Pubdate: Fri, 11 Feb 2011
Source: Huffington Post (US Web)
Copyright: 2011 HuffingtonPost com, Inc.
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Author: Ethan Nadelmann
Note: Ethan Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the 
Drug Policy Alliance.

DRUG WAR ANNIVERSARY A TIME FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

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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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake