http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n636.a02.html (1)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n637.a01.html (2)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n637.a02.html (3)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n638.a01.html (4)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n638.a02.html (5)

TESTIMONY OF BARRY R. McCAFFREY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL
POLICY BEFORE THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY, AND HUMAN RESOURCES

THE DRUG LEGALIZATION MOVEMENT IN AMERICA

Chairman Mica, Congresswoman Mink, thank you for the opportunity to testify
before you today on the drug legalization movement in the United States.
Before discussing this issue, on behalf of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) allow me to thank the leadership and members of this
Subcommittee for the strong bipartisan support you have provided to our
National Drug Control Strategy. With your help we are making substantial
progress in reducing the threat of illegal drugs to our nation.

INTRODUCTION

Given the negative impact of drugs on American society, the overwhelming
majority of Americans reject illegal drug use. Indeed millions of Americans
who once tried drugs now turn their backs on them -- they no longer "do
drugs," and most importantly, don't want their children doing them. While
most Americans steadfastly reject drugs, small elements of the social
spectrum argue that prohibition -- and not drugs -- creates the problems we
face. These people offer solutions in various guises, ranging from outright
legalization to so-called "harm reduction." In fact, all drug policies seek
to reduce the harms of drug use. No rational approach would seek to
increase harms to families, children and our nation. The real question is:
what policies actually do the most to decrease the harms drugs cause?

Part I of this testimony provides an overview of what proponents of
legalization really want to achieve through their efforts, namely:
legalization of not only marijuana, but other more dangerous drugs such as
heroin and cocaine. Part II of this testimony cuts through the haze of this
misinformation to expose the fallacies and realities of what legalization
would mean to this nation, namely: significantly higher rates of drug
abuse, particularly among young people, and exponentially increased human
and social costs to our society. Part III of this testimony sets out the
balanced approach to fighting drugs provided in our National Drug Control
Strategy. This part summarizes how we intend to reach our goal of cutting
drug use and its consequences in America by half over the next ten years.

I. WHAT PROPONENTS OF LEGALIZATION REALLY WANT: EASY ACCESS TO ALL DRUGS OF
ABUSE

Our nation's democratic system of government is founded upon free and open
debate. Our nation holds no beliefs or icons above challenge and
examination. We all must be willing to lay the facts and our analysis on
the table of public scrutiny, and make the case for what we believe.

However, in the marketplace of ideas, just as in other marketplaces, there
are people willing to use deceptive claims, half truths and flawed logic to
hawk ill-considered beliefs. Nowhere is this problem more clear than with
respect to the drug legalization movement.

Proponents of legalization know that the policy choices they advocate are
unacceptable to the American public. Because of this, many advocates of
this approach have resorted to concealing their real intentions and seeking
to sell the American public legalization by normalizing drugs through a
process designed to erode societal disapproval.

For example, ONDCP has expressed reservations about the legalization of
hemp as an agricultural product because of the potential for increasing
marijuana growth and use. While legitimate hardworking farmers may want to
grow the crop to support their families, many of the other proponents of
hemp legalization have not been as honest about their goals. A leading hemp
activist, is quoted in the San Francisco Examiner and on the Media
Awareness Project's homepage (a group advocating drug policy reforms) as
saying he "can't support a movement or law that would lift restrictions
from industrial hemp and keep them for marijuana."[1] If legalizing hemp is
solely about developing a new crop and not about eroding marijuana
restrictions, why does this individual only support hemp deregulation if it
is linked to the legalization of marijuana?

