Sermon on the Drug War Policy
Delivered by the Rev. Robert Schaibly on August 6, 2000
First Unitarian Universalist Church
5200 Fannin St, Houston, TX 77004

My mother died of cancer last month. She had been a smoker
most of her life. Because I suffer physically in the presence
of smoke, and because I love my mother I have been interested
in cigarette addiction. She tried to stop a few times. In
early years her children chided her, but as time passed we
surrendered. She got down to filters and then down to the
mildest of the filtered cigarettes. She was treated for
breast cancer six years ago. Cancer was found in her lungs
and liver early this year. Today the average American woman
lives to the age of 77, and Mom almost made it.

During this time remarkable changes occurred in her family and
in the nation. President Nixon named the first Drug Czar.
One of his first goals was to list drugs in order of their
danger, but he was prevented from doing this because tobacco
and alcohol were at the top of the list and far outpaced all
the drugs that followed. The New England Journal of Medicine
then came out and said, "No one ever died from smoking
marijuana."

At a personal level, in 1988 my mother was greatly pained that
I was diagnosed with throat cancer and was treated. As a
result I became even more sensitive than before; even incense
burning is an irritant. At the national level warnings were
put on cigarettes, and an honest fellow named Dr. Everett Koop
became Surgeon General of the United States. In 1988 he
released findings that tobacco is as addictive as heroin
and this explained why mother's efforts to stop smoking
had failed. [NYT, May 17, 1988] Ex-heroin users regularly
report that tobacco's grip is harder to break than heroin's.
The recidivism rate is 75% for both types of addicts, although
about 50 million Americans had managed to quit by 1990,
leading some to hope that this once socially approved habit
was going to go the way of the spittoon.

At the local level, cities began to initiate clean indoor air
policies for restaurants, airports, and other public
buildings. In the 1990s it became known that the tobacco
industry had in fact manipulated the level of nicotine in
cigarettes so as to catch customers. People began suing
tobacco companies. Mother said it was wrong because decades
ago everyone knew it affected our health adversely. Because
Mom died last month she missed reading about how tobacco
companies pressured the World Health Organization, known as
WHO, not to try to stop cigarette sales to third world
countries. They created front organizations, misrepresented
research, pitted other organizations against the WHO, and
lobbied to cut the organization's funding. (See NYT
Editorial, "An Ugly Move by Big Tobacco," August 3, 2000.)
Indeed, years earlier tobacco companies had pressured the
United States to apply sanctions to foreign companies that
would not allow their product to be sold. Foreign countries
argued they simply cannot afford the care tobacco users
require; they can't immunize their kids much less support a
cancer center like M. D. Anderson. Thailand was restricting
American tobacco imports and advertising. The American
testified that this product is the best in the world, and the
Thai representative replied, "Certainly in the Golden Triangle
we have some of the best product [alluding to opium poppies],
but we never ask the principle of free trade to govern such
products. In fact we suppressed them." Dr. Everett Koop said
before Congress, "When we are pleading with foreign
governments to stop the flow of cocaine to our shores, it is
the height of hypocrisy for the US to export tobacco."
[Quoted by Noam Chomsky in "The War on (Certain) Drugs," 1993]
We currently export American cigarettes as part of the Food
for Peace program, and this export is subsidized.

Anthony Lewis, columnist for The New York Times, writes, "When
you think of the relative harm done by tobacco and drugs, it
is amazing that tobacco company executives are treated as
respectable people. They wear suits, and they have fine
lawyers, but they do much more harm than drug peddlers." (But
of course they ARE drug peddlers.)

The other interesting sociological phenomenon that happened in
the 1990s is pharmaceutical companies directly advertising
their prescription drugs to us as the prospective patients.
This meant that we can read about drugs we might want, and ask
our doctors -- and maybe pressure them -- for a prescription.

And this is my first point, and I do not expect all of you to
buy it, but would you be open-minded enough to consider it as
you read print media and advertising: All these people are
dealers who push their product. But we in the United States
deal well with tobacco because in spite of enormous propaganda
from tobacco companies, we have good education on the subject,
and adult smoking has declined. 425,000 deaths a year are
attributed to smoking; 100,000 deaths a years are attributed
to alcohol. Incidentally, 45,000 people a year die from using
prescription drugs and over the counter medications!

