Ending Our Drug Nightmare

A Humane Solution That Will Make Our Streets Safe

by Jarret Wollstein

ISIL EDUCATIONAL PAMPHLET SERIES

America is living through a drug nightmare. Drug-related murders and violent assaults are skyrocketing. Drugs are ever more potent and deadly. Drug gangs are spreading their power to every city and town. Police are being corrupted, courts are overcrowded, and prisons are bursting at the seams. The lure of big drug profits is turning children into pushers and cops into crooks.

Every month the War on Drugs escalates. More money is spent, more drugs are seized, and penalties for drug use become more severe. Yet illegal drugs are still plentiful.

There's a simple reason why America is not winning the War on Drugs. We have been fighting the wrong enemy. We have been told that the cause of our drug nightmare is drug sellers and users. The real cause is drug criminalization.

This is not the first time government has tried to save Americans from themselves. In 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Suddenly honest, responsible Americans who just wanted a drink, were turned into criminals. Respectable bars became underground speak-easys, and legitimate liquor manufacturers were replaced by criminal bootleggers.

Gang shootouts became commonplace. There was massive bribery of police and judges. Criminals who made illegal booze paid little attention to quality, and many consumers went blind or died from tainted products.

Eventually politicians were forced to admit the futility of trying to legislate morality. Liquor was harmful -- but liquor prohibition was even worse. In 1933, Prohibition was repealed.

Today, liquor is legal and there are no longer any shootouts over kegs of beer or barrels of gin. But today the disastrous consequences of Prohibition are being repeated with drugs.

Before President Reagan's all-out War on Drugs, America's crime rate had been declining, but with the event of the new wave of drug laws, violent crimes have increased sharply -- 32% between 1976 and 1985. Now our cities have become battlefields.

The more the government suppresses drug use, the more drug violence increases. Drug criminalization results in huge black market profits and the domination of the drug trade by criminal gangs. As gangs battle each other and the police over turf, violence is the inevitable outcome. In addition, the high price of drugs often forces addicts to steal to maintain their habits. For example, the street price of heroin has risen as high as 5,000 times hospital costs. Finally, the stigmatizing and arresting of social drug users forces them out of legitimate employment and into a life of crime. Eighty percent of violent street crimes are now drug-related.

No matter how many Americans are arrested for drug use, no matter how many pushers are put in jail, the War on Drugs cannot succeed. Look at any major American prison with its human cages, iron gates, armed guards, and continual surveillance. Drugs are still readily available in prison. If brutal repression cannot keep drugs out of our prisons, then turning our entire country into a prison will not keep drugs off of our streets.

The violence associated with illegal drugs is certainly real, but how great is the medical danger of the drugs themselves? In 1988 over 48,000 Americans died from alcohol abuse. Over 400,000 died from cigarette-related illnesses. Less than 3,000 died from illegal drugs. Compared to tobacco and alcohol, marijuana, the most commonly used illegal drug, is not addicting and there has never been a case recorded of anyone dying from an overdose. Illegal drugs are not good or safe, but they cause far less medical harm than do alcohol and nicotine.

Intoxicants have been used throughout recorded history. It seems that the desire to "get high" is as fundamental as the sex drive. Given human nature, the most humane policy would seem to be to educate people about the risks of intoxicants, encourage moderation, and make sure that intoxicants are as safe as possible. But such rational policies are made impossible by drug criminalization.

Criminalization is also the cause of the vast majority of "drug overdose" deaths. Because drugs are illegal, there is no quality control or any way to sue sellers of adulterated drugs. Needles and other drug paraphernalia are also illegal, so hard-core users share "works", which is a major cause of the spread of the AIDS epidemic.

Some 40 million Americans now use illegal drugs occasionally -- particularly marijuana. Most who use illegal drugs do so responsibly and in moderation. The small percentage of drug users who are addicts deserve our compassion and help, not persecution and punishment.

Poor, largely black, inner-city communities are particularly sad victims of the War on Drugs. Few poor teenagers will take entry-level jobs at $4 or $5 an hour when they can make thousands a week selling drugs. Failing to acquire job skills early in life, they may end up on welfare their entire lives -- if they are not killed in drug shoot-outs. The irresistible attraction of a profitable life of crime can only be ended by taking the profit out of drugs -- by making them legal.

Other victims of the War on Drugs are middle class Americans fired from their jobs for casual drug use; children treated as criminals in schools by being subjected to searches of their lockers and even their bodies for drugs; glaucoma and cancer victims denied medicinal use of marijuana; and fishermen who have had their boats confiscated because tiny amounts of marijuana were found.

Our proudest heritage as Americans is our freedom to live our lives as we see fit. That birthright is now being destroyed in the name of winning the War on Drugs.

• Under "Zero Tolerance" which targets casual drug users, the government has seized thousands of cars, boats, and other vehicles -- even if a few grains of marijuana or cocaine are found. These seizures take place without search warrants, without probable cause, and without due process. Most vehicles seized are sold at public auction, with the proceeds frequently used to hire more drug police and buy more weapons.
• Under Washington D.C.'s "Operation Clean Sweep", police pull up in front of stores and restaurants in drug corridors and force everyone to lie on the ground while they are searched. The few who protest or resist, are beaten or shot.
• In New York City, homeless shelters are being converted into jails. Former Drug Czar William Bennett proposed building prison barges on the Potomac, in the shadow of the Washington Monument.
• Under California's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, SWAT teams search backyards by helicopter. If even a single uncultivated plant is found, a house is subject to immediate confiscation. The owner has 20 days to sue the government to get his property back.
• Originally the "War on Drugs" was a metaphor. Now it is reality. In December 1989, 20,000 U.S. troops invaded Panama, capturing strongman Manuel Noriega -- at a cost of 1,000 innocent Panamanians killed, and in total disregard of international law. A few months later, under heavy world criticism, the U.S. hastily aborted a plan to blockade Colombia.
• In July 1990, NEWSWEEK magazine revealed a secret Pentagon plan for a major invasion of South America, to destroy the drug trade. Such a war could result in untold hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, the economic destruction of a continent, sharp increases in taxes, and double digit inflation at home. And there is no guarantee it would succeed. The government's "holy crusade" attitude toward drugs has become a paramount threat to peace, freedom, and prosperity.

There is no evidence that drug legalization would cause a dramatic increase in use. Today, anyone who wants drugs can get them. With huge profits created by criminalization gone, most pushers would go out of business, and the incentive to sell drugs to minors would be largely eliminated.

Drug legalization would also end the "forbidden fruit" appeal of illegal drugs. In 1975, Alaska legalized private use of marijuana. A 1982 study by the University of Alaska showed that 4% of Alaskan students used marijuana every day, compared to 6.3% of all American high school seniors. Students use marijuana less when its legal.

For decades the government has been waging a futile war on drugs. With every new crackdown, drug violence and brutality increase -- and our freedom declines. If drugs are legalized, drug use would become just another vice, like smoking or drinking.

Legalization would end most drug violence, brutalization of drug users, corruption of police, clogging of courts and prisons, and most deaths from drug overdoses. Legalization would free social resources for efficient drug education and compassionate treatment of addicts.

Drugs should be legalized not because drugs are good or beneficial, but because drugs do less harm to our lives, our property, and our humanity, than drug laws.

Drug use without repression is a tolerable evil. An endless and futile War on Drugs is an intolerable assault upon the very essence of America. The War on Drugs is the cause of our drug nightmare, not the solution to it. America will be safe only when we are once more free and drugs are legal.

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