Similarly, when Ethan Nadelmann Director of the Lindesmith Center (a drug
research institute), speaks to the mainstream media, he talks mainly about
issues of compassion, like medical marijuana and the need to help patients
dying of cancer. However, Mr. Nadelmann's own words in other fora reveal
his underlying agenda: legalizing drugs. Here is what he advocates:
"Personally, when I talk about legalization, I mean three things: the first
is to make drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin legal ..." [2]

"I propose a mail order distribution system based on a right of access ..."
[3]

"Any good non-prohibitionist drug policy has to contain three central
ingredients. First, possession of small amounts of any drug for personal
use has to be legal. Second, there have to be legal means by which adults
can obtain drugs of certified quality, purity and quantity. These can vary
from state to state and town to town, with the Food and Drug Administration
playing a supervisory role in controlling quality, providing information
and assuring truth in advertising. And third, citizens have to be empowered
in their decisions about drugs. Doctors have a role in all this, but let's
not give them all the power."[4]

"We can begin by testing low potency cocaine products -- coca-based chewing
gum or lozenges, for example, or products like Mariani's wine and the
Coca-Cola of the late 19th century -- which by all accounts were as safe as
beer and probably not much worse than coffee. If some people want to
distill those products into something more potent, let them."[5]

"But if there is a lot of PCP use in Washington, then the government comes
in and regulates the sale."[6]

Mr. Nadelmann's view that drugs, including heroin and other highly
addictive and dangerous drugs, should be legalized are widely shared by
this core group of like-minded individuals. For example, Mr. Arnold Trebach
states:

"Under the legalization plan I propose here, addicts ... would be able to
purchase the heroin and needles they need at reasonable prices from a
non-medical drugstore." [7]

International financier George Soros, who funds the Lindesmith Center, has
advocated: "If it were up to me, I would establish a strictly controlled
distributor network through which I would make most drugs, excluding the
most dangerous ones like crack, legally available." [8] William F. Buckley,
Jr. has also called for the "legalization of the sale of most drugs, except
to minors." [9]

Similarly, when the legalization community explains their theory of harm
reduction -- the belief that illegal drug use cannot be controlled and,
instead, that government should focus on reducing drug-related harms, such
as overdoses -- the underlying goal of legalization is still present. For
example, in a 1998 article in Foreign Affairs, Mr. Nadelmann expressed that
the following were legitimate "harm reduction" policies: allowing doctors
to prescribe heroin for addicts; employing drug analysis units at large
dance parties, known as raves, to test the quality of drugs; and
"decriminalizing" possession and retail sale of cannabis and, in some
cases, possession of "hard drugs." [10]

Legalization, whether it goes by the name harm reduction or some other
trumped up moniker, is still legalization. For those who at heart believe
in legalization, harm reduction [11] is too often a linguistic ploy to
confuse the public, cover their intentions and thereby quell legitimate
public inquiry and debate. Changing the name of the plan doesn't constitute
a new solution or alter the nature of the problem.

In many instances, these groups not only advocate public policies that
promote drug use, they also provide people with information designed to
encourage, aid and abet drug use. For example, from the Media Awareness
Project (a not-for-profit organization whose self-declared mission is to
encourage a re-evaluation of our drug policies) website a child can "link"
to a site that states: Overthrow the Government! Grow your own stone! It's
easy! It's fun! Everybody's doing it! Growing marijuana: a fun hobby the
whole family can enjoy! [12]

The linked website goes on to provide the reader with all the information
needed to grow marijuana, including a company located in Vancouver, Canada
that will ship seeds or plants.

The Media Awareness Project website also includes links to instructions
about how drug users can defeat drug tests. [13] Similarly, the websites of
both the Drug Policy Foundation, a self-proclaimed drug policy reform
group, and the Media Awareness Project, both provide links to a site that
gives instructions for how to manufacture the drug "ecstasy." [14]

Careful examination of the words -- speeches, webpostings, and writings --
and actions of many who advocate policies to "reduce the harm" associated
with illegal drugs reveals a more radical intent. In reality, their drug
policy reform proposals are far too often a thin veneer for drug
legalization. [15]

What do drug "legalizers" truly seek? They want drugs made legal -- even
though this would dramatically increase drug use rates. They want drugs
made widely available, in chewing gums and sodas, over the Internet and at
the corner store -- even though this would be tantamount to putting drugs
in the hands of children. They want our society to no longer frown on drug
use -- even though each year drug use contributes to 50,000 deaths 16 and
costs our society $110 billion in social costs. [17] And, they want the
government to play the role of facilitator, handing out drugs like heroin
and LSD.

