Source: Huffington Post

February 11, 2011

By Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance

Some anniversaries provide an occasion for celebration, others a time
for reflection, still others a time for action. This June will mark
forty years since President Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” identifying
drug abuse as “public enemy No. 1.” As far as I know, no celebrations
are planned. What’s needed, indeed essential, are reflection — and
action.

It’s hard to believe that Americans have spent roughly a trillion
dollars (give or take a few hundred million) on this forty-year war.
Hard to believe that tens of millions have been arrested, and many
millions locked up in jails and prisons, for committing nonviolent acts
that were not even crimes a century ago. Hard to believe that the number
of people incarcerated on drug charges increased more than ten times
even as the country’s population grew by only half. Hard to believe that
millions of Americans have been deprived of the right to vote not
because they killed a fellow citizen or betrayed their country but
simply because they bought, sold, produced or simply possessed a
psychoactive plant or chemical. And hard to believe that hundreds of
thousands of Americans have been allowed to die — of overdoses, AIDS,
hepatitis and other diseases — because the drug war blocked and even
prohibited treating addiction to certain drugs as a health problem
rather than a criminal one.

Reflect we must on not just the consequences of this war at home but
abroad as well. The prohibition-related crime, violence and corruption
in Mexico today resemble Chicago during alcohol Prohibition — times
fifty. Parts of Central America are even more out of control, and many
Caribbean nations can only hope that they are not next. The illegal
opium and heroin markets in Afghanistan reportedly account for one-third
to half of the country’s GDP. In Africa, prohibitionist profiteering,
trafficking and corruption are spreading rapidly. As for South America
and Asia, just pick a moment and a country — and the stories are much
the same, from Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil to Pakistan, Laos,
Burma and Thailand.

Wars can be costly — in money, rights and lives — but still necessary
to defend national sovereignty and core values. It’s impossible to make
that case on behalf of the war on drugs. Marijuana, cocaine and heroin
are effectively cheaper today than they were at the start of the war
forty years ago, and just as available now as then to anyone who really
wants them. Marijuana, which accounts for half of all drug arrests in
the United States, has never killed anyone. Heroin is basically
indistinguishable from hydromorphone (aka Dilaudid), a pain medication
prescribed by physicians that hundreds of thousands of Americans have
consumed safely. The vast majority of people who have used cocaine did
not become addicts. Each of these drugs is less dangerous than
government propaganda claims but sufficiently dangerous that they merit
intelligent regulations rather than blanket prohibitions.

If the demand for any of these drugs were two, five or ten times what
they are today, the supply would be there. That’s what markets do. And
who benefits from persisting with doomed supply control strategies
notwithstanding their evident costs and failures? Basically two sets of
interests: those producers and sellers of illicit drugs who earn far
more than they would if their product were legally regulated rather than
prohibited; and law enforcers for whom the expansion of prohibitionist
policies translates into jobs, money and the political power to defend
their self-interests.

Republican and Democratic governors confronting massive state budget
deficits are now endorsing alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent
drug law offenders that they would have rejected out of hand just a few
years ago. It would be a tragedy, however, if these modest but important
steps result in nothing more than a kinder, gentler drug war. What’s
really needed is the sort of reckoning that identifies as the problem
not just drug addiction but prohibition as well – and that aims to
reduce the role of criminalization and the criminal justice system in
drug control to the maximum extent possible while enhancing public
safety and health.

What better way to mark the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs than by
breaking the taboos that have precluded frank assessment of the costs
and failures of drug prohibition as well as its varied alternatives.
Barely a single hearing, audit or analysis undertaken and commissioned
by the government over the past forty years has dared to engage in this
sort of assessment. The same cannot be said of the wars in Iraq or
Afghanistan or almost any other domain of public policy. The war on
drugs persists in good part because those who hold the purse strings
focus their critical attentions only on the implementation of the
strategy rather than the strategy itself.

The Drug Policy Alliance and our allies in this rapidly growing movement
intend to break that tradition of denial — by transforming this
anniversary into a year of action. Our objective is ambitious — to
attain the critical mass at which the momentum for reform exceeds the
powerful inertia that has sustained punitive prohibitionist policies for
all too long. This requires working with legislators who dare to raise
the important questions, and organizing public forums and online
communities where citizens can take action, and enlisting unprecedented
numbers of powerful and distinguished individuals to voice their dissent
publicly, and organizing in cities and states to instigate new dialogues
and directions in local policies.

