Opinions
   articles

Back to Top

Wespeaks:
End the war on drugs

The War on Drugs has been a miserable failure. By now everyone knows it. Thirty years ago, in response to psychedelic-using leftists, Richard Nixon declared that war must be waged on drugs. Every president since has continued the insanity.

As a result there now are over two million people incarcerated in the U.S., giving this nation the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Between state and federal taxes, $50 billion a year is spent on "fighting drugs," of which less than 15% goes to treatment and over 85% goes to enforcement and incarceration. It’s no wonder that use and abuse of illegal drugs hasn’t gone down at all since the inception of the Drug War, that most peoples’ relationships with drugs is a mess and addiction is ubiquitous, and that few people even know what a drug is (that morning coffee you have has been prohibited before in history, just as marijuana is now). Society is going about handling this drug issue in entirely the wrong way. 

But what else could we possibly do, many ask. What can we do besides militarize our cities, privatize our prisons that are filled with non-violent drug offenders, scare our children into believing that all drugs are evil, and send billions of dollars to cocaine-producing third world countries in an impossible attempt to stop supply? We can do a lot. But we need a drastic change of approach.

Society needs to consider the options of DECRIMINALIZATION, LEGALIZATION AND MEDICALIZATION. Yes, I used the "L" word. No, I am not a sadist, not a libertarian, and I do not envision a society with crack vending machines. Yes, I do think the implementation of a very different drug policy is possible, and yes, relatively soon, though not tomorrow. 

People should not go to jail for the use of a drug. Think about it. It doesn’t make sense. Who benefits from a drug user going to jail? It’s certainly not the user. Drugs of all sorts are more available in prison and jail. Rarely do addicts become non-addicts behind bars. It costs $23,000 a year to keep one individual incarcerated, and the person usually comes out worse. Meanwhile, murderers and rapists are serving much less time to allow for non-violent drug offenders.

Treatment should be available to people who need it. Right now, sadly, there aren’t enough beds for people who are dangerously addicted to all sorts of drugs, from alcohol to heroin. If we stopped spending tens of billions of dollars a year to lock people up, we could use even a fraction of that money to compassionately help people with drug problems. It requires ending the Drug War.

Ending the Drug War is what needs to happen because prohibition is a failed strategy. In a prohibition state a vicious black market is created in which people will kill and steal to obtain their drugs and to make money. When drugs are not regulated and especially when there are high criminal penalties against certain drugs, costs shoot up, and suddenly, there is money to be made. Thus, violence is created. 

An easy comparison can be made between modern times and alcohol prohibition. In alcohol prohibition (nationally, 1919-1933) bootleggers killed each other and created organized crime. We now live in a prohibition of many drugs, including marijuana, LSD, cocaine, mushrooms and others. The same thing is happening in this prohibition as happened during alcohol prohibition-- organized crime related to drugs is off the wall.

We, as a collective society, need to make drugs that are proven medicines, such as marijuana, available for medical use. And we need to fully legalize the growing of hemp, a very unfortunate non-drug victim of the Drug War. Then we need to start making gradual steps towards decriminalization and/or legalization. All decriminalization means is that people don’t go to jail for using a drug. In decriminalization the black market will become a gray market, as much of the profit is taken out of drug sales. Legalization means the government regulates and taxes the sales of drugs, whether those sales be made by the government or by private businesses. There is no evidence that, in a decriminalized society, use or abuse of any drugs will go up. In fact, as the lies cease and the truth-telling about different drugs really starts, along with an increased availability of treatment, experts think it is likely that use of many drugs
will actually go down. What is really important is our relationships with drugs. In an era of openness, rather than the scared craziness we have now, peoples’ relationships with drugs will surely improve.

Many drug law reform advocates think marijuana should be outright legalized and the other illegal drugs decriminalized. Some think marijuana should simply by decriminalized, and some, including the governor of New Mexico, think all drugs should fully legalized and regulated. The reality is, all these approaches are very similar, but they are drastically different from the present state of prohibition. As we move away from the Drug War the details will be worked out. First, though, we need to quicken the movement to end the Drug War.

The good news is that the movement for sensible drug policy has taken off. Recently, pols from Ralph Nader to Republican Gary Johnson to liberal Rep. Barney Frank to Jesse Ventura have stood up against the War on Drugs and said we need to approach this issue differently. Some major ballot initiatives, particularly for medical marijuana and hemp, have passed, and the Shadow Conventions this summer focused on our failed drug policy. The student movement for drug law reform has taken off, with chapters of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) popping up all around the country. Wesleyan’s SSDP group meets at 10:00 on Wednesday nights in the campus center, and all are welcome. 

If you have any questions about the Drug War, legalization/decriminalization, DARE, medical marijuana, hemp, the drug law reform movement, whether they be factual or opinional in nature, please come to an informal question and answer session I will be holding next Wednesday night, October 25 at 8:30 p.m. in Science Center room 137. It’s not a quiz time, but a place for questions of any sort to be answered on this subject. Please come for any reason.
 

Hurter is on leave from Wesleyan, working full-time in the field of drug policy reform.