Pubdate: Sun, 10 Oct 2010
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2010 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Steve Chapmen
Note: Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune's editorial board and 
blogs at chicagotribune.com/chapman

HOW TO PROFIT BY EXPANDING FREEDOM

Eliminating the Costs, Fiscal and Otherwise, of the Drug War

Spending huge sums of money and getting no results to justify the 
expense: That's the relentless, and accurate, Republican critique of 
President Barack Obama's efforts to revive the U.S. economy. But it 
also describes a policy staunchly supported by Republicans as well as 
Democrats decade after decade: the war on drugs.

When the government lays out hundreds of billions to keep 
unemployment from rising above 8 percent, only to see it hit 10 
percent, the obvious implication is that the policy didn't work. But 
when the government lays out tens of billions to reduce illicit drug 
use and finds that it has increased, the obvious implication is one 
that eludes almost every politician in America.

A few weeks ago, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration published the latest chapter in a 
long-running horror tale. In 2009, it found, nearly 22 million 
Americans used illegal drugs -- a 9 percent increase from the 
previous year and the highest rate since the survey began in 2002.

That happened even though federal, state and local authorities have 
been expanding enforcement efforts against drugs. Since 1981, 
Washington has gone from spending $1.5 billion a year to now spending 
$17 billion a year.

How does the administration explain the jump in illegal activity? You 
guessed it: Our policies are way too permissive. Commenting on the 
rise in marijuana use, Gil Kerlikowske, head of the White House's 
Office of National Drug Control Policy, insisted that "all of the 
attention and the focus of calling marijuana 'medicine' has sent the 
absolute wrong message to our young people."

What message does he mean? Presumably, that cannabis is not as 
destructive as commonly portrayed by ONDCP and others. What makes the 
message particularly troublesome is that it happens to be true. 
Marijuana is not entirely without risks, but compared with such legal 
alternatives as tobacco and alcohol, it's an alley cat among mountain lions.

The government has been using police and prisons to convey the 
opposite message, with pitiful results, for a long time. Each year, 
nearly 1.7 million people are arrested for drug violations, of which 
758,000 are for mere possession of cannabis. About half a million 
people are serving time in prison for drug offenses.

But these harsh policies don't seem to inhibit growers, dealers and 
buyers. They persist in finding ways to do business no matter what. 
The Vancouver-based International Centre for Science in Drug Policy 
points out that over the past 20 years, weed in the United States has 
gotten 58 percent cheaper, in inflation-adjusted terms.

Falling prices indicate the stuff is getting more abundant and 
available, notwithstanding all the cops collaring stoners. The vast 
majority of high school kids say pot is easy to get.

You might assume that more lenient policies would guarantee an 
epidemic of drug use. In fact, the Netherlands, which has all but 
legalized weed, has fewer potheads than we do, particularly among young people.

"Globally, drug use ... is not simply related to drug policy, since 
countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not 
have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones," concluded 
the World Health Organization.

None of this is new, but it has fresh relevance because of budgetary 
pressures that have forced citizens to ask what on earth the drug war 
is accomplishing. Californians, whose state government is in a 
bottomless fiscal hole, will vote next month on an initiative to 
legalize cannabis. One big selling point is that it could yield a 
$1.4 billion windfall to state coffers.

What is true for the Golden State is true for the other 49. In a new 
study for the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, Harvard 
economist Jeffrey Miron and research associate Katherine Waldock 
estimate that, nationally, legalizing and taxing marijuana would save 
$8.7 billion in enforcement costs and harvest $8.7 billion in revenue.

Instead of lavishing money arresting and incarcerating recreational 
drug users, the drug users would provide funds for the rest of us. 
Most of them would be more than happy to do so in exchange for the 
freedom to indulge their habits. And the evidence suggests that we 
would not even see an increase in drug use.

Substance abuse is known to impair clear thinking and good judgment. 
But it's the people pushing harsh drug laws who seem to be lost in a fog.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake