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LEAP of faith

It is time to re-examine the war on drugs because it has failed

The idea of legalizing drugs as a method to combat drug abuse and drug-related crimes seems, at first blush, counterintuitive.

How could legalizing something as destructive as drugs serve to improve a persistent and growing problem? After decades of instilling in children the message that drug use is dangerous, how can we now change course with legalization?

Last week, attorney Brian Leininger, a former Wyandotte County prosecutor and former attorney for the Kansas Highway Patrol, explained the position of his group -- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition -- to the Hutchinson Drug Impact Task Force.

"Saying it's a failure probably gives it too much credit," he said of the decades' long war on drugs.  "It's not hard to get whatever drug you want right now."

Even Hutchinson Police Chief Dick Heitschmidt and Howard Shipley, former head of the Reno County Drug Enforcement Unit, agreed that their efforts -- a combined 90 years in law enforcement between them - -- have done almost nothing to curb drug use in the community.

It is time to acknowledge all the signs of failure; it is time to try a different approach to the drug epidemic that plagues our communities, our state and our country.

Drugs haven't always been illegal.  There was a time in American history when drug use and addiction were treated as a health concern.  Addicts received medical care and, in some cases, prescriptions for low doses of drugs to control their addictions.  Much like the "functioning alcoholics" many of us know, those addicts held down jobs, maintained households and healthy relationships.

Making drugs illegal didn't stop drug use.  It created a lucrative black market, where violence reigns, and it turned addiction or youthful experimentation into a crime.  A teenager convicted of a drug crime is ineligible for financial aid for higher education -- altering the future of what might have been a bright student headed toward a prosperous future.

Drug prohibition is cost-prohibitive.  It consumes the resources of police, prosecutors and our judicial system.  Yet, the biggest price of prohibition can be found in the trail of lives ruined by a criminal conviction that leads to prison, probation, continued drug abuse, ostracism and ongoing criminal behavior.

We've seen this problem before.  Prohibition of alcohol began in 1919, but problems with enforcement and the lure of liquor-related economic activity led to its repeal by 1933.  Today, the industry is legal but heavily taxed and regulated.  It now provides revenue, must meet quality standards, and alcohol is difficult for minors to purchase.

The logic around drug prohibition is faulty.  In other areas -- such as gun control -- we generally reject the idea that prohibition of any sort would curb gun-related violence.  We accept that most people obey the law and use their firearms responsibly.  All efforts to curb access to guns are met with fierce resistance, yet that logic doesn't extend to other areas of law that are likewise questionable or have outlived their usefulness.

Heitschmidt is right.  Prohibition might not be the only answer, but it must be part of the conversation.  He's also right that drug prohibition isn't a law enforcement problem.  It is a political problem because prohibition and incarceration are politically popular.  Meanwhile, communities such as Hutchinson have little flexibility to draft alternative approaches to the unique issues locally -- restricted in their approach to the laws drafted by people in Topeka who want to tell voters they are tough on crime, even if their toughness has proved to be a failure.

And it has been an absolute failure.  The antidrug campaigns ring hollow.  Incarceration has swollen our prisons and consumed our tax dollars.  The black market has given rise to violent criminals and forced police to respond with an alarming military approach.  All the while, drug use -- and all its associated crime and pain -- continues unabated and undeterred by generations of prohibition.