Prevention, Not Legalization, Is The Key To Winning The War On Drugs. The Global Commission on Drug Policy, a 19-member panel chaired by former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has declared America's "war on drugs" a failure with "devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." In a report released in early June, the commission recommended "far reaching changes including . . . decriminalization and experiments in legal regulation." Not surprisingly, the report has led to increased calls for the legalization of drugs as a panacea to end the violence and criminal-justice costs of current U.S. drug policies. Just last week, Reps. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and Ron Paul (R., Texas) introduced a bill in Congress to remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances, leaving it up to the states to decide if they want to legalize it. [continues 835 words]
To the Editor: "Not Winning the War on Drugs," your July 2 editorial about the importance of treating drug addicts and recognizing that drug abuse is a public health problem and not just a criminal problem, is on the mark. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University has done analyses of the nation's prison population that show that 80 percent of felony inmates and juvenile arrestees either committed their crime while high on alcohol or drugs, stole money to buy drugs, have a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse and addiction, violated the alcohol or drug laws, or share some combination of those characteristics. [continues 102 words]
Willem Buiter's proposal on these pages last week for the European Union (and the world) to legalise all drugs, including heroin and cocaine, is a one-way ticket to destroying millions of children, increasing violent crime and pushing up healthcare costs. Like most legalisation buffs, Professor Buiter suggests a regulated system where access to drugs would be prohibited for minors. Our experience with laws restricting access by children and adolescents to tobacco and alcohol makes it clear that keeping legal drugs away from minors would be an impossible dream. Teen smoking and drinking are at epidemic levels in the US and across much of the European continent. In Great Britain, keeping bars open has led to an explosion of drunkenness among teens so widespread that the government is likely to return to limited hours for pubs. [continues 786 words]
WASHINGTON -- The increased potency of today's marijuana and the greater knowledge we have of the dangers of using marijuana justify the increased attention that law enforcement is giving to illegal possession of the drug. But the disappointing reality is that a nearly 30 percent increase in marijuana arrests does not translate into a comparable reduction in use of the drug. Something more is needed. Rudolph Giuliani's success in slashing New York City's crime rate by, among other things, going after low-level street crimes such as smoking and selling small amounts of marijuana inspired many other mayors to follow suit. [continues 886 words]
WASHINGTON -- The increased potency of today's marijuana and the greater knowledge we have of the dangers of using marijuana justify the increased attention that law enforcement is giving to illegal possession of the drug. But the disappointing reality is that a nearly 30 percent increase in marijuana arrests does not translate into a comparable reduction in use of the drug. Something more is needed. Rudolph Giuliani's success in slashing New York City's crime rate by, among other things, going after low-level street crimes such as smoking and selling small amounts of marijuana inspired many other mayors to follow suit. When President Bush announced in 2002 a goal of reducing illegal drug use by 10 percent in two years and 25 percent in five years, he knew he had to focus on cutting marijuana use. Eliminating all other illegal drug use combined would not even get him close to his highly touted objective. [continues 835 words]
The increased potency of today's marijuana and the greater knowledge we have of the dangers of using it justify the increased attention that law enforcement is giving to illegal possession of the drug. But the disappointing reality is that a nearly 30 percent increase in marijuana arrests does not translate into a comparable reduction in use of the drug. Something more is needed. Rudolph Giuliani's success in slashing New York City's crime rate by, among other things, going after low-level street crimes such as smoking and selling small amounts of marijuana inspired many other mayors to follow suit. When President Bush announced in 2002 a goal of reducing illegal drug use by 10 percent in two years and 25 percent in five years, he knew he had to focus on cutting marijuana use. Eliminating all other illegal drug use combined would not even get him close to his highly touted objective. [continues 310 words]
Cutting Marijuana Use Calls for More Than Tough Policing The increased potency of today's marijuana and the greater knowledge we have of the dangers of using marijuana justify the increased attention that law enforcement is giving to illegal possession of the drug. But the disappointing reality is that a nearly 30 percent increase in marijuana arrests does not translate into a comparable reduction in use of the drug. Something more is needed. Rudolph Giuliani's success in slashing New York City's crime rate by, among other things, going after low-level street crimes such as smoking and selling small amounts of marijuana inspired many other mayors to follow suit. When President Bush announced in 2002 a goal of reducing illegal drug use by 10 percent in two years and 25 percent in five years, he knew he had to focus on cutting marijuana use. Eliminating all other illegal drug use combined would not even get him close to his highly touted objective. [continues 832 words]
To the Editor: The law denying financial aid to college students who have been convicted of any drug law violation (news article, March 13) should be repealed. By forcing them to drop out of school, it has served largely to deny many needy students the opportunity to improve their lives. If Congress wants to encourage students who need help to enter treatment, it should finance such programs for them. Preposterously, Congress has done nothing to discourage student abuse of alcohol, which is implicated in virtually all college rapes, deadly hazing and disabling and fatal accidents. [continues 74 words]
The issue of decriminalizing marijuana is first and foremost about safeguarding kids and Canada should be attentive to the threat that marijuana poses to youth. We know that neither Canada nor the United States has been able to keep its two legal drugs -- alcohol and tobacco -- out of the hands of teenagers and children. Members of Canada's Parliament should keep this in mind as they consider any proposal to decriminalize marijuana, because the drug's sharp edges undercut claims that smoking pot is a harmless recreation. [continues 456 words]
