TONY RYAN ENCOURAGES CHANGE IN WAR ON DRUGS POLICIES; TO SPEAK AT ROTARY TODAY

When it comes to feeling today's financial crunch, Arizona is no
different than any other state in our Union. So it's no surprise to
see that Governor Napolitano is proposing to save the state over $60
million by transferring responsibility for prisoners in the state
penal institutions to the counties.

In the early 1970s, Arizona had a state prison population of around
2,000. By the end of 2000 that population had grown to almost 28,000.
Today Arizona houses some 37,000 prisoners in the state system and
the prison population is expected to grow by over 50 percent in the
next decade, a trend that is double that for the general population.
Arizona's prison system now costs some $900 million a year, or about
10 percent of total state expenditures from General Fund dollars.

What's the cause of the skyrocketing number of prison inmates? Have
we become a society run amok with rampant and unstoppable crime? Or
is it that our policies in fact, are filling the prisons? Can we
economically and socially afford this increase?

As a young man I was proud to live in a country known around the
globe as the beacon of liberty. It's one of the reasons I entered a
36-year career in law enforcement serving and protecting as a Denver
police officer. Now our country has over 2 million people
incarcerated. We've become, according to former Drug Czar General
Barry McCaffrey, the world's new gulag.

"Gulag" - I remember that word. I heard it years ago when people
spoke of the old Soviet Union and how they locked people up. It was
used as an example of what we weren't, and would never become. I
remember the end of South Africa's Apartheid, starting with the
release of Nelson Mandela. That country's black voters formed lines
up to a mile long for their first national election. Apartheid was an
example of race relations gone bad. Nearly 850 black males per
100,000 were imprisoned under that system.

Under the drug laws of the U.S. we now imprison black males at a rate
5 to 6 times greater than South Africa did at the peak of Apartheid.
Our nation's prison population has increased since the early '70s by
700 percent, yet the crime rate (with fluctuations) has remained
about the same. Incarceration for drug offenses was less than 20
percent of the inmate population but has climbed to nearly half. Our
national budget in the fight against drugs is costing us about $70
billion a year (since 1971, when President Nixon made the declaration
of a War On Drugs, we have spent nearly $1 trillion).

Is this money well spent? Are we winning this war? Are our
communities closer to being free from drugs? Have all the dealers
been locked up? No. This country's drug problem is worse than ever
and drugs are available in virtually every community.

After nearly four decades, our drug problem is now world-wide with a
market worth $500 billion, about 8 percent of total global trade. Yet
we can't keep drugs out of our jails and prisons, so how can we
expect to keep them out of our children's schools?

The rising cost of incarceration is not just monetary. It affects us
socially - previously incarcerated citizens have a hard time finding
lucrative employment upon release, and often return to crime and go
back to prison. Nationwide, our prison system is one giant revolving
door of misery and Arizona is no exception.

If we are to rein in the harms of drugs, we must change the policies
that have gotten us into this mess. The correlation between Nixon's
declaring a War On Drugs and the explosion in prison population
growth is no coincidence. The time has come for us to hold a national
discussion about our failed drug policies and seek options to a war
that has no end. Perhaps Governor Napolitano should consider other
options to prison transfers, like reducing the flow of humanity into
them. A flow brought to flood stage by our War On Drugs.

[sidebar]

Ryan is presenting at the Willcox Rotary Club meeting today,
Wednesday, Feb. 6, at the Elks Lodge, 247 E. Stewart St., at noon.

Tony Ryan served more than 36 years of continuous service as a Denver
police officer, and received numerous awards including the Medal of
Honor, the Purple Heart, the Merit Award, and the Community Service
Award. He is now a board member of and speaker for LEAP, Law
Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is an international
nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to reduce the
multitude of harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on
drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime and
addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition.