DRUG POLITICS: WITLESS MUD-SLINGING MASKS UNWITTING CONSEQUENCES

As a social-work grad student at the dawn of the "Republican revolution," I
witnessed a rare case of professional repentance that deserves imitation.
Social workers were coming to terms with the embarrassing but ever more
convincing notion that ill-conceived welfare programs can easily create
dependence and, in the end, work harm on those they were intended to help.
This humbling admission required an honest grappling with the unintended
consequences of a profession's very sincere efforts.

Such intellectual honesty was sadly absent from the heated exchange on
drugs and crime that opened Minnesota's gubernatorial race on September
16th. After Republicans depicted Skip Humphrey as a drug-war-shirking
crime softy in TV ads, Democrats zinged Republican Norm Coleman for his
youthful marijuana use. While Democrats and Republicans shook the parental
finger of shame at each other, only the Reform Party candidate, Jesse
Ventura, has dared to discuss the unintended consequences of current drug
policies that contribute dramatically to crime.

Humphrey was characterized as soft-on-drugs because, as a Minnesota state
senator in the 1970s, he voted to downgrade low-level marijuana possession
penalties, an action that hardly warrants the term "decriminalization" used
in the Republican ads. Humphrey's more recent record as Attorney General
defines him as a conformist, if not a leader, in the Drug War. Coleman
parlayed his own decades-old drug-using peccadilloes at Hofstra University
into an anti-drug testimonial: `don't try this at home kids!'

This more-heat-than-light exchange confirmed what we already know: like sex
and taxes, drugs are a staple of campaign mud-slinging. And mud pies may
soon be flying at Jesse Ventura for equally irrelevant reasons. Breaking a
taboo, Ventura raised the issue of the Drug War's worst unintended
consequences, the problem of black markets, in a November High Times
magazine interview. Although High Times is essentially the "Pot-Head
Gazette," it does carry serious news stories (often on Drug War blunders
and excesses) and monthly interviews with colorful personalities like
Willie Nelson, Ken Kesey, and now, Jesse The Body.

For its content, the interview might as well be in Sports Illustrated or
Esquire, discussing, as it does, Ventura's pro wrestling career and his
maverick entry into politics as Brooklyn Park's mayor. While Ventura's
drug policy remarks are more casual than systematic (he quoted his mother
on the parallels between alcohol Prohibition in the 1920s and the Drug
War), he raised two issues beyond black markets: industrial hemp and
medical marijuana.

The mudpie morons of political attack ads and `gotcha' journalism are
likely to make a silly tut-tut issue out of Ventura's interview, just as
they did with Humphrey's vote and Coleman's pot smoking. However,
Minnesotans would be better served if gubernatorial drug politics addressed
the substantial issues Ventura raised and a couple he missed:

REPLACING DARE. Let's ask why Attorney General Humphrey recommended
continued funding for the DARE program after a study by his own office
found it essentially worthless. Effective programs are available. The best
of them avoid the frightening choruses of "don't put those beans in your
ears," those scare tactics that unwittingly confer on drugs a `forbidden
fruit' status that adolescents find attractive.

ENDING MANDATORY DRUG SENTENCES. These laws punish low-level sellers
harshly while big-time stool-pigeon dealers go free. This unintended
consequence has filled prisons with petty offenders. Judge Kevin Burke's
drug court helps reduce such inequities and it may bear repeating outside
Hennepin County.

INDUSTRIAL HEMP, where drug fighting has unintended consequences for
agriculture. Farmers and economists from Kentucky to North Dakota wish we'd
follow Canada's lead and grow this crop. Both Ventura and Humphrey's
running mate Roger Moe strongly agree. Industrial hemp might help some
struggling farmers, if only Drug War extremists could grasp the botanical
concept that different strains of the same species can have significantly
different chemical profiles. In other words, "hemp" isn't "pot."

MEDICAL MARIJUANA. Because legislators fear mud-slinging and Minnesota has
no initiative process, this issue hasn't emerged here like it has in many
states. But since Minnesota is no more exempt from cancer, AIDS, and
glaucoma than any other state, it deserves attention. Addressing
drug-abuse should not have the unwitting consequence of withholding useful
medicine from sick people -- a sentiment well established in nationwide
public-opinion polls.

Alas, the mother of all unintended Drug War consequences is still the black
market issue and it won't be resolved until politicians get hold of the
insight and humility that the social work profession has displayed on the
welfare issue.

Just as welfare failed to eradicate poverty, criminalization has failed to
eradicate or even reduce drug addiction in the long run. Inter-generational
dependence is welfare's unintended consequence; the Drug War has
unwittingly produced a big black market in drugs, attracting violent thugs
into ultra-lucrative wholesaling and poverty-stricken youngsters into
profitable retailing. Their market plan includes your kids. Their
frequent-flyer customers commit thefts to pay these sky-high drug prices.
Sometimes the cops chasing the sellers collect protection fees and other
extortions. All of it's black-market crime. All of it hurts neighborhoods
from Phillips to Frogtown. And with meth labs increasingly going rural,
the effects are not limited to urban areas.

Addiction to money, not drugs, has produced the ugly drug-market scene of
today, and our well-meaning anti-drug bureaucracy must take its share of
the blame. Social workers fighting poverty were initially offended at
being blamed for making things worse through unwise welfare; legislators
and enforcers of drug laws are similarly offended by drug reform. Social
workers hated to acknowledge the welfare/dependency relationship; drug
warriors hate to acknowledge the prohibition/black-market relationship.

Of course, neither welfare reform nor drug reform entail pulling the
governmental plug completely: with welfare, we must strip away the blanket
entitlement that fosters dependency while leaving a safety net for human
need; with drug control, we must strip away the blanket criminalization
that spurs black-marketeering while leaving a rational system of
regulation, treatment, and education.

One fascinating plan ("market interposition") that addresses the
black-market issue while reducing drug abuse can be found on the Pacific
Drug Policy Institute's web site at www.pdfi.org. Even if political
consensus on such major drug reform is far off, this is the kind of
strategy our gubernatorial candidates should be discussing. The smaller
issues, like education, sentencing, hemp, and medical marijuana, are
resolvable in the near term. So let's get to them. And leave the mud on
the ground.

Checked-by: Richard Lake