Many people have commented that throughout history humanity
has used drugs and most of that time drugs were not outlawed.
For the most part it goes over our heads, because what most of
us use is legal: caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and for some
Americans, cannabis -- about ten states have decriminalized
possession of marijuana. When I am ill I go the Medical
Center, and get a prescription. I forget that most of the
people in the world have no access to such facilities. When we
use whatever drugs we use, for the purpose of reducing pain,
relaxing muscles, restoring a sense of well being and
pleasure, we may feel superior to others when in fact we are
only more shielded by our privileges.

I was a minister in Chicago in the 1970s and Barbara Edgecombe
was a parishioner who found the church. She eagerly joined and
later decided to go to seminary and become a Unitarian
Universalist minister. She has been a minister for over 15
years and she presently serves the congregation in East
Lansing, Michigan. In December of 1996 her townhouse was
stormed by six police officers before breakfast. She had only
recently moved into the townhouse. She was being treated for
breast cancer with chemotherapy. She told the police she had
never heard of the man they were looking for. Assuming she
was protecting him, an officer ordered her to get down and he
pushed on her back to make her lie on the floor. "Please
close the door, I'm in chemo and I'm terribly cold." He
pushed her face into the carpet and did not close the door.
After concluding the man they sought was not there, they
continued to question her and she explained she had no idea
who he was.

After they left she was treated at the hospital for a sprained
back that had many bruises on it. The Head of the Narcotics
Unit returned later that morning to assess property damages
and to apologize for the unfortunate mistake. He said the
element of surprise is critical to drug busts, and that though
they try to take every precaution, from time to time something
like this happens. His implication was that such assaults are
the price we lawful citizens have to pay if we want to win the
war against drugs. Barbara's story is tame compared to the
stories of people who have lost their lives by zealous
enforcement agents. Barbara says, "People are gradually
becoming accustomed to the infringement on civil rights. We
aren't seeking alternatives."

Let me tell you about someone who is seeking alternatives. If
you do not already know her you must meet Frances Burford, a
member of the Board of Trustees of First Church. She wrote a
study resolution for the Unitarian Universalist congregations
of North America and it was passed at the last General
Assembly. It calls for the reformation of drug policy in an
effort to reduce use, preserve and regain our rights as
citizens under the Constitution, to stop scapegoating
minorities, and stop interfering in the internal affairs of
other nations. The use of illegal drugs has put thousands of
nonviolent people in jails and prisons. The United States was
contrasted with the nations that comprise the European Union.
Europe has 100,000,000 more people; the United States has
100,000 more prisoners.

We have two million prisoners. Only Russia has a higher rate
of citizens incarcerated. Almost 60% of federal inmates are
drug offenders - half of them first time nonviolent offenders.

80% of all arrests are for possession of drugs. 44% of those
are for possession of marijuana.

Most of the prisoners are black, 2/3rds of them, although
overwhelmingly users are white. (Only 13% of the regular
users are black.) Our punishment is not only disproportionate
to the crime, our enforcement is racist. The same amount of
crack used in an urban setting is more severely punished than
cocaine used in a suburban setting.

Our prisoners directly cost the government $23,000 a year
each, and indirectly cost the nation broken families and lost
income and governmental subsidies if the breadwinner is in
jail.

So Frances Burford has prodded the UUs [Unitarian
Universalists] to honor our covenant to be open-minded and
honest. This is part of a growing national movement. Walter
Cronkite -- I digress momentarily to tell you his father was
a Montrose physician and president of the Board of this church
during the 1930s, and we have the 16 year old Walter's
signature in the Membership Book from that time -- Walter
Cronkite has asked for a non-partisan blue ribbon commission
to do the same kind of study. Neither the Republican nor the
Democratic parties will touch it, yet.

But things grow worse year by year. We certify nations that
are our allies in the drug war. We certified Mexico in spite
of evidence that Mexico is a primary transit route for cocaine
and a major producer of marijuana, heroin, and
methamphetamines. It is ironic that we should have a system
of certification and decertification; it allows the drug
consuming United States to vilify those who supply its drugs.
Very soon President Clinton will visit Colombia for a day to
highlight the gift of over a billion dollars to help Colombia
fight drugs. We insist that countries spend their resources
to stop drug production, even as we insist that countries let
our tobacco companies advertise and sell cigarettes. This is
one reason we are called the arrogant Americans.

