Statement of Scott Ehlers, Senior Policy Analyst, Drug Policy Foundation -
Washington, D.C. Before Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and
Human Resources Hearing on "Drug Legalization, Criminalization, and Harm
Reduction"

June 16, 1999

Chairman Mica, Rep. Mink, and other Distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee:

My name is Scott Ehlers and I am the Senior Policy Analyst for the Drug
Policy Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Thank you for inviting me to testify about our nation's drug policies and
the growing movement to bring about drug policy reform. I am proud to say
that the Drug Policy Foundation has been on the forefront of these efforts
since the organization's inception in 1986.

I am sorry to say that over the last two decades, the drug-war strain on
the criminal justice system has gone up significantly, from 580,900 drug
arrests in 1980 to nearly 1.6 million in 1997, the highest level in our
nation's history. The number of drug offenders in state and federal prisons
has skyrocketed from 12,475 in 1980 to 281,419 in 1997, a 2,155% increase.

INCREASED ARRESTS, PRISONERS DO NOT REDUCE DRUG AVAILABILITY

Has the U.S. attempt to incarcerate its way out of the drug problem made
drugs less available or increased their price on the street? Not at all.
According to the DEA, since 1981, cocaine and heroin prices are at
historically low levels today, and purity is very high. There has been
little change in the amount of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana available for
consumption today compared with 10 years ago.

Disturbingly, the high number of drug arrests and prisoners has not reduced
young people's access to illegal drugs. The Monitoring the Future Survey
found that 87% of high school seniors said it was "easy" or "fairly easy"
to get marijuana in 1975. Twenty-four years and millions of arrests later,
90.4% of seniors said the drug was easily obtained in 1998. Similarly, the
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that it is much
easier for high school students to buy marijuana than beer. Clearly, our
nation's current drug strategy is not achieving its intended goal of
increasing the price of drugs and reducing people's - especially youth's -
access to them.

How many people will we have to throw in prison before we declare victory
in the war on drugs? How many of the 77 million Americans who have used
illegal drugs should be rounded up and sent to jail? How many schools are
we willing to neglect in order to expand our prison system? How many lives
and billions of dollars are we going to waste before we realize, "There has
to be a better way?"

DRUG-FREE OR SIMPLY UN-FREE?

What is that better way? First, we must recognize that a drug-free society
has never existed in human history, and that the current attempts to create
a drug-free society will simply result in an un-free society. Will we
eliminate personal privacy, cut off foreign trade, institute
population-wide random drug testing, wiretap all the phones, create an army
of police and informants, monitor all financial transactions, and build a
prison system big enough to hold every drug user before we recognize the
folly of our ways? Unfortunately, this is the path on which we are
currently traveling.

MINIMIZE THE HARMS ASSOCIATED WITH DRUG USE AND DRUG POLICY

If a drug-free society cannot be created, then what can be done? We can
minimize the harms associated with drug use and our drug policies.
Unfortunately, the drug war itself creates excessive amounts of harm

including: the curtailment of civil liberties through heavy-handed police
tactics; the ever-expanding role of the military in domestic law
enforcement; large-scale imprisonment and disenfranchisement of the
citizenry, particularly minorities; a growing disrespect for the law and
police by youth and minorities because they are being targeted for drug
arrests; the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis; and expanding global
interventionism and militarism to fight the war on drugs.

Rather than continue down this road of self-destruction, the Drug Policy
Foundation and its allies would like to offer another way to deal with
drug-related problems. I urge the members of the subcommittee to study the
attached documents for a detailed examination of the reforms we are
suggesting. Included is a summary of the FY 2000 Appropriations
Recommendations (Attachment 1) and legislative agenda (Attachment 2) of the
National Coalition for Effective Drug Policies, which is made up of
criminal justice, public health, civil rights, women, and youth interest
groups, and for which I currently serve as coordinator. I have also
included a summary of the Effective National Drug Control Strategy,
published by the Network of Reform Groups in consultation with the National
Coalition. (Attachment 3) After examining these documents, I think you will
see that our suggested reforms have a broad base of support, including in
Congress, where numerous pieces of legislation that would implement some of
the reforms we are advocating have been introduced.

SUGGESTED REFORMS

DPF's drug policy vision is based on the following principles and reforms:

1.Drug use and addiction should be treated as public health issues, not
criminal justice problems.

Treatment-on-request should be made available, as required by the Anti-Drug
Abuse Act of 1988. Private insurance companies should provide coverage for
substance abuse treatment. Methadone maintenance should be more widely
available, including through private physicians. Other maintenance
therapies should be explored, including the use of buprenorphine, as Sen.
Orrin Hatch is seeking in S. 324, and heroin maintenance, based on the
successful programs in England and Switzerland. Drug prevention efforts
should be expanded, and they should be accompanied by honest, rational
dialogue, not scare tactics.

Finally, if drug use and addiction were treated as a health problem, you
would have health care workers reaching out to drug users, rather than the
police actively seeking out and arresting people for possessing personal
quantities of drugs. With the threat of criminal sanctions gone, many more
people with substance abuse problems would seek medical assistance rather
than hiding out of fear of arrest and imprisonment.

