Two Polarized Views On How We Should Fight The War On Drugs

The War on Drugs is America's great 15-year debate. Hardly anyone is happy
with our national drug control policy. Some drug warriors charge it's not
tough enough and that more drug police and more money are needed if victory
is to be achieved. Meanwhile, libertarian types argue that the enforcement
methods used to prevent or punish the use of illegal drugs pose a threat to
our basic liberties. Tonight at the University of Pittsburgh, Ethan
Nadelmann, a prominent critic of the U.S. drug policy, and William Olson,
the staff director of the U.S. Senate Caucus on International Narcotics
Control, will debate the issue of drug policy. The action gets under way in
Oakland at 7 p.m. in the William Pitt Union Ballroom. Here, based on
interviews with Post-Gazette reporter Bill Steigerwald, is a preview of
what they'll be shouting about.

Q&A WITH ETHAN NADELMANN: A KINDER, GENTLER DRUG POLICY

Note: Nadelmann, 41, is director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy
research institute in New York that focuses on broadening the debate on
drug policy issues.

Also: The Foreign Affairs article is in two parts at:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98/n032/a04.html
and http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98/n032/a03.html

Q: In terms of damage to society, what's the most dangerous drug in America?

A: Oh, man. ... I guess it's got to be alcohol. Alcohol is a drug that can
be healthy for people who consume it in moderation. But clearly, consumed
the wrong ways or in immoderation, it's associated with 100,000 to 200,000
premature deaths, whether it's violence or auto accidents or long-term
cirrhosis and things like that.

It's also the drug that's most associated with violent crime in America, as
well as arson. And it's the one that's most associated with domestic abuse.
You can't directly blame alcohol for all this stuff. Obviously, human
beings have the ultimate responsibility. But in terms of which drug is most
associated with violence, alcohol has to be it.

Q: Why should drugs that are illegal now be decriminalized or legalized?
And should they all be?

A: I don't think they should all be. But I also think the debate over
legalization is useful in part and a distraction in part.

I actually think the more important debate that has to happen right now is
over what our bottom line is. My own basic perspective is that the most
valuable area to move toward is the area of "harm reduction." What harm
reduction is about is focusing on the reduction of death, disease, crime
and sufferings as the ultimate objectives of our drug policy.

Q: And this is harm reduction in terms of doing the least harm to society?

A: If you take a look at my Foreign Affairs piece [January/February 1998],
I show how in the Dole-Clinton debate Dole said the criteria for success or
failure in drug policy is how many people broke the drug law last year.

That's not an important criteria. Far more important is did policy X or
policy Y result in a reduction of death, disease, crime and suffering
associated with both drug abuse and our drug control policies? It seems to
me that there's a potential for a fairly broad consensus to coalesce around
that basic bottom line.

Once one has a consensus around the harm-reduction bottom line, then a lot
of interesting policy options flow from that, some of which involve
decriminalization, some of which involve controlled legalization, some of
which involve continued prohibition, but in a modified form.

All of which suggest that notions of common sense, science, public health
and human rights should predominate in our drug policy, rather than the
fear, ignorance, prejudice and profit that seem to drive it today.

Q: What is the worst aspect of America's drug policy?

A: Among my colleagues and allies, there's tremendous disagreement about
what's most wrong with drug prohibition, and a huge diversity of opinion
about what should come in its place. But almost all agree that the War on
Drugs, and the underlying punitive prohibitionist system of control, is a
fundamental evil in our society. One that's generating more harm than good.
One that's generating more harm than drug abuse itself.

Q: Have you ever used marijuana?

A: Yeah.

Q: Have you ever used other drugs?

A: Yeah. You have to understand that I was born in 1957. I went to college
at a time when a substantial majority of my friends and peers were also
using marijuana and experimenting with other substances. One always has to
be wary of generalizing from one's own experiences to how other people
experience it. People respond to drugs in incredibly different and
variegated and idiosyncratic ways.

But I think one can also make an argument that in understanding drug use
and drug addiction and making recommendations about drug policy, it's
certainly no handicap, and more likely an advantage, to have had some
experience with these substances.

Q: Would you want your adult son to use heroin recreationally?

A: No.

Q: Crack?

A: No.

Q: Marijuana?

A: Well . . . (sigh). You know, it's always a matter of choices. Do I
believe that we're better off if nobody ever uses psycho-active substances?
I don't know if that's right. For me, the really important issue is not,
"Do you or don't you?" but "If you do, do you do so safely and
responsibly?" I think that's the really important question.

One of the problems we've had with drug education in America is we've lost
sight of that basic issue. We just sort of stick "Just Say No - N-O" right
up there and we have no fall-back strategy. Instead of a "Just Say Know -
K-N-O-W" fall-back strategy to deal with all the kids who are experimenting.

We live in a world in which the stats show that 80 percent of high school
seniors have tried alcohol and 60 percent have tried cigarettes and almost
50 percent have tried marijuana by the time they graduate high school. Yet
federal law prohibits teaching anything other than "Just Say No" in the
high schools, and that's ludicrous.

So, I may wish this or that for the people I love and the people I care
about, but the thing that's most important for me is that I wish that they
don't end up getting in trouble with drugs or with the law.

Q: If you could change one aspect of drug policy overnight, what would it be?

A: I think the core element would be to shift the definition of the
objective and the criteria by which we evaluate success or failure. It goes
back to where I started with harm reduction. If we shifted the objective
and shifted the criteria, a whole range of alternative policy
recommendations would flow from that.

That's why it's hard to say that marijuana decriminalization, or needle
exchange, or heroin maintenance, or the expansion of methadone, or pulling
back drug forfeiture, or pulling back mandatory minimum prison sentences -
all the things which we're working on - is more important than the other.
They're all elements of sensible policy.

Q: Do you think America will join Spain, Italy and the Netherlands in
decriminalizing all or some drugs?

A: Well, none of them are decriminalizing all drugs. What you see happening
in Europe and Australia and other parts of the world is a movement towards
harm reduction in respect to illicit drugs, and legal drugs for that
matter, and some elements of decriminalization. . . .

But to directly answer your question: I am optimistic that the United
States is going to move in the direction of harm reduction and some aspects
of decriminalization. Maybe I'm just an optimist, but I do believe that
common sense, science, public health will ultimately win the day.