Pubdate: Tue, 22 May 2001
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2001 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper
Contact:  http://www.sunspot.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Philip D. Harvey
Note: Philip D. Harvey heads the DKT Liberty Project, a civil liberties group

TIME TO REDIRECT THE WAR ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON -- The deaths of a missionary and her child over Peru last month 
serve as a brutal reminder that the war on drugs is a shooting war.

The CIA's continuing involvement with the Peruvian government to intercept 
drug runners also exemplifies the sadly mistaken belief that America's drug 
problem can be solved by attacking sources of supply.

Indeed, Donnie R. Marshall, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, has recently written that the demand for drugs does not 
drive the supply; rather it's the other way around.

The drug problem, he and others believe, is a result not of a huge demand 
for substances that make people feel good but instead is caused by a 
determined band of "traffickers" whose vile and clever marketing schemes 
create a demand that would not otherwise exist. The facts do not support 
this hypothesis.

People always have used substances that alter the mood and the mind. We 
always will. In early history, fermented beverages of various kinds were 
common, as were concoctions made from mushrooms and a variety of plants, 
particularly those of the hemp family. Today, it is most frequently 
alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, amphetamines, Ecstasy and glue. Groups of 
youngsters in Inuit villages in Canada have turned to sniffing gasoline in 
plastic bags.

Our public policies should recognize that people, particularly adolescents, 
do things that are bad for them. Accordingly, we should not base our laws 
on the assumption that humans can be made perfect. Indeed, most of us don't 
even want that.

What we have chosen to do about the normal human urge to ingest or inhale 
substances that create good feelings is to make a handful of these 
substances illegal and then invest billions of dollars in chasing down 
those who use the substances and those who sell them.

The result does not change the fact of drug use.

Rather, the war on drugs compounds the problem by creating the potential 
for huge profits for those with criminal inclinations. This is done by 
infusing our law enforcement system with almost limitless opportunities for 
corruption and by incarcerating hundreds of thousands of American citizens 
who have committed no act of harm to others and whose lives and whose 
families' lives have been shattered as a result.

Further, the problem is worsened by corrupting the judicial systems of 
several of our Latin American neighbors to the point of threatening the 
very stability of those governments. Moreover, the drug war undermines the 
civil liberties of every American because phones are more likely to be 
tapped, property is more likely to be seized and people are more likely to 
be searched for substances that pose no immediate threat to anyone.

Viewed objectively, our choice of drugs to outlaw has been arbitrary. This 
is most vividly illustrated by making illegal one of the most benign 
pharmacological substances ever discovered (marijuana), while imposing 
virtually no strictures on the sale of a substance which kills several 
hundred thousand of us every year (tobacco).

To support his argument that the supply of drugs drives the demand rather 
than the other way around, the DEA's Mr. Marshall has asserted that the 
drug users depicted in the movie "Traffic" would not "specifically demand 
crack or heroin" without a well-marketed source of supply. Perhaps not.

Instead, they might "specifically" demand something else to make them feel 
good. Perhaps a generous prescription of a legal "upper"? (Millions of 
Americans are hooked on legal drugs). Perhaps alcohol? Perhaps bupropion 
hydrocholoride, an antidepressant that helps people stop smoking and which 
now has been shown preliminarily to increase the libido. The demand is 
there. It is part of our nature.

Whatever the appropriate response of society is to such substances, 
throwing people in jail for using them and, yes, for selling them to 
willing buyers is tragically wrong.

It is time to offer help to people who are addicted to drugs. Going 
undercover to arrest them and locking them away from their families just 
creates more crime, more misery and more corruption. It does nothing to 
curb the appetite for drugs.
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