SEEKING PEACE IN THE WAR ON DRUGS

A new anti-war movement emerges, challenging the militarization of
drug policy

"So what you're saying is, you want to legalize drugs,
right?"

That's the first question I'm typically asked when I start talking
about drug policy reform. My short answer is, "No, that's not what I'm
saying. Legalize marijuana? Yes, I think we need to head in that
direction. But no, I'm not suggesting we make heroin and cocaine
available the way we do alcohol and cigarettes."

"So what are you recommending?" is the second question. "And what do
you mean by drug policy reform?"

Here's the longer answer.

There is no drug legalization movement in America. What there is, is a
nascent political and social movement for drug policy reform. It
consists of the growing number of citizens who have been victimized,
in one way or another, by the drug war, and who now believe that our
current drug policies, like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, do more
harm than good. Most members of this "movement" barely perceive
themselves as part of any broader cause.

The movement might include the judge required by inflexible, mandatory
minimum sentencing laws to send a drug addict, or petty dealer, or
dealer's girlfriend, or Third World drug courier to prison for a
longer time than many rapists and murderers serve.

Or the corrections officer who recalls the days when prisons housed
"real" criminals, not the petty, nonviolent offenders who fill the
cells these days.

Or the addict in recovery-employed, law abiding, a worthy citizen in
every respect-who must travel a hundred miles each day to pick up her
methadone, because current laws do not allow methadone prescriptions
to be filled at a local pharmacy.

Or the nurse in the oncology or AIDS unit obliged to look the other
way while a patient wracked with pain smokes her forbidden medicine,
which works better than anything else.

Or the teacher or counselor warned by school authorities not to speak
so frankly about drug use with his students lest he violate federal
regulations prohibiting anything other than "just say no" bromides.

Or the doctor who's afraid to prescribe medically appropriate doses of
opioid analgesics to a patient in pain because any variations from the
norm bring unfriendly scrutiny from government agents and state
medical boards.

Or the employee with an outstanding record who fails a drug test on
Monday morning because she shared a joint with her husband over the
weekend and is fired.

Or the struggling North Dakota farmer who wonders why farmers in
Canada and dozens of other countries can plant hemp, but he cannot.

Or the conservative Republican who abhors the extraordinary powers of
police and prosecutors to seize private property from citizens who
have not been convicted of violating any laws, and who worries about
the corruption inherent in sending forfeited proceeds directly to law
enforcement agencies.

Or the upstanding African American citizen repeatedly stopped by
police for "driving while black" or even "walking while black."

The people who embrace the idea of drug policy reform are the ones who
have connected the dots-the ones who understand how our prohibitionist
drug policies are fueling serious social problems. We may not agree on
what aspect of prohibition is most pernicious-the spread of violence,
the corruption, the black market, the spread of disease, the loss of
freedom, or simply the lies and hypocrisies -and we certainly don't
agree on the optimal solutions, but we all regard the current drug
policies as a fundamental mistake in American society.

Any effort to reform drug policies confront powerful obstacles. A
punitive approach to drug use and a temperance ideology almost as old
as the nation itself are deeply embedded in American laws,
institutions, and culture. It amounts to a national hysteria,
rejuvenated each time a new drug emerges, ripe for political posturing
and media mania. But America's war on drugs is neither monolithic nor
irreversible. Dissent is popping out all over. Most Americans have
strong doubts about the drug war, according to opinion polls and
recent referendum votes. They support treatment instead of
incarceration for drug addicts. They think marijuana should be legally
available for medical purposes. They don't want the government seizing
money and property from people who have never been convicted of a
crime. They're beginning to have doubts about the cost and meaning of
incarcerating almost half a million of their fellow citizens for drug
law violations.

So why does the drug war keep growing?

Part of the answer lies in what might best be described as a "drug
prohibition complex" (taking off on President Eisenhower's warning
about the military-industrial complex) composed of the hundreds of
thousands of law enforcement officials, private prison corporations,
anti-drug organizations, drug testing companies, and many others who
benefit economically, politically, emotionally, and otherwise from
continued crackdowns on use of marijuana and other drugs. Drug
prohibition is now big business in the United States.