Count on five themes to emerge over and over during this anniversary
year.

1. Marijuana legalization is no longer a question of whether but when
and how.

Gallup’s polling found that 36% of Americans in 2005 favored
legalizing marijuana use while 60% were opposed. By late 2010, support
had risen to 46% while opposition had dropped to 50%. A majority of
citizens in a growing number of states now say that legally regulating
marijuana makes more sense than persisting with prohibition. We know
what we need to do: work with local and national allies to draft and win
marijuana legalization ballot initiatives in California, Colorado and
other states; assist federal and state legislators in introducing bills
to decriminalize and regulate marijuana; ally with local activists to
pressure police and prosecutors to de-prioritize marijuana arrests; AND
assist and embolden prominent individuals in government, business,
media, academia, entertainment and other walks of life to publicly
endorse an end to marijuana prohibition.

2. Over-incarceration is the problem, not the solution.

Ranking first in
the world in both absolute and per capita incarceration is a shameful
distinction that the United States should hasten to shed. The best way
to address the problem of over-incarceration is to reduce the number of
people incarcerated for non-violent drug law violations — by
decriminalizing and ultimately legalizing marijuana; by providing
alternatives to incarceration for those who pose no threat outside
prison walls; by reducing mandatory minimum and other harsh sentences;
by addressing addiction and other drug misuse outside the criminal
justice system rather than within it; and by insisting that no one be
incarcerated simply for possessing a psychoactive substance, absent harm
to others. All this requires both legislative and administrative action
by government, but systemic reform will only happen if the objective of
reducing over-incarceration is broadly embraced as a moral necessity.

3. The war on drugs is “the new Jim Crow.”

The magnitude of racial
disproportionality in the enforcement of drug laws in the United States
(and many other countries) is grotesque, with African Americans
dramatically more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated
than other Americans engaged in the same violations of drug laws.
Concerns over racial justice helped motivate Congress to reform the
notorious crack/powder mandatory minimum drug laws last year but much
more needs to be done. Nothing is more important at this point than the
willingness and ability of African American leaders to prioritize the
need for fundamental reform of drug policies. This is no easy task given
the disproportionate extent and impact of drug addiction in poor African
American families and communities. But it is essential, if only because
no one else can speak and act with the moral authority required to
transcend both deep seated fears and powerful vested interests.

4. Politics must no longer be allowed to trump science – and compassion,
common sense and fiscal prudence – in dealing with illegal drugs.

Overwhelming evidence points to the greater effectiveness and lower cost
of dealing with addiction and other drug misuse as matters of health
rather than criminal justice. That’s why DPA is stepping up our efforts
to transform how drug problems are discussed and dealt with in local
communities. “Think global but act local” applies to drug policy as much
as any other domain of public policy. Of course it would be better if a
president appointed someone other than a police chief, military general
or professional moralist as drug czar. But what really matters is
shifting the locus of authority in city and state drug policies from
criminal justice to health and other authorities. And equally important
is ensuring that new dialogues about drug policy are informed by
scientific evidence as well as best practices from around the country
and abroad. One of our specialties at DPA is getting people to think and
act outside the box about drugs and drug policies.

5. Legalization has to be on the table.

Not because it is necessarily the best solution. Not because it is the obvious alternative to the
evident failures of drug prohibition. But for three important reasons:
first, because it is the best way to reduce dramatically the crime,
violence, corruption and other extraordinary costs and harmful
consequences of prohibition; second, because there are as many options

— indeed more — for legally regulating drugs as there are options for
prohibiting them; and third, because putting legalization on the table
involves asking fundamental questions about why drug prohibitions first
emerged, and whether they were or are truly essential to protect human
societies from their own vulnerabilities. Insisting that legalization be
on the table — in legislative hearings, public forums and internal
government discussions — is not the same as advocating that all drugs
be treated the same as alcohol and tobacco. It is, rather, a demand that
prohibitionist precepts and policies be treated not as gospel but as
political choices that merit critical assessment, including objective
comparison with non-prohibitionist approaches.

So that’s the plan. Forty years after President Nixon declared his war
on drugs, we’re seizing upon this anniversary to prompt both reflection
and action. And we’re asking all our allies — indeed everyone who
harbors reservations about the war on drugs — to join us in this
enterprise.

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