COMMONSENSE DRUG POLICY (2 of 2)

REEFER SANITY

Cannabis, in the form of marijuana and hashish, is by far the most popular
illicit drug in the United States. More than a quarter of Americans admit
to having tried it. Marijuana's popularity peaked in 1980, dropped steadily
until the early 1990s, and is now on the rise again. Although it is not
entirely safe, especially when consumed by children, smoked heavily, or
used when driving, it is clearly among the least dangerous psychoactive
drugs in common use. In 1988 the administrative law judge for the Drug
Enforcement Administration, Francis Young, reviewed the evidence and
concluded that "marihuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known to man."

As with needle exchange and methadone treatment, American politicians have
ignored or spurned the findings of government commissions and scientific
organizations concerning marijuana policy. In 1972 the National Commission
on Marihuana and Drug Abuse-created by President Nixon and chaired by a
former Republican governor, Raymond Shafer-recommended that possession of
up to one ounce of marijuana be decriminalized. Nixon rejected the
recommendation. In 1982 a panel appointed by the National Academy of
Sciences reached the same conclusion as the Shafer Commission.

Between 1973 and 1978, with attitudes changing, 11 states approved
decriminalization statutes that reclassified marijuana possession as a
misdemeanor, petty offense, or civil violation punishable by no more than a
$100 fine. Consumption trends in those states and in states that retained
stricter sanctions were indistinguishable. A 1988 scholarly evaluation of
the Moscone Act, California's 1976 decriminalization law, estimated that
the state had saved half a billion dollars in arrest costs since the law's
passage. Nonetheless, public opinion began to shift in 1978. No other
states decriminalized marijuana, and some eventually recriminalized it.

Between 1973 and 1989, annual arrests on marijuana charges by state and
local police ranged between 360,000 and 460,000. The annual total fell to
283,700 in 1991, but has since more than doubled. In 1996, 641,642 people
were arrested for marijuana, 85 percent of them for possession, not sale,
of the drug. Prompted by concern over rising marijuana use among
adolescents and fears of being labeled soft on drugs, the Clinton
administration launched its own anti-marijuana campaign in 1995. But the
administration's claims to have identified new risks of marijuana
consumption-including a purported link between marijuana and violent
behavior-have not withstood scrutiny.(1) Neither Congress nor the White
House seems likely to put the issue of marijuana policy before a truly
independent advisory commission, given the consistency with which such
commissions have reached politically unacceptable conclusions.

In contrast, governments in Europe and Australia, notably in the
Netherlands, have reconsidered their cannabis policies. In 1976 the Baan
Commission in the Netherlands recommended, and the Dutch government
adopted, a policy of separating the "soft" and "hard" drug markets.
Criminal penalties for and police efforts against heroin trafficking were
increased, while those against cannabis were relaxed. Marijuana and hashish
can now be bought in hundreds of "coffeeshops" throughout the country.
Advertising, open displays, and sales to minors are prohibited. Police
quickly close coffeeshops caught selling hard drugs. Almost no one is
arrested or even fined for cannabis possession, and the government collects
taxes on the gray market sales.

In the Netherlands today, cannabis consumption for most age groups is
similar to that in the United States. Young Dutch teenagers, however, are
less likely to sample marijuana than their American peers; from 1992 to
1994, only 7.2 percent of Dutch youths between the ages of 12 and 15
reported having tried marijuana, compared to 13.5 percent of Americans in
that age bracket. Far fewer Dutch youths, moreover, experiment with
cocaine, buttressing officials' claims of success in separating the markets
for hard and soft drugs. Most Dutch parents regard the "reefer madness"
anti-marijuana campaigns of the United States as silly.

Dutch coffeeshops have not been problem free. Many citizens have complained
about the proliferation of coffeeshops, as well as nuisances created by
foreign youth flocking to party in Dutch border cities. Organized crime
involvement in the growing domestic cannabis industry is of increasing
concern. The Dutch government's efforts to address the problem by more
openly and systematically regulating supplies to coffeeshops, along with
some of its other drug policy initiatives, have run up against pressure
from abroad, notably from Paris, Stockholm, Bonn, and Washington. In late
1995 French President Jacques Chirac began publicly berating The Hague for
its drug policies, even threatening to suspend implementation of the
Schengen Agreement allowing the free movement of people across borders of
European Union (EU) countries. Some of Chirac's political allies called the
Netherlands a narco-state. Dutch officials responded with evidence of the
relative success of their policies, while pointing out that most cannabis
seized in France originates in Morocco (which Chirac has refrained from
criticizing because of his government's close relations with King Hassan).
The Hague, however, did announce reductions in the number of coffeeshops
and the amount of cannabis customers can buy there. But it still sanctions
the coffeeshops, and a few municipalities actually operate them.

Notwithstanding the attacks, in the 1990s the trend toward
decriminalization of cannabis has accelerated in Europe. Across much of
Western Europe, possession and even minor sales of the drug are effectively
decriminalized. Spain decriminalized private use of cannabis in 1983. In
Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court effectively sanctioned a cautious
liberalization of cannabis policy in a widely publicized 1994 decision.
German states vary considerably in their attitude; some, like Bavaria,
persist in a highly punitive policy, but most now favor the Dutch approach.
So far the Kohl administration has refused to approve state proposals to
legalize and regulate cannabis sales, but it appears aware of the rising
support in the country for Dutch and Swiss approaches to local drug problems.