Let me emphasize, there is nothing wrong with advocating for change in
public policy. From civil rights to universal suffrage, much of what makes
our nation great has been the result of courageous reform efforts. Our
nation benefits from the airing of dissent. However, we all have a
responsibility to be honest in debate about our motives. We all have an
obligation to be open with the American people about the risks inherent in
what we advocate. To date, advocates of legalization have not been so
forthcoming.

II. THE FALLACIES AND REALITIES OF DRUG LEGALIZATION

FALLACY: There is a large movement to legalize drugs in America.

REALITY: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DRUG LEGALIZATION "MOVEMENT" IN AMERICA.

One recent account placed the number of groups advocating drug policy
reform at roughly four-hundred nation-wide, including local chapters of
national organizations.[18] By contrast, there are roughly 1,300 local
chapters of the American Red Cross; 3,400 units of the American Cancer
Society; 9,000 Veterans of Foreign Wars posts; 2,351 local YMCA chapters;
121,948 local Boy Scouts Units; and, 4,300 Community Anti-Drug Coalitions.
The "Prevention Through Service Alliance" alone, established by ONDCP,
brings together forty-seven national civic, service, fraternal, veterans,
and womens organizations, representing one hundred million people and
nearly one million local chapters, in a coordinated effort to reduce youth
drug use. These organizations are at the forefront of real movements -- to
safeguard lives and health, to honor those who served our nation, to end
the plague of cancer, to mentor young people, and to protect our youth from
drugs. By this standard there is no movement in America to legalize drugs.

There is, however, a carefully-camouflaged, well-funded, tightly-knit core
of people whose goal is to legalize drug use in the United States. It is
critical to understand that whatever they say to gain respectability in
social circles, or to gain credibility in the media and academia, their
common goal is to legalize drugs.

FALLACY: Americans increasingly support drug legalization.

REALITY: RIGHTFULLY, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC OPPOSES DRUG LEGALIZATION.

The American people understand the risks that drug legalization would
entail and overwhelmingly reject this ill-considered approach. Youth access
to and use of alcohol and cigarettes is bad enough -- American parents
clearly don't want children able to use a fake ID at the corner store to
buy heroin. We have enough problems with drinking and driving -- families
don't want to live in fear that the driver of the eighteen wheeler motoring
alongside their minivan is high on marijuana, methamphetamines or LSD.
Thousands of our loved ones already die from drug-related causes --
reasonable people don't want drugs to be accessible over the Internet.

Study after study confirms the concerns of Americans about drugs, and their
desire to guard against the risks of these deadly substances. A 1998 poll
of voters conducted by the Family Research Council found that eight of ten
respondents rejected the legalization of drugs like cocaine and heroin,
with seven out of ten in strong opposition. Moreover, when asked if they
supported making these drugs legal in the same way that alcohol is, 82
percent said they opposed legalization. Similarly, a 1999 Gallup poll found
that 69 percent of Americans oppose the legalization of marijuana.[19] A
recent study by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs found that the
American public consider drug abuse the third biggest problem facing our
country today.[20]

Not only do Americans reject legalization, they also support policies to
rid their communities, schools, and workplaces of drugs. For example, a
1995 Gallup poll found that 72 percent of Americans want drug testing in
the workplace.[21] Sixty-seven percent supported random drug testing by
employers.[22] This same survey found that 73 percent of all American
employees support their employers drug-free workplace policies and
programs. Another 23 percent of American employees want their employers to
go even further and adopt tougher programs. Similarly, a soon-to-be
released Gallup poll finds that 85 percent of Americans support greater
funding for drug interdiction.[23]

One of the best measures of the public's rejection of drugs is the number
of Americans -- fifty-million -- who have used drugs during their younger
years, but now reject them. Even among individuals who themselves tried
drugs, 73 percent believe that parents should forbid children from ever
using any drug at any time.[24]

The American public's opinion about illegal drugs is clear: they want no
part of them. Americans don't want their children, friends or family
members doing drugs. They don't want drugs in their workplace. They don't
want to live in fear that their pilot or bus driver is on drugs. And, they
support efforts, ranging from education to treatment to law enforcement, to
combat drug use.

