THE ILLUSION OF PROGRESS IN THE DRUG WAR

Advertised as an effective drug control policy, America's harsh drug
laws only give the illusion of progress.

Two recent reports show, once again, that the arrest and
incarceration of hundreds of thousands of nonviolent adult drug
offenders have done little to stem the use and trafficking of illicit
drugs. Drug Use. A senior fellow at the George Mason University
School of Public Policy, Dr. Jon Gettman's recent study, Consistent,
Persistent and Resistant, Marijuana Use in the United States - funded
by the Marijuana Policy Project Foundation - finds that the "Bush
Administration anti-drug policies have been unsuccessful in reducing
the demand for and use of marijuana and other illegal drugs."
Further, Gettman reports, the government's own Office of National
Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) did not come close to reaching its recent
goal: the reduction in the use of illicit drugs among adults 18 years
and older by 25 percent between 2002 and 2007. After five years of
effort and many millions of tax dollars, illicit drug use among
adults declined by less than one percent. Of the six tax-funded
programs designed by the ONDCP to reach its 25 percent reduction
goal, the Bush Administration's Office of Management and Budget found
that only one program rated an "adequate" grade.

The other five were rated "ineffective" or
"results-not-demonstrated." Drug Trafficking. In its new report,
Correcting Course: Lessons from the 1970 Repeal of Mandatory
Minimums, the Washington advocacy organization, Families Against
Mandatory Minimums, finds that, to date, "No conclusive studies
demonstrate any positive impact of federal mandatory minimum
sentences on the rate at which drugs are being manufactured,
imported, and trafficked throughout the country." The U.S. Congress
first enacted mandatory sentences for drug offenses in 1951 only to
repeal the law in 1970 because it was not reducing drug use. Then, in
1986, the Congress set new mandatory sentences aimed at locking up
big-time drug traffickers and, in 1988, expanded the law to apply to
simple possession of crack cocaine. By 2008, more than one-half of
the 200,000 federal prisoners were serving time for drug offenses.

But instead of filling federal prisons with drug kingpins, 66 percent
of crack cocaine offenders in 2005 were low-level street dealers,
lookouts and couriers and only 33 percent were higher-level
suppliers. Instead of ending the drug war, mandatory sentences
promise to keep prisons full of nonviolent, low level offenders,
while drug use continues unabated. Setting goals in the absence of
any reasonable means to achieve those goals is plain dumb, except in
Washington. Perhaps the non-performing drug war programs are not
really expected to deliver on their publicly stated goals, but
continue because they serve a very different purpose.

They give the politically useful illusion of "controlling" crime and
allow morally righteous members of society to impose their values on
the actions of others. Instead of ending the drug war, each year
Washington drug warriors issue a new round of optimistic forecasts to
keep the illusion alive, to justify another round of funding from
American taxpayers. In the absence of a strategy that can both win
the drug war and pass Constitutional and affordability tests, police
departments, prison operators and hundreds of thousands of prison
guards keep themselves busy wasting money on non-performing programs
and arresting more low level drug offenders. Forget pie-