2.Prevention should be expanded to include activities that address the root
causes of drug use and abuse.

Poverty, joblessness, hopelessness, mental illness, lack of after-school
activities for youth - these are reasons many individuals turn to drugs for
comfort, self-medication, and recreation. To address these root causes of
drug use and abuse, community development should be promoted, job training
programs should be available, the mentally ill should receive adequate
medication, and youth should have more recreation and learning
opportunities after school, when much drug use and crime occurs.

3.Drug policies should be based on science and research, not ideology.

The evidence for reform already exists. Research and experience has shown
that treatment is more cost-effective at reducing the demand for drugs than
prison. The Institute of Medicine found marijuana to be an effective
medicine. Seven government-funded studies have found syringe exchange to
reduce the spread of HIV and not increase drug use.

Treatment should be provided as an alternative to prison, medical marijuana
patients should not be arrested, and syringes should be available through
pharmacies or syringe exchange should be funded by the government.

4.Drug policies should be based on a respect for the Constitution, civil
liberties, and property rights.

The drug war has gutted the Fourth Amendment's protection against
unreasonable searches and seizures; has allowed the government to
effectively steal private property under the civil asset forfeiture laws;
results in racial profiling on the highways and in airports; infringes upon
financial privacy, as seen in the recently defeated Know Your Customer
regulations; and is used as a justification to turn the nation's schools
into virtual prisons with lockdown searches, random drug testing, and video
surveillance.

We recommend that the civil asset forfeiture laws be reformed, as Rep. Hyde
advocates in H.R. 1658, racial profiling should be investigated, as Rep.
Conyers' H.R. 1443 would do, and financial privacy should be restored, as
in Rep. Ron Paul's H.R. 518.

5.Federal drug policy should respect democracy and states' rights.

The federal government should stop threatening states that have passed
initiatives supporting medical marijuana and other drug policy reforms. In
the District of Columbia, the federal government effectively outlawed
citizens from voting on a medical marijuana initiative and operating a
syringe exchange program with its own funds. If democracy is to remain
intact and government innovation is to take place, states' rights must be
respected. Drug policy innovations should not be treated differently from
other policy innovations.

6.Mandatory minimums should be repealed, drug-related sentences reduced,
and alternatives to incarceration implemented.

Three Supreme Court Justices, numerous federal judges, and recently, noted
criminologist John DiIulio have called for the repeal of mandatory minimums
because they impose unduly harsh sentences on minor drug offenders, and
result in wasteful spending for incarceration without adding to public
safety. Mandatory minimums should be repealed, as advocated by Rep. Waters
in H.R. 1681, and the Sentencing Guidelines should be allowed to do the job
of determining the appropriate sentence for individual offenders.
Additionally, drug-related sentences should be reduced so that the
punishment fits the crime, and alternatives to incarceration should be
implemented to reduce costs to the taxpayers and promote rehabilitation of
drug offenders.

7.The regulation and control of currently illicit drugs must be included as
one of the drug policy options that is considered.

If I were to define "legalization," it would be the regulation and control
of the use and sale of currently illicit drugs. Would the government,
doctors, pharmacies or special drug stores dispense the drugs? Would all
currently illicit drugs be sold in the regulated market, or would some be
deemed to be unacceptably dangerous and remain illegal? Would there be
restrictions on the quantity of drugs sold to buyers? Would drugs be
legalized over one year, five years, or twenty years? All of these
questions would have to be answered by the American public and federal,
state, and local governments. One thing we do know right now is that it
would remain illegal for minors to use and buy drugs, for adults to give or
sell drugs to minors, and for anyone to drive or endanger others while
under the influence of drugs.

Why must regulation be considered? Because prohibition and the resulting
black market enriches criminals and terrorists around the world, results in
gang warfare over the control of drug markets, encourages the recruitment
of youth to sell drugs, provides youth with easier access to drugs,
corrupts government officials, destabilizes governments, and undermines the
rule of law. Drugs that are distributed in the black market are more potent
than those available in a regulated market, and they are of unknown potency
and quality, resulting in increased overdoses and deaths.

If the debate about our nation's drug policies is to be honest, open, and
fully informed, then the problems created by drug prohibition must be
recognized. We must also acknowledge the potential benefits of regulating
the drug market, including eliminating drug trade-related violence,
eliminating the recruitment of youth into the drug trade, reduced access to
drugs by children, reduced drug enforcement costs, availability of less
potent drugs of known quality, and the use of significant tax revenues from
drug sales for prevention and treatment efforts.

CONCLUSIONS

There are a wide variety of drug policy innovations that would save tax
dollars, save lives, protect children, and improve public safety, but
politicians must first realize that police and prisons are not the solution
for all our social problems. As a free society, we should be searching for
ways to reduce the number of police and prisoners, not increase them. As a
free society we should also embrace an honest and open discussion about
drug policy options. Unless we seriously consider all of the options, not
just the status quo, we will not be able to determine what is the best
policy for our country.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to discuss these very important
issues with today. I hope this hearing will serve as the beginning of a
more open debate on drug policy in Congress and the rest of the country.