FALLACY: Drug legalization will not increase drug use.

REALITY: DRUG LEGALIZATION WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE THE HUMAN AND
ECONOMIC COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DRUGS.

Proponents argue that legalization is a cure-all for our nation's drug
problem. However, the facts show that legalization is not a panacea but a
poison. In reality, legalization would dramatically expand America's drug
dependence, significantly increase the social costs of drug abuse, and put
countless more innocent lives at risk.

A. "The Dutch Model"

Those who support legalization often hold up the Netherlands as an example
that legalization can work. While the Dutch have adopted a "softer"
approach to some drugs, they have not legalized them. Under the Dutch
system possession and small sales of marijuana have been decriminalized.

However, marijuana production and larger scale sales remain criminal. Drugs
such as cocaine and heroin remain illegal. Most importantly, while the
Dutch have not legalized drugs, the softening of Dutch criminal laws
against marijuana has led to a normalization of drug use more broadly. The
accompanying change in public attitudes has, arguably, played as critical a
role in Dutch drug use patterns as has the shift in the actual law.

If the Dutch experience with drugs is an appropriate model at all, it is
because it illustrates the harms that result from increased tolerance of
illegal drugs. This conclusion was brought home to all of us from the
Office of National Drug Control Policy who traveled to the Netherlands in
July of 1998 to gain a better understanding of the Dutch approach.[25]

When the so-called Dutch "coffee shops," started selling marijuana in small
quantities, use of the drug more than doubled between 1984 and 1996 among
18 to 25 year olds.26 According to an article, "Holland's Half-Baked Drug
Experiment", which appears in the current (May/June 1999) edition of
Foreign Affairs: "In 1997, there was a 25 percent increase in the number of
registered cannabis addicts receiving treatment, as compared to a mere 3
percent rise in cases of alcohol abuse."[27]

Moreover, Dutch tolerance of drug use has created a climate that drug
manufacturers and traffickers have seized upon to produce and market more
addictive and dangerous drugs. For example, Peter Reijnders, Assistant
Chief Constable and Chief of the Dutch National Unit on Synthetic Drugs,
recently told the 25th European Meeting of Heads of National Drug Services,
that: "...[T]he Netherlands is a major country as far as it concerns
involvement in the production of illicit synthetic drugs."[28]

Dutch drug manufacturers are also producing a new form of marijuana,
Nederwiet, with THC contents as high as 35 percent -- as much as ten times
the THC of the cannabis available just a few years ago. Cannabis seeds can
even be ordered over the Internet from an Amsterdam-based dealer.[29] The
well-respected journal Foreign Affairs describes the situation as follows:

"... [T]he annual Nederwiet harvest is a staggering 100 tons a year, almost
all grown illegally. And it does not stay in the Netherlands. Perhaps as
much as 65 tons of pot is exported -- equally illegally -- to Holland's
neighbors. Holland now rivals Morocco as the principal source of European
marijuana. By the Dutch Ministry of Justice's own estimates, the Nederwiet
industry now employs 20,000 people. The overall commercial value of the
industry, including not only the growth and sale of the plant itself but
the export of high-potency Nederwiet seeds to the rest of Europe and the
United States, is 20 billion Dutch guilders, or about $10 billion --
virtually all of it illegal and almost none of it subject to any form of
Dutch taxation. The illegal export of cannabis today brings in far more
money than that other traditional Dutch crop, tulips."[30]