I appreciate the praise from Harold Pollack and Peter Reuter of the work of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and our program CASAWORKS to help mothers on welfare with drug and alcohol problems and their children become self- sufficient families ["Myths About Drugs and Welfare," op-ed, Oct. 1]. But I disagree that only 19 percent of the women remaining on welfare suffer from drug and alcohol problems. Our experience working to help these women in seven cities across the country, as well as my own work with individuals serving this population, leads me to conclude that the bulk of mothers now on welfare -- perhaps most -- are drug and alcohol abusers and addicts, often suffering from serious mental and other health ailments as well. [continues 115 words]
The welfare reform bills passed by the House and reported out of the Senate Finance Committee consign most of the women and children remaining on welfare to a cruel Catch-22: forcing them off the rolls without giving them the tools they need to stand on their own feet. We have come a long way since 1968, when Lyndon Johnson called the welfare system in America "outmoded and in need of a major change" and pressed Congress to create "a work incentive program, incentives for earning, day care for children, [and] child and maternal health services." With such reforms finally put in place a quarter century later, we have reduced the number of women and children on welfare from a peak of more than 14 million in 1994 to 5.3 million last year. [continues 600 words]
As defense lawyers and civil libertarians huff and puff about Attorney General John Ashcroft's procedural moves to bug conversations between attorneys and their imprisoned clients, hold secret criminal military trials and detain individuals suspected of having information about terrorists, they are missing an even more troubling danger: the extraordinary increase in federal police personnel and power. In the past, interim procedural steps, such as the military tribunals Franklin Roosevelt established during World War II to try saboteurs, have been promptly terminated when the conflict ended. Because of its likely permanence, the expansion and institutionalization of national police power poses a greater threat to individual liberties. Congress should count to 10 before creating any additional police forces or a Cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security. [continues 687 words]
The relapses of Robert Downey Jr. and Darryl Strawberry are being cited by extremists at both ends of the drug policy debate:those favoring legalization and those pressing to lock up addicts and throw away the keys. These are hard cases, but we should not let them make bad policy. Both extremes are policies of despair that ignore the success of efforts to date and misread the lessons these tragic cases offer. Drug use in the United States peaked in 1979-80. Since then, despite the 55 million increase in the general population, the number of drug users has dropped 50 percent. If teen pregnancy, new AIDS cases, domestic violence or breast cancer had plummeted 50 percent, corks would be popping across the nation. [continues 549 words]
The relapses of actor Robert Downey Jr. and athlete Darryl Strawberry are being cited by extremists at both ends of the drug policy debate: those arguing for legalization and those pressing to lock up addicts and throw away the keys. These are hard cases, but we should not let them make bad policy. Both extremes are policies of despair that ignore the success of efforts to date and misread the lessons these tragic cases offer. Drug use in the United States peaked in 1979 and 1980. Since then, despite the 55 million increase in the general population, the number of drug users has dropped 50 percent. If teen pregnancy, new AIDS cases, domestic violence or breast cancer had plummeted 50 percent, corks would be popping across the nation. [continues 635 words]
The relapses of actor Robert Downey Jr. and athlete Darryl Strawberry are being cited in supporting briefs of extremists at both ends of the drug policy debate: those arguing for legalization and those pressing to lock up addicts and throw away the keys until they cure themselves. These are hard cases, but we should not let them make bad policy. Both extremes are policies of despair that ignore the success of efforts to date and misread the lessons these tragic cases offer. [continues 707 words]
President Bush has an opportunity to lead a budding revolution in the nation's policy on substance abuse. For the first time in the nation's many wars on drugs, the forces are there to balance and strengthen all four legs of the effort against abuse and addiction: research, prevention, treatment and law enforcement. During his trip to Mexico, Bush showed he recognized that drugs come to America by invitation, not by invasion. The problem we've neglected, he stressed, is reducing demand. That same week, a surprising bipartisan group of senators -- Republican conservatives Orrin Hatch, Strom Thurmond and Mike DeWine; Democratic liberals Joe Biden, Patrick Leahy and Edward Kennedy -- introduced legislation to provide an additional $900 million for research, prevention and treatment and to toughen criminal laws to protect kids. [continues 823 words]
Scratch a presidential candidate and he will tell you that he wants to improve education, reduce crime, violence and teen pregnancy, hold down health care costs, improve the health of Americans, save Social Security and Medicare and, whether pro-life or pro-choice, make abortion as rare as possible. These objectives could be the refrain of a duet sung by George W. Bush and Al Gore. The candidates also echo each other in insisting that the nation's future depends on motivating and nourishing our children with the best education and health care money can buy. [continues 700 words]
The rate of drug, alcohol and nicotine use among young teens in rural America is now higher than in the nation's large urban centers. The rates of drug, alcohol and nicotine use among adults are about the same in rural towns and mid-size cities as in large urban centers. At the start of the 21st century, there is no place to hide from the scourge of substance abuse and addiction in America. These troubling conclusions come from an assessment of the incidence of substance abuse and addiction in population centers that the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University recently conducted. [continues 721 words]
As the national media turns its laser beam on George W. Bush, it might be well to recall how culturally acceptable marijuana, cocaine and LSD were - and how ignorant we were about their dangers - in the 1970s, when the presidential candidate was "young and irresponsible." In 1970, Congress repealed tough penalties on marijuana possession and established a maximum penalty of one-year probation for first-time possession. If probation were successfully completed, the proceedings would be dismissed. That meant no record would remain of the offense for those 21 and younger. [continues 675 words]
As the national media turn their laser beam on George W. Bush, it might be well to recall how culturally acceptable marijuana, cocaine and LSD were -- and how ignorant we were about their dangers -- in the 1970s, when the presidential candidate was ``young and irresponsible.'' In 1970, Congress repealed tough penalties on marijuana possession and established a maximum penalty of one-year probation for first-time possession. If probation were successfully completed, the proceedings would be dismissed. That meant no record would remain of the offense for those 21 and younger. [continues 666 words]
