With so many states along with the federal government not having enough revenue to pay for current services, if spending for the drug war were eliminated would this get them out of the hole?
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North Carolina Sheriffs Want Access To Private Medical Information Regarding Use Of Controlled Substances
September 8, 2010 — Ron ChusidSheriffs in North Carolina want access to computerized records showing which patients receive prescriptions for controlled substances according to a report in the Charlotte News and Observer. While this might be of some benefit in fighting abuse of prescription medications, it violates some important principles. This includes a presumption of innocence, as opposed to assuming that anyone suffering from chronic pain who requires prescriptions for controlled substances may be committing a crime. This also violates our current policies regarding patient confidentiality. The American Civil Liberties has questioned this invasion of privacy:
The ACLU opposed a bill in 2007 that would have opened the list to law enforcement officials, said ACLU lobbyist Sarah Preston. The organization would likely object to the new proposal.
“What really did concern us is the privacy aspect,” she said. Opening the record to more users could deter someone from getting necessary medicine because of the fear that others would find out, she said, “particularly in small towns where everybody knows everybody.”
Why doesn’t the tea party ever protest against this type of big government?
Senate Votes To Double Fines On Marijuana Brownies
July 30, 2010 — Ron ChusidCongress has been near paralyzed by the manner in which the Republicans have made 60 the new 50 and have filibustered virtually everything proposed by Democrats. There’s still one thing which was able to pass by unanimous consent–a bill to double the penalties for marijuana brownies. Talking Points Memo reports:
If you thought that the Republican filibuster of the tax-cutting small business bill meant that the Senate didn’t have a particularly productive day Thusday, you’d be wrong. In fact, the Senate authorized the issuance of a conservation stamp, created Polycystic Kidney Disease Awareness Week, gave a little money to the Patent and Trademark office and, oh yeah, doubled the penalties for making pot brownies. Yes, the same week that Congress significantly reduced the racially-charged crack-powder sentencing disparity, they also voted to create one between pot brownies and dime bags.
The Senate voted to pass by unanimous consent (that it, without a roll call vote) S. 258, known colloquially as the Saving Kids From Dangerous Drugs Act of 2010, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and co-sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Charles Grassley (R-IA). While the bill is intended to keep drug dealers from cutting their product with sweets in order to make them more marketable to children, it applies to any drug mixed with with something that modifies its flavor — as making pot brownies does — if the person making the brownies “intends” to give it to someone under 18. At that point, the person making the pot brownies would be subject to twice the normal penalty of any person caught distributing weed.
Michael Whitney of Firedoglake believes that Diane Feinstein’s real goal is to stop medical marijuana. Jacob Sullum at Reason thinks this is giving Feinstein too much credit, not believing that Feinstein put that much thought into the bill she sponsored.
Drug War A Failure
May 14, 2010 — Ron ChusidAP reports that the drug war has met none of its goals. Among the views quoted:
Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.
“Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use,” Miron said, “but it’s costing the public a fortune.”
Two Cops Advise Legalization of Drugs
August 17, 2009 — Ron ChusidPeter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Neill Franklin, a 32-year law enforcement veteran, have written an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for legalization of drugs in order to decrease violence and give decimated neighborhoods a chance to recover. Both are members of f Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Here is a portion:
Drug users generally aren’t violent. Most simply want to be left alone to enjoy their high. It’s the corner slinger who terrifies neighbors and invites rivals to attack. Public drug dealing creates an environment where disputes about money or respect are settled with guns.
In high-crime areas, police spend much of their time answering drug-related calls for service, clearing dealers off corners, responding to shootings and homicides, and making lots of drug-related arrests.
One of us (Franklin) was the commanding officer at the police academy when Arthur (as well as Moskos) graduated. We all learned similar lessons. Police officers are taught about the evils of the drug trade and given the knowledge and tools to inflict as much damage as possible upon the people who constitute the drug community. Policymakers tell us to fight this unwinnable war.
Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies — and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men — have we and other police officers begun to question the system.
Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn’t work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo.
Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.
Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.
Beginning The War on “The War on Drugs”
July 20, 2009 — Ron Chusid
It takes a long time for public opinion to change on some issues but sometimes we reach a tipping point where old ideas begin to be abandoned. In 2006 the Republicans won in many states by making an issue of same sex marriage. Today many see their opposition as being a factor which has caused young voters to abandon the party and speed up their decline. Other aspects of the culture wars will take longer to change. At this point we seem to be far away from ending the war on drugs but there is increased discussion of the issue and some signs of hope that it will be possible in the foreseeable future for politicians to discuss change. Mother Jones has devoted an issue to the topic and began with noting any absurdities of the drug war:
…the drug war has never been about facts—about, dare we say, soberly weighing which policies might alleviate suffering, save taxpayers money, rob the cartels of revenue. Instead, we’ve been stuck in a cycle of prohibition, failure, and counterfactual claims of success. (To wit: Since 1998, the ONDCP has spent $1.4 billion on youth anti-pot ads. It also spent $43 million to study their effectiveness. When the study found that kids who’ve seen the ads are more likely to smoke pot, the ONDCP buried the evidence, choosing to spend hundreds of millions more on the counterproductive ads.)
What would a fact-based drug policy look like? It would put considerably more money into treatment, the method proven to best reduce use. It would likely leave in place the prohibition on “hard” drugs, but make enforcement fair (no more traffickers rolling on hapless girlfriends to cut a deal. No more Tulias). And it would likely decriminalize but tightly regulate marijuana, which study after study shows is less dangerous or addictive than cigarettes or alcohol, has undeniable medicinal properties, and isn’t a gateway drug to anything harder than Doritos. (Watch Clara discuss the Doritos theory at the 00:12:54 mark of this video, and see “The Patriot’s Guide to Legalization.”
So why don’t we have a rational drug policy? Simple. Forget the Social Security “third rail.” The quickest way to get yourself sidelined in serious policy discussion is to stray from drug war orthodoxy. Even MoJo has skirted the topic for fear of looking like a bunch of hot-tubbing stoners. Such is the power of the culture wars, 50 years on.
After skirting the issue in the past they are now willing to address it, as others occasionally do. There’s still a long way to go before public opinion changes, but at least the process is starting to move a little more towards the mainstream.
Webb Believes Marijuana Legalization Should Be On The Table
April 24, 2009 — Ron ChusidJim Webb is open to considering decriminalization or legalization of marijuana as a part of prison reform:
“Well, I think what we need to do is to put all of the issues on the table,” Webb said this morning on CNN if asked if marijuana legalization would be part of his criminal justice reform efforts.
“If you go back to 1980 as a starting point, I think we had 40,000 people in prison on drug charges, and today, we have about 500,000 of them,” the first-term Virginia lawmaker said. “And the great majority of those are nonviolent crimes — possession crimes or minor sales.”
Webb joins several other lawmakers who have called for the exploration of legalized pot, amidst a drug war in Mexico fueled by revenues from American drug sales.
“I think they should examine every aspect of drugs policy to see what’s working and what’s not working, and where the consistencies are and, quite frankly, where the inconsistencies are in terms of how people end up in the system with similar activities,” Webb explained, reiterating his call for a high-level blue ribbon commission to reform the criminal justice system.
“Nothing should be off the table,” he said.
Non Marijuana Smokers For Legalization of Marijuana
March 27, 2009 — Ron ChusidDaniel Larison (via Andrew Sullivan) thinks that many proponents of marijuana are being counterproductive:
…it seems to me that legalization arguments will never gain much traction if advocates for it are constantly having to mention how they are not like the drug’s stereotypical users or regard the drug’s use as some grievous personal failing. Instead of coming across as a stronger argument, the standard “I’m in favor of legalization, and I’m the farthest thing in the world from a pot smoker!” argument ends up making the argument for legalization less compelling. This is because this kind of argument unintentionally reproduces the stigma against the drug and effectively endorses one of the key claims that supporters of criminalization make. While it is true that there are a great many practical and principled reasons why Americans of all stripes should oppose continued criminalization, for legalization to take hold as something more than a marginal issue that has the sympathies of more than relatively marginal political forces there would need to be a much larger constituency that regards criminalization as an intolerable imposition on one of their preferences.
A problem with this argument is that there really are plenty of us who do not smoke marijuana but who support legalization. This is largely for libertarian reasons of allowing others to make their own choices, even if different from the choices I have made. Nobody argues that all of us who support legalization of gay marriage must be gay. Similarly there is no reason that supporters of legalization of marijuana must be marijuana users.
There are also pragmatic reasons for opposing the drug war such as the increased violence it leads to and increased law enforcement costs. These are also reasons which those of us who don’t use marijuana could see as appealing reasons to support legalization.
I do concede that Larison does have a point. I’ve never felt compelled to preface a post supporting legalization of marijuana with the fact that I do not smoke marijuana (only mentioning it here as it is relevant to the discussion). Showing a need to stress this could be taken as stigmatization.
Harvard Economist Calls For End of Drug Prohibition To Reduce Violence
March 24, 2009 — Ron ChusidHarvard economist Jeffery Miron calls for legalization of drugs:
Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.
Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this “war on drugs.”
The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it’s permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.
The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.
See his full op-ed for multiple reasons as to why legalization is the right policy.
The Economist Calls For Ending Drug War (Again)
March 7, 2009 — Ron ChusidThe Economist calls for an end to the drug war:
Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.
“Least bad” does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring (different) risks to consumer countries. As we outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.
The article proceeds to discuss the problems caused by the drug war, including increased crime and violence:
Indeed, far from reducing crime, prohibition has fostered gangsterism on a scale that the world has never seen before. According to the UN’s perhaps inflated estimate, the illegal drug industry is worth some $320 billion a year. In the West it makes criminals of otherwise law-abiding citizens (the current American president could easily have ended up in prison for his youthful experiments with “blow”). It also makes drugs more dangerous: addicts buy heavily adulterated cocaine and heroin; many use dirty needles to inject themselves, spreading HIV; the wretches who succumb to “crack” or “meth” are outside the law, with only their pushers to “treat” them. But it is countries in the emerging world that pay most of the price. Even a relatively developed democracy such as Mexico now finds itself in a life-or-death struggle against gangsters. American officials, including a former drug tsar, have publicly worried about having a “narco state” as their neighbour.
The failure of the drug war has led a few of its braver generals, especially from Europe and Latin America, to suggest shifting the focus from locking up people to public health and “harm reduction” (such as encouraging addicts to use clean needles). This approach would put more emphasis on public education and the treatment of addicts, and less on the harassment of peasants who grow coca and the punishment of consumers of “soft” drugs for personal use. That would be a step in the right direction. But it is unlikely to be adequately funded, and it does nothing to take organised crime out of the picture.
Legalisation would not only drive away the gangsters; it would transform drugs from a law-and-order problem into a public-health problem, which is how they ought to be treated. Governments would tax and regulate the drug trade, and use the funds raised (and the billions saved on law-enforcement) to educate the public about the risks of drug-taking and to treat addiction. The sale of drugs to minors should remain banned. Different drugs would command different levels of taxation and regulation. This system would be fiddly and imperfect, requiring constant monitoring and hard-to-measure trade-offs. Post-tax prices should be set at a level that would strike a balance between damping down use on the one hand, and discouraging a black market and the desperate acts of theft and prostitution to which addicts now resort to feed their habits.
This is not a radical change in position for The Economist. Actually it is not a change in position at all. They wrote about the problems with prohibition twenty years ago. Events over the past twenty years have shown that they were correct.
While many aspects of Obama’s policies will be an improvement over those of the Bush administration, as Andrew Sullivan points out, Obama still makes the mistake of sticking to a law enforcement approach to the drug problem.