The impact of high potency marijuana on Dutch youth has been severe. In
Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ernest Bunning of the Ministry of Health, is quoted as
saying: "There are young people who abuse soft drugs ... particularly those
that have high THC. The place that cannabis takes in their lives becomes so
dominant they don't have space for other important things in life. They
crawl out of bed in the morning, grab a joint, don't work, smoke another
joint. They don't know what to do with their lives. I don't want to call it
a drug problem because if I do, then we have to get into a discussion that
cannabis is dangerous, that sometimes you can't use it without doing damage
to your health or your psyche. The moment we say, 'There are people who
have problems with soft drugs,' our critics will jump on us, so it makes it
a little bit difficult for us to be objective on this matter.[31]

During this period of tolerance, the Netherlands has also experienced a
serious problem with other substances of abuse, in particular heroin and
synthetic drugs, which remain illegal. According to a 1998 report from the
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the number of
heroin addicts in Holland has almost tripled since the liberalization of
drug policies.[32] Similarly, the 1998 European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addictions overview report states that drug-related arrests in
the Netherlands were up over 40 percent in the last three years, with the
main offense being trafficking in so called hard drugs.[33]

Increasingly this problem is spilling over to other nations.[34] The
Netherlands is more and more seen as Europe's synthetic drug production
center by law enforcement agencies. It is reported that British Customs has
determined that virtually all the synthetic drugs seized in the United
Kingdom last year were manufactured in the Netherlands or Belgium.[35]
Similar reports suggest that 98 percent of the amphetamines seized in
France in 1997 came from Holland, as did 73.6 percent of the ecstasy
tablets.36 Synthetic drugs manufactured in the Netherlands are also now
increasingly turning up in the United States.[37]

These impacts are not lost upon the Dutch people who increasingly support a
more balanced approach to fighting drug use. A 1995 poll by Telepanel, a
polling organization associated with the University of Amsterdam found that
nearly three-quarters of the Dutch people want tougher measures against
those who deal in and use drugs.[38] Despite the normalization of marijuana
in the Netherlands over half the Dutch people believe "soft drugs" should
be criminalized.[39] By way of comparison, these numbers are far higher
than the support for alternative drug policies in the United States.[40]

Proponents of legalization argue that the Dutch experience provides a model
for a "softer approach" to fighting drug use. Upon close examination the
pitfalls of the Dutch experience offer more than ample evidence to dissuade
the United States from adopting the drug policies of the Netherlands.[41]
Instead the Dutch example clearly argues in favor of continuing the
balanced U.S. approach, which is producing results.

B. The American Experience American experiences with drug legalization
portend similar risks to those experienced in Holland. During the 1970s,
our nation engaged in a serious debate over the shape of our drug control
policies. (For example, within the context of this debate, between 1973 and
1979, eleven states "decriminalized" marijuana). During this timeframe, the
number of Americans supporting marijuana legalization hit a modern-day
high.[42] While it is difficult to show causal links, it is clear that
during this same period, from 1972 to 1979, marijuana use rose from 14
percent to 31 percent among adolescents, 48 percent to 68 percent among
young adults, and 7 percent to 20 percent among adults over twenty-six.[43]
This period marked one of the largest drug use escalations in American
history.

A similar dynamic played out nationally in the late 1800's and early
1900's. Until the 1890s, today's controlled substances -- such as
marijuana, opium, and cocaine -- were almost completely unregulated.[44] It
was not until the last decades of the 1800s that several states passed
narcotics control laws.[45] Federal regulation of narcotics did not come
into play until the Harrison Act of 1914.

Prior to the enactment of these laws, narcotics were legal and widely
available across the United States. In fact, narcotics use and its impacts
were commonplace in American society. Cocaine was found not only in early
Coca-Cola (until 1903) but also in wine, cigarettes, liqueur-like alcohols,
hypodermic needles, ointments, and sprays. Cocaine was falsely marketed as
a cure for hay fever, sinusitis and even opium and alcohol abuse. Opium
abuse was also widespread. One year before Bayer introduced aspirin to the
market, the company also began marketing heroin as a "nonaddictive," no
prescription necessary, over-the-counter cure-all.

[continued in Part 2 of 5]