Nonetheless, signs of reform abound. Hardcore drug opponents may still
be powerful, but they're gradually losing credibility. They look on
marijuana with the same horror that anti-liquor crusaders like Carrie
Nation viewed a mug of beer. And just as the temperance advocates
became ever more shrill and silly as Prohibition stumbled along, so
today's anti-drug extremists sound increasingly foolish to the average
American parent of today, who probably knows a thing or two about marijuana.

The most powerful evidence of shifting views on drug reform occurred
on Election Day last year, when voters in five states-California,
Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, and Utah-- approved drug policy reform
ballot initiatives. In California, voters overwhelmingly endorsed
Proposition 36, the "treatment instead of incarceration" ballot
initiative that should result in tens of thousands of nonviolent drug
possession offenders being diverted from jail and prison into programs
that may help them get their lives together. Voters in Nevada and
Colorado approved medical marijuana ballot initiatives. In Oregon and
Utah, voters overwhelmingly approved (by margins of two to one) ballot
initiatives requiring police and prosecutors to meet a reasonable
burden of proof before seizing money and other property from people
they suspect of criminal activity. The measure also mandates that the
proceeds from legal forfeitures be handed over not to the police and
prosecuting agencies that had seized the property but rather to funds
for public education or drug treatment. (The only setbacks were in
Massachusetts, where voters narrowly defeated a combined forfeiture
reform/diversion into treatment initiative, and in Alaska, where
voters rejected a far-reaching marijuana legalization
initiative.)

This followed up on other political victories. California's
Proposition 36 was modeled on one Arizona passed four years earlier.
Oregon voters, meanwhile, affirmed the state's marijuana
decriminalization policies by a two-to-- one margin in 1998. And voters in

Mendocino, California, approved a ballot intitiative last year to
decriminalize cultivation of small amounts of cannabis. Clearly, more
and more citizens realize that the drug war has failed and are looking
for new approaches. The votes also suggest that there are limits to
what people will accept in the name of fighting drugs. Parents don't
want their teenagers to smoke marijuana, but they also don't want sick
people who could benefit from the plant's pain relief properties to
suffer because of the war on drugs. Americans don't approve of people
using heroin or cocaine, but neither do they think it makes either
economic or human sense to lock up drug addicts without first offering
them a few opportunities to get their lives together outside prison
walls.

The initiative victories demonstrated once again that the public is
ahead of the politicians when it comes to embracing pragmatic drug
policy reforms. But there is growing evidence that even some
politicians are beginning to get it. Hawaii passed a medical marijuana
law last year with the support of Governor Benjamin Cayetano. Three
states-North Dakota, Minnesota, and Hawaii-enacted laws legalizing the
cultivation of hemp (to the extent permitted by federal law), and hemp
legalization bills are beginning to advance through other state
legislatures as well. Vermont, one of eight states that prohibited
methadone maintenance treatment, last year enacted a law that may
ultimately lead to this treatment being made available not just in
specialized clinics but also through public health clinics and private
physicians. And, most significantly in terms of potential lives saved,
three states-New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island-each enacted
laws making it easier to purchase sterile syringes in pharmacies.

The governor of New Mexico, Republican Gary Johnson, is commuted to
far-reaching drug policy reform. And Salt Lake City's new mayor, Rocky
Anderson, has abandoned the popular but demonstrably ineffective DARE
program.

Perhaps it's too early to claim that all this adds up to a national
vote of no confidence in the war on drugs. After all, drug war
rhetoric still goes down easy in many parts of the country, and
Congress has yet to demonstrate any reluctance to enact ever harsher
and more farreaching drug war legislation. But the pendulum does seem
to be reversing direction. The initiatives and recent state
legislative victories, the reform bills making their way through
legislative committees, the governors and mayors beginning to speak
out, the rapidly rising anti-war sentiment among African American
leaders-- all these are beginning to add up to something new in
American politics. Call it a new anti-war movement. Call it a nascent
movement for common sense justice. Or simply call it a rising chorus
of dissent from the war on drugs

Note:
Ethan A. Nadelmann directs the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation,
a drug policy reform organization, and is coauthor of Cops Across Borders:
The Internationalization of U.S. Criminal Law Enforcement. For more
information,
contact the foundation at 925 9th Ave., New York, NY 10019 (212/548-0695)
or visit their Web site, www.lindesmith.org. This essay is adapted from
a talk given at the New York Open Center and reprinted from Lapis: The
Inner Meaning of Contemporary Life (Spring 2001), published by the New
York Open Center.