My heart goes out to the people of Colombia, a nation one and
a half times the size of Texas. What is happening is exactly
what the Nobel Prize winning novelist from Colombia, Gabriel
Garcia Marquez, feared five years ago. [NYT, March 11, 1995]
"My worry is that the United States will use the fight against
drug trafficking as a pretext for intervention. The addicts
supply themselves as easily as buying milk or newspapers. And
yet we are accused of not doing enough against drug
trafficking." He said drug trafficking is deforming Colombian
society. "The notion of easy money is Colombia's worst
problem." What ought to happen? In 1995 Garcia Marquez said,
"All the money that Colombia invests in fighting drugs ought
to be invested in the U.S. to research synthetic cocaine."
Then, just as outlaw gardeners took away the marijuana
business from Colombia, outlaw American chemists could take
away the cocaine business!

With the new grant from America the rebels and the Army will
fight more fiercely than ever, applying pressure to the common
people who wish only to raise their children and work and live
their lives. We here in Houston can expect another wave of
immigrants desperate just to earn a living in safety.

If all Colombia were defoliated, there would still be drug
production someplace. The idea is flawed; we cannot win a war
against suppliers because there is no end to suppliers, the
profits are so attractive. It is like fighting the primary
principle of capitalism: the demand is high; the profits are
so tremendous that you can lose 75% of your product and still
make lots of money; the product is cheap to produce and easy
to transport. [The Nation, April 28, 1997]

Although we have destroyed thousands of acres of coca, farmers
planted new coca faster than existing crops were eradicated
and production jumped 15%. The global production of opium
doubled in ten years in spite of agreements that Turkey
honored not to grow poppies. We cannot stop suppliers. We
cannot seem to reduce the quantity. An economist calculates
that if we could "seize an inconceivable 50% of the cocaine
shipped from Colombia this would add less than 3% to the
retail price in this country. The effect on drug use in the
United States would be barely perceptible."

The government released a fact sheet on the war on drugs
earlier this year. While the federal budget to fight drugs
went from one and a half billion dollars a year up to 16
billion dollars a year, the price of one gram of pure cocaine
fell from $300 in 1981 to $100 in 1997. For heroin the price
fell from $3,500 to $1,100. Only marijuana has gotten more
expensive, but at the same time it has become more potent.
Drugs are at least as plentiful as ever if not more so.

The philosopher George Santayana said, "Fanaticism consists in
redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim."
That describes us. We were only trying to protect human life
and reduce crime. But what have we wrought?

The Quaker Walter Wink writes, "It is a spiritual law that we
become what we hate. Jesus articulated this law in the Sermon
on the Mount when he admonished, 'Do not react violently to
the one who is evil.' The sense is clear: do not let evil
set the terms of your response. Applied to the drug issue,
this means, 'Do not resist drugs by violent methods.'"
[Friends Journal, February, 1996]

During these 20 years of the Drug War the prison population
more than doubled; in February it crossed the two million-
person mark and the bulk of the increase is from drug
convictions. Local jails hold more than another half million
persons. Quite often prison guards are identified as dealing
drugs in the prisons themselves!

And this is why we say the policy must be abandoned. Perhaps
you here today are in different places on a spectrum that goes
from being worried about drug use and its connection to
domestic violence and babies born addicted, to those of you
who may be libertarians and want no controls. Most people are
frightened of legalization because it will mean greater drug
use for at least a short time. Most Americans still think
legalization would constitute surrender to immorality; some
may see drug use as sanctioned, but probably it will be at
least as socially disapproved as cigarette smoking is. We
were in Amsterdam a few weeks ago and as you may know, pot and
hashish are available in some coffeehouses. Some shops sell
other drugs for mood changing. Almost no crime and I think no
violence is associated with drug use there, in spite of the
fact that the country's reputation undoubtedly attracts
visitors whose intent is to do drugs. In England doctors
prescribe heroin for addicts and there too the crime that
normally finances drugs is low. One addict said, "For once we
could work and live like humans." We can't help thinking how
many American addicts could work and live like human beings if
they did not need to prostitute themselves or steal to feed a
habit.