In June 1996 Luxembourg's parliament voted to decriminalize cannabis and
push for standardization of drug laws in the Benelux countries. The Belgian
government is now considering a more modest decriminalization of cannabis
combined with tougher measures against organized crime and heroin
traffickers. In Australia, cannabis has been decriminalized in South
Australia, the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra), and the Northern
Territory, and other states are considering the step. Even in France,
Chirac's outburst followed recommendations of cannabis decriminalization by
three distinguished national commissions. Chirac must now contend with a
new prime minister, Lionel Jospin, who declared himself in favor of
decriminalization before his Socialist Party won the 1997 parliamentary
elections. Public opinion is clearly shifting. A recent poll found that 51
percent of Canadians favor decriminalizing marijuana.

WILL IT WORK?

Both at home and abroad, the U.S. government has attempted to block
resolutions supporting harm reduction, suppress scientific studies that
reached politically inconvenient conclusions, and silence critics of
official drug policy. In May 1994 the State Department forced the
last-minute cancellation of a World Bank conference on drug trafficking to
which critics of U.S. drug policy had been invited. That December the U.S.
delegation to an international meeting of the U.N. Drug Control Program
refused to sign any statement incorporating the phrase "harm reduction." In
early 1995 the State Department successfully pressured the World Health
Organization to scuttle the release of a report it had commissioned from a
panel that included many of the world's leading experts on cocaine because
it included the scientifically incontrovertible observations that
traditional use of coca leaf in the Andes causes little harm to users and
that most consumers of cocaine use the drug in moderation with few
detrimental effects. Hundreds of congressional hearings have addressed
multitudinous aspects of the drug problem, but few have inquired into the
European harm-reduction policies described above. When former Secretary of
State George Shultz, then -Surgeon General M. Joycelyn Elders, and
Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke pointed to the failure of current policies and
called for new approaches, they were mocked, fired, and ignored,
respectively-and thereafter mischaracterized as advocating the outright
legalization of drugs.

In Europe, in contrast, informed, public debate about drug policy is
increasingly common in government, even at the EU level. In June 1995 the
European Parliament issued a report acknowledging that "there will always
be a demand for drugs in our societies . . . the policies followed so far
have not been able to prevent the illegal drug trade from flourishing." The
EU called for serious consideration of the Frankfurt Resolution, a
statement of harm-reduction principles supported by a transnational
coalition of 31 cities and regions. In October 1996 Emma Bonino, the
European commissioner for consumer policy, advocated decriminalizing soft
drugs and initiating a broad prescription program for hard drugs. Greece's
minister for European affairs, George Papandreou, seconded her. Last
February the monarch of Liechtenstein, Prince Hans Adam, spoke out in favor
of controlled drug legalization. Even Raymond Kendall, secretary general of
Interpol, was quoted in the August 20, 1994, Guardian as saying, "The
prosecution of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens every year is
both hypocritical and an affront to individual, civil and human rights . .
. Drug use should no longer be a criminal offense. I am totally against
legalization, but in favor of decriminalization for the user."

One can, of course, exaggerate the differences between attitudes in the
United States and those in Europe and Australia. Many European leaders
still echo Chirac's U.S.-style antidrug pronouncements. Most capital cities
endorse the Stockholm Resolution, a statement backing punitive
prohibitionist policies that was drafted in response to the Frankfurt
Resolution. And the Dutch have had to struggle against French and other
efforts to standardize more punitive drug laws and policies within the EU.

Conversely, support for harm-reduction approaches is growing in the United
States, notably and vocally among public health professionals but also,
more discreetly, among urban politicians and police officials. Some of the
world's most innovative needle exchange and other harm-reduction programs
can be found in America. The 1996 victories at the polls for California's
Proposition 215, which legalizes the medicinal use of marijuana, and
Arizona's Proposition 200, which allows doctors to prescribe any drug they
deem appropriate and mandates treatment rather than jail for those arrested
for possession, suggest that Americans are more receptive to drug policy
reform than politicians acknowledge.

But Europe and Australia are generally ahead of the United States in their
willingness to discuss openly and experiment pragmatically with alternative
policies that might reduce the harm to both addicts and society. Public
health officials in many European cities work closely with police,
politicians, private physicians, and others to coordinate efforts.
Community policing treats drug dealers and users as elements of the
community that need not be expelled but can be made less trouble some. Such
efforts, including crackdowns on open drug scenes in Zurich, Bern, and
Frankfurt, are devised and implemented in tandem with initiatives to
address health and housing problems. In the United States, in contrast,
politicians presented with new approaches do not ask, "Will they work?" but
only, "Are they tough enough?" Many legislators are reluctant to support
drug treatment programs that are not punitive, coercive, and prison-based,
and many criminal justice officials still view prison as a quick and easy
solution for drug problems.

The lessons from Europe and Australia are compelling. Drug control policies
should focus on reducing drug-related crime, disease, and death, not the
number of casual drug users. Stopping the spread of HIV by and among drug
users by making sterile syringes and methadone readily available must be
the first priority. American politicians need to explore, not ignore or
automatically condemn, promising policy options such as cannabis
decriminalization, heroin prescription, and the integration of
harm-reduction principles into community policing strategies. Central
governments must back, or at least not hinder, the efforts of municipal
officials and citizens to devise pragmatic approaches to local drug
problems. Like citizens in Europe, the American public has supported such
innovations when they are adequately explained and allowed to prove
themselves. As the evidence comes in, what works is increasingly apparent.
All that remains is mustering the political courage.

Note

Lynn Zimmer and John P. Morgan, Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review
of the Scientific Evidence, New York: Lindesmith Center, 1997.

Copyright 1998, Foreign Affairs. Reprinted by permission. All rights
reserved.