Pubdate: Sat, 04 May 2002
Source: Macon Telegraph (GA)
Copyright: 2002 The Macon Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.macontelegraph.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/667
Author: Ronald Fraser
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/bush.htm (Bush, George)

THE PRESIDENT'S 'SAY ONE THING, DO ANOTHER' DRUG WAR

When politicians publicly tell us one thing and then quietly do 
something else, hold onto your wallet.

At stake in the latest round of Washington charades is next year's 
$19.1 billion drug war budget. On Feb. 12, as President Bush outlined 
his strategy to rid America of illegal drugs, he told the White House 
press corps, "The best way to affect supply is to reduce demand for 
drugs=8Aas long as there is the demand for drugs in this country, some 
crook is going to figure out how to get them here. As demand goes 
down, so will supply."

Clear enough. Trying to cut drug supply lines is a waste of tax 
money. A wise government strategy, according to Mr. Bush, is one that 
helps Americans say "no" to drugs. Just eight days earlier, however, 
the president sent Congress his $19.1 billion drug war budget request 
for 2003. Here is how Mr. Bush's drug war rhetoric stacks up against 
Mr. Bush's drug war budget.

Cutting Supply

Major spending categories for cutting drug supplies are: overseas 
actions to stop or destroy drugs where they are grown; interdiction 
of drugs at the U.S. border; and domestic law enforcement to prevent 
the distribution of drugs here at home.

In the last 10 years these supply-stopping efforts have consumed, on 
average, 68 percent of the federal taxes spent on the drug war. The 
results? Drugs are more easily available than ever. Street prices for 
cocaine and heroin have consistently fallen each year - a sure sign 
that interdiction programs have failed.

In 1992 one gram of cocaine sold for about $200, and heroin for 
$2,539; by 1999, these prices had dropped to $184 and $1,900. The 
president's rhetoric is borne out: attacking drug-supply pipelines 
simply doesn't work.

Cutting Demand

The two big spending categories for cutting drug demand in America 
are treatment for those with a drug problem and prevention 
initiatives that convince people not to use drugs in the first place.

In the last ten years these demand-reduction efforts have consumed, 
on average, 32 percent of all federal drug war dollars. After hearing 
the president's loud and clear assertion that cutting demand is the 
way to win the drug war, surely we would expect his budget to reflect 
a major shift in how he plans to spend our tax money in 2003. Right? 
Wrong.

=46ederal Spending

In 2003, drug supply cutting efforts get 67 percent and demand 
reduction efforts 33 percent of the federal funds - a whopping one 
percent boost for demand reduction above the 10-year average. If the 
president means what he says, spending on demand reduction 
initiatives should go up at least 15 or 20 percent over the 
historical average. And supply-cutting initiatives reduced a like 
amount. What gives here?

To Washington insiders, a puny 1-percent budget shift is the 
equivalent of a presidential wink and sends the drug war bureaucracy 
this signal: "Watch where I put the money, not what I tell the 
taxpayers. It's business as usual in 2003."

Rhetoric and reality clash again when we compare the 2002 and the 
2003 budgets. While spending for drug treatment goes up $224 million 
to $3.8 billion, an increase of 6.2 percent, spending on prevention 
in 2003 is actually cut by three percent to $2.4 billion. On the 
supply cutting side, where the president's own words put such little 
trust, spending for border drug interdiction gets a double digit, 
10.4 percent increase. Spending for international drug supply 
suppression, another perennial loser, goes up 4.9 percent and 
domestic law enforcement takes an almost invisible drop of 0.6 
percent.

State Savings

The president's rhetoric - that spending on prevention and treatment 
to reduce the demand for drugs is the key to winning the drug war - 
is also backed up with hard numbers at the state level. Oregon, for 
example, estimates their return on every dollar spent on treatment 
services to be a $5.62 savings on corrections, health and welfare 
spending. In California the return has been estimated to be about $7.

If the president followed his own advice two things would happen. 
=46irst, he would redirect billions in federal taxes away from 
Washington's addiction to a doomed drug supply strategy. Second, 
presidential leadership would also encourage the 50 states to put 
more of their own taxes into high pay-off, demand reduction programs.

It may be too late for the president to back up his words with our 
federal tax dollars. But it's not too late for Congress to reject the 
president's 'say one thing, do another' drug war budget.

Ronald Fraser, Ph.D., writes on public policy issues for the DKT 
Liberty Project.
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MAP posted-by: Josh