Many people are advocating a policy called "Harm reduction,"
which seeks to limit the damage from both the war against
drugs and the consequences of drug use. Harm reduction would
mean treatment on demand when an addict is done for, it would
mean more education, honest education about responsible use
that kids now lack, methadone clinics, and the needle
exchanges that a dozen agencies and two Surgeons General have
advocated.

These drug-supplying countries are poor. The effect of their
putting money into fighting drugs at our insistence is
disastrous; it is pouring money down a hole rather than
investing in social needs. Democracy is undermined by the
great bribes paid to elected and appointed officials by drug
cartels. (Eve Bertram and Kenneth Shape in The Nation.) One
might argue the same thing here: 10% of the Miami police
department has been fired for corruption related to drugs.
(Bruce Southworth)

But even in rich America some citizens are looking askance at
the price of the drug war. Confiscated drugs are sometimes
missing, beginning with 80 pounds of heroin in the custody of
the NYC PD taken from a storeroom only the police have access
to. [Chicago Sun Times, "More heroin missing in New York,"
Dec. 16, 1972] Such stories abound.

In psychotherapy change can occur when a feeling of safety is
established and we know we can talk about our issues. But we
do not have even that. When Clinton's Surgeon General
Joycelyn Elders suggested we study alternatives including
legalization she was attacked from all over and her boss
declared he would never even study the issue. The fear is too
great. If we could at least talk about it, we might reach the
next step and own the fact that the problem is ours, not
Colombia's, not Turkey's, not anyone else's but ours. We
would have to own the fact that we have a problem with drugs.
And then we would be open to exploring the possibility of
changes that would please us.

Thirty years ago Consumers Union called for the legalization
of marijuana [Wash. Post, Nov. 28, 1972] and in 1978 President
Jimmy Carter asked Congress to allow adults to grow and buy
and consume cannabis in appropriate settings. Seventy million
Americans admit to having tried it. [Marijuana Policy Project,
1999] Both leading presidential candidates apparently have
experience with illicit drugs. So does that mean we can talk
about it? Well, they think they can't but you can. The issue
transcends partisan politics. The National Review, founded by
William F. Buckley Jr., has written, "It is our judgment that
the war on drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent
energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction,
that it is wasting our resources and that it is encouraging
civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police
states." [Reported by Anthony Lewis in NYT, Feb. 5, 1996.]
Governor Johnson, Republican of New Mexico, braves the
indignation of the drug warriors saying, "You're going to get
a critical mass here, and all of a sudden it's just going to
topple."

There's a Houston chapter of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas.
It meets every third Monday at 7 p.m. in Room 302, right here
at First Church. If we educate ourselves and if we educate
our community, we can connect with enough people to create
that critical mass, and it's just going to topple.

The Economist magazine of London wrote about the war on drugs,
"That misguided policy has put millions of people behind bars,
cost billions, encouraged crime and spread corruption while
failing completely to reduce drug abuse." Yes.

The drug war policy is immoral and must be reformed. Amen.

Addenda

There wasn't time to make the points that Mandatory Sentencing
has angered many judges and triggered the resignation of at
least one, US District Court Judge J. Lawrence Irving of San
Diego; that there is no deterrent effect: "It found to the
contrary, that states with higher incarceration rates also had
higher rates of drug use." (Anthony Lewis, NYT, July 29,
2000) There was a scandal January through March 2000 that
government had paid for anti-drug stories on television and in
magazines, both questioning the truthfulness of what we are
taught, and the integrity of the editors responsible. The
Houston Chronicle, Monday, August 7, 2000, has a front page
story about the corruption of paid informants in drug cases
and a sheriff's deputy who imported great quantities of
marijuana and cocaine for the purpose of capturing dealers,
addicts, etc. The columnist, Arianna Huffington, commented on
the horror expressed by many, politicians in particular, at
the raid on the home of the uncle of Elian Gonzales, Cuban
child held hostage in Miami; she said that raid was nothing
compared to regular raids by Drug Enforcement agents!