The “War on Drugs” cannot be won
Posted in NtheDrgWar by R Lee Wrights on April 11th, 2007 by Michael J. Gilbert
After nearly 40 years working in and around the justice system as corrections professional, criminal justice consultant and professor I have come to view drug prohibition policies as deeply dysfunctional, extraordinarily destructive to our society and fundamentally immoral. For me, speaking out against prohibition drug control policies has become a moral issue. This is why I joined LEAP, began to speak out against prohibition as a drug control policy and participate in this blog.
The “War on Drugs” cannot be won. Estimates suggest that between 40%-50% of our population have used an illegal drug at least once in their lifetime. This means that somewhere between 120,000,000 and 150,000,000 American residents could have been arrested, charged and convicted of a “drug defined crime” had they been caught. The “enemies” in this war are our relatives - our sons, daughters, wives, husbands, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents. We are at war with ourselves and the war is killing or damaging the lives of more people than the illegal drugs being used.
The public stereotype of a drug user is either that of a gang-affiliated minority living in poverty or a destabilized homeless street addict. Yet, studies consistently reveal that the typical drug user is white, middle class and fully employed. They are “hidden users” who do not come to the attention of the criminal justice system. The 2-3 million drug offenders under correctional supervision - in prison, jail or under community supervision - are not representative of hidden users. Yet, the drug - crime association that prohibition advocates use to support the “War on Drug” generalize from offender populations to all users.
The crime that surrounds illegal drugs is an artificial creation produced by our laws because they have created extraordinarily lucrative black markets in a wide array of mood altering substances to satisfy consistent demand among our citizens. The violence seen along the Mexican side of the United States border is an extreme example but it highlights the role of prohibition policies in creating both crime and violence. Drug cartels are at war with one another in a struggle for control over access to IH-35. This smuggling route runs from Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side of the border and continues on the American side from Laredo, TX to Duluth, MN. It crosses every major interstate highway in the United States and is perhaps the most efficient route for drug distribution in the nation. Prohibition policies and consistent demand for illegal drugs make control of the IH-35 drug smuggling route enormously lucrative. This is what the war between Mexican drug cartels is about.
Millions of hidden users have used illegal drugs regularly for decades. They remain hidden because their buying and use patterns sharply reduce their risks of being observed by police. They use legally earned income to buy drugs. They rarely make drug buys in the open on the street preferring to make purchases discretely through intermediaries or regular dealers. Their drugs are often delivered to them. When they do buy the often buy larger amounts than street users and consequently buy less often than street users. Hidden users tend to store their drugs and use them intermittently overtime - much like one would consume an expensive scotch whiskey. They are neither addicted or drug dependent and are able to maintain this use pattern indefinitely provided their use pattern does not escalate beyond intermittent use. On the surface they appear to have a “drug fee” lifestyle, raising families, paying their taxes and maintaining their careers. If they do come to the attention of police, as the actor Robert Downey did a few years ago, it largely because they have escalated their use pattern beyond intermittent use, become dependent, gone on binges, or made drug buys in the open.
Claims by advocates of prohibition that the “War on Drugs” is being won are a product of selective use of short-term fluctuations in data when long term data trends tell a very different story. By every measure, the evidence fails to support claims that we are making progress. We see just the opposite what we should see if prohibition worked. There is more use, greater availability, lower street prices, increased purity and less control over access to prohibited drugs.
Prohibition produces counterproductive harms that are far worse than drug use. No one in authority appears willing to recognize the “800 pound gorilla in the room” - drug prohibition is an ineffective drug control strategy and is a socially destructive policy. The incarceration rates for African American males are over 4,000 per 100,000 - several times higher than the incarceration rates for Blacks in South Africa during the White apartheid regimes.
If we want to reduce illegal drug use we must remove the black market and provide mechanisms for legalized access under a regulatory structure. In 1933 alcohol prohibition was repealed after 13 years. The impacts of prohibition were widely recognized as worse than the health and social impact of alcohol use. The repeal of prohibition alcohol required the repeal of a constitutional amendment - a much more difficult task than changing drug control laws today. With the repeal of prohibition, access to alcohol was legalized and placed under a regulatory structure to restrict access to adults and control product quality. These policy changes did not eliminate health problems related to alcohol abuse, but it did eliminate the black market in alcohol as well as the crime and violence surrounding alcohol production, distribution and sales.
Today we live with the consequences of a policy error. Drug use is a health and educational policy problem. Unfortunately, our policies view drug use as a criminal justice problem. As a result, our responses are viewed almost solely through a punitive justice lens. In the end this policy error fails to reduce drug use, to improve public safety, and devolves control over access to illegal drugs to the black market.
I look forward to your comments and questions as well as a vigorous discussion of these issues.
Originally published at the LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) blog January 20, 2007.
Juanita Ramirez said,
April 11, 2007 @ 9:26 pm
You are absolutely correct. The “War on Drugs” has single-handedly made the corrections system ‘big business’. The collateral effect is the welfare system for mothers and fathers incarcerated. What a lot of bureaurcrats that keeps employed.
Just like with alcohol, no one is ever going to keep mankind from seeking and finding an escape from the realities and sometimes harshness of life. No one is ever going to keep young people from finding substances to alter their mind and just let go. Are we having fun yet?
Prior to Prohibition both drugs and alcohol were legal substances and, of course, there were poor souls then who could not discipline their use of them. While tragic, those cases were fewer than they are now, I believe. The reason being that back then local communities and families and the occassional good Samaritan just stepped in to clean it up without the assistance of tax dollars and a permanent record to assure the poor soul that he/she would never be able to secure gainful employment again.