Pubdate: Sat, 20 Sep 2014
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2014 Albuquerque Journal
Contact:  http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Diane Dimond
Page: A9

WHEN WILL WE REALLY LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS ON DRUGS?

New Study Says That Legalizing All Drugs Is the Smart Thing to Do

Here's a riddle: How many knowledgeable people does it take to 
suggest a policy change before society adopts their sage advice?

Buried in all the recent news about ISIS, horrific weather lashing 
the United States, the violence of NFL players and the like came a 
hardly noticed news item about the idea of legalizing drugs. Now, 
stay with me on this. It's important. The Global Commission on Drug 
Policy, an illustrious panel including former U.N. Secretary General 
Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, former 
chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, former presidents 
and prime ministers of nearly a dozen countries, and others issued a 
detailed study about why it's smart - for reasons both humanitarian 
and financial - to legalize marijuana and other drugs. Yes, all 
drugs. Maybe it's time to consider their suggestion? After all, our 
decades-long War on Drugs has been a miserable failure. Actions to 
curb drug production and violence in other countries, and along our 
border have obviously not worked.

Over the past 40 years, countless billions of dollars have been spent 
trying to corral the scourge and the result is more drug addicts than 
ever before. Our prisons are overflowing with dealers and addicts.

Yet the supply and demand keeps flowing and growing.

So how long do we keep doing what obviously doesn't work?

The commission's study has several main recommendations and one 
guiding goal: The "health and welfare of mankind," including 
widespread access to essential medicines and pain control. The idea 
being, I surmise, that patients in pain often graduate to the ranks 
of full-fledged addicts. Help them early and they don't graduate.

The commission calls for an end to the criminalization and 
incarceration of low-level users, instead diverting the money we 
spend on court costs and prisons to treatment strategies. And, to 
undermine the massive profits of organized crime, the panel 
recommends law enforcement specifically target top-level criminals 
and the most violent organizations.

In other words, cut off the head of the snake instead of worrying 
about its tail as we so often do today.

Governments are called upon to totally rethink their drug problem and 
not be afraid of new ideas. Gee, it sounds so simple.

This isn't the first distinguished bunch of thinkers to put forward 
these suggestions,

In 2002, an influential group of American law enforcement 
professionals, including police chiefs, high court judges and 
lawyers, got together to formulate better ways to handle the drug 
plague in America.

They formed Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which has already 
advocated many of the commission's ideas and believes prohibition of 
drugs is at the center of the problem. Remove the ban, LEAP's leaders 
say, and you remove both the colossal profit motive and the violence 
inflicted upon those who get in the way of the cartels.

In the process, you've eased the burden on police departments, 
overcrowded prisons and families whose breadwinners are behind bars.

"We believe that by placing drug abuse in the hands of medical 
professionals instead of the criminal justice system, we will reduce 
rates of addiction and overdose deaths," says LEAP's mission 
statement. "We believe that in a regulated and controlled 
environment, drugs will be safer for adult use and less accessible to 
our children."

Can all these people who have stared the drug problem in the face and 
now advocate decriminalization be wrong? They have lived, breathed 
and been part of the system that was designed to find solutions. How 
can we ignore their learned advice?

Oh, there are plenty of outstanding questions about these 
revolutionary suggestions.

If drugs are legalized, regulated and taxed by governments, won't 
there still be a black market for those who don't want to be tracked 
by Uncle Sam? Isn't there the risk of creating another bloated 
government entity? Would hard-core drugs like heroin and meth be 
available or would nonaddictive substitutes be offered? How can we 
know if more money, time and expertise will really be dedicated to 
treating addicts?

I don't know the answer to all these questions but several states 
have already taken the step of legalizing marijuana and the gates of 
hell have not opened. Locking up millions of addicts with the hope 
that the suppliers will dry up hasn't worked. So how long do we keep 
hitting our heads against the wall with zero positive results?

Doing the same thing over and over is, to me, the definition of stupidity.

I say it's way past time to seriously consider alternatives.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom