertain pathways of chemistry, the number of lab-created ways to have altered mind and body experiences keeps increasing.

It's time to call a cease fire in the “War on Drugs.”

Here are some casualty statistics from the front lines:

---25% of all the people in the world who are incarcerated are in U.S. jails.
--2 ½ million people are in U.S. jails at a cost of about $60 billion a year. Keep adding tens of dollars annually for enforcement, for aid to other nations in the “drug war,” for monitoring those on parole or probation.
--One in every 30 Americans, 7.3 million people, are in prison, on parole or on probation.
--More people are locked up in the U.S. for various drug offenses than are in jail in Europe for all law violations
--13 million Americans have been disenfranchised because of drug felony convictions.
--70% of those in jail are non-white. Most drug users are white.
--Penitentiary systems have been the fastest-growing spending area for states after Medicaid.

What's the answer to all of this?

Well, it's clearly not in trying to suppress demand. Despite 30 years of “just say no” illicit drugs have been one of the biggest growth industries in the U.S.

So let's control it. Jeffrey Miron, former chairman of the Boston University's Department of Economics, estimates that state and local governments would realize more than $60 billion in annual revenue by taxing drugs at rates comparable to those generally imposed on alcohol and tobacco. Many believe these estimates are far too conservative.

And it's the money that will probably be the decisive factor in finally moving the U.S. away from its current dead end drug policy.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, facing a nearly impossible state budget situation, is open to the legalization of marijuana in California. Many see it as a multi-billion dollar cash crop instead of a law enforcement cost drain. Thirteen states already have legalized medical pot and others are seriously considering it. New York just ended its draconian anti-drug enforcement policy---the state just couldn't afford to keep building prisons.

Canada and many European nations are moving in the direction of the Swiss in handling the heroin problem.

Last November, more than 68% of Switzerland's voters approved a plan for legalized heroin. That program started as a pilot project in 1994. Now it's offered in 23 centers across Switzerland. Addicts who can't shake their addiction after government-sponsored help can receive carefully measured doses once a day. The drug is clean. The needle's clean. The incentive for a brutal, illicit, gang-managed drug delivery system is gone.

Since President Obama took office we've seen a few signs that the U.S. is willing to consider alternatives. One long overdue decision was to treat crack and powder cocaine violations the same. Excessive punishment for crack is one of the reasons so many more blacks are jailed for cocaine violations than whites. Another perfectly reasonable decision was to stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal.

Obama's choice to head the Drug Enforcement Agency, former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, kept a low profile as chief when it came to marijuana possession offenses. He's likely to be more reasonable in enforcement of the most egregious drug laws than many of his slash and burn predecessors.

With everything else on Obama's plate, calling a cease fire to the War on Drugs is probably more than one can ask or hope for. There's a limit to his political capital. But sheer economics alone---the cost of chasing people for things they put in their bodies---and then throwing them in jail for draconian stretches of time----doesn't compute in the current financial meltdown. And probably won't in the slow recovery to follow.

Some costs will have to be thrown overboard by federal, state and local governments. Given the hundreds of billions of dollars involved in what clearly is a losing effort to stop people from using drugs, it only makes sense to revisit the entire program and do what the nation did after trying unsuccessfully to stop people from using alcohol---end prohibition.

(Joe Rothstein can be contacted at joe@einnews.com).