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 WILLIAM OLSON: JUST SAY, 'NO, NO, NO'

Note: William Olson, 51, is staff director of the U.S. Senate Caucus on
International Narcotics Control, where he oversees much of Congress'
research on drug control policy.

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

A: Well, it depends in some degree on where you're talking about and what
part of society. For most urban areas and inner-city areas, crack cocaine
is the killer. For many urban areas, both in neighborhoods suburban as well
as the urban areas, heroin is a growing problem. In rural America, in much
of the Midwest and Southwest of the United States, in blue-collar
communities, the biggest emerging problem is methamphetamine.

Q: Should any of these drugs be decriminalized, including marijuana?

A: Marijuana is still a major problem with young people. And so is a couple
of other things. The answer is no. They should neither be legalized nor
decriminalized.

Q: How do you distinguish between and among the illegal drugs. Each isn't
as dangerous as the other, is it?

A: They have different effects, but they all affect basically the same part
of the brain. The consequence is addiction, and, especially in the
immediate effects of the drug, significant changes in mood, perception and
understanding. All of these are dangerous given the circumstances of the
time and place in which they are being used. And they have long-term health
effects. So, they have an immediate effect that is bad and a long-term
effect that's worse.

Q: Again, in terms of the benefit to society, what's the most important
goal of America's drug policy?

A: To try to get most young people to the age of majority without being
spindled, folded or mutilated. Basically, most people who start using drugs
and become long-term addicts start as young people, mostly starting between
about 14 and 20. ...

Our goal is to try to make sure that those people reach the age of
responsibility without having made decisions that will destroy their
ability to be responsible adults.

Q: Have you ever used any illegal drugs?

A: No.

Q: Never smoked marijuana in your youth?

A: No. I'm one of those strange people, I guess, who grew up in whatever
generation we were supposed to have grown up with and didn't. Partly that's
because I hate the idea of taking any drug. I resist taking the medicine I
have to take for my migraine. I hate taking medicine. That's just me.

Q: If federal drug policy succeeded 100 percent, if every illegal drug were
interdicted or seized before it went to market, what would happen?

A: People would be healthier. People would live better lives. We would be
in much better shape. And you don't have to go that far back when that was
true. In the '50s and early-middle '60s in this country, there was
virtually no drug use of dangerous and illegal drugs. Most people didn't
use them, most people didn't think about them. Something went wildly wrong,
and it got loose.

If you get addicts off of drugs and get them cleaned up, their lives are
better. They are better people, they are better parents, better sons and
daughters, and better citizens. And the community is a safer space.

Q: It's true, obviously, that addicts are a problem. What about
recreational users of, let's take the easy one, marijuana.

A: Again, the argument seems to be, if you start from the premise that it
doesn't cause any harm and it's OK, then everything else follows. But I
don't accept the premise. Recreational use, to me, is a false premise on
which to try to base your judgment. What you're talking about here is
people becoming addicted to a substance that disrupts their lives and makes
them dangerous to be around.

It's negligent citizenship because they don't just use it in the quiet of
home or somewhere away, as if they are wrapped in cellophane and never
touch the rest of us. That's not the way people are. They raise families,
[and] they have kids. They drive cars. They go to work. And the effects of
marijuana last for two, three and four days, in terms of impairment of
judgment. ...

So "recreational use," quote, is a loaded term.

Q: It is generally assumed that the War on Alcohol, Prohibition, was a
horrible failure ...

A: Well, I don't believe that's the case, if you actually look at it. This
is the case of, if you repeat something often enough, people will come to
believe it.

One of the biggest groups that tried to push the idea that Prohibition was
a failure after Prohibition was the alcohol manufacturers, who were doing
their very best to build a market. They influenced the movies and public
advertising and everything else to try to perpetuate this idea.

Now it is continued in public argument by people who want to legalize
drugs. They have already committed themselves to an outcome, so they are
happy to tell you that it didn't work. But if you actually look at the
history of Prohibition in the country, which is a process that extended for
over a 100 years, the effect was a dramatic reduction in the consumption of
alcohol in the United States.

Q: Is there anything about America's drug policy that you think is not
working as it should, whether it's not tough enough or too tough?

A: Well, we're not seeing the kind of political leadership that we need on
the issue to drive home a consistent no-use message nationally. We
basically gave up the "Just Say No" theme. The difficulty is when we
consider that the most at-risk population is kids. You need a clear,
consistent main message. You don't need mixed signals because the message
doesn't get through. We've lost that.

Up until '92, we had a fairly clear and consistent message, and while we
were doing that, drug use among that most at-risk population dropped by 50
percent. Since that message has been lost, most of that decline that we saw
in the age groups of junior high and high school have come back.

Q: What about concerns that civil liberties are being abused in the
prosecution of the drug war?

A: Of course there are continuing concerns. You have to constantly review
what you do and how you do it. You have to be aware of the potential for
abuse in the execution of any law. We have laws against murder. That
doesn't mean that law enforcement officials don't sometimes make mistakes,
overstep the bounds or do wrong things. That doesn't mean we throw the laws
out the door.

The problem is, the people who want to legalize drugs throw out hysterical
arguments in order to try to stampede people into making decisions without
actually examining the facts or looking at the fact that there are
corrective mechanisms that are ongoing and that there are concerns.

They try to set up straw men, and then hope that people will ignore that
people won't get past the straw man and look at the problem and how you
have to deal with it in a real way. They want simple solutions. Let's just
have a simple solution and then we'll ignore the problem. They call it
"harm reduction."

Q: That's Ethan Nadelmann's idea.

A: Right. But we're not talking about harm reduction; we're talking about
harm redistribution. They just want to put the harm somewhere else and hope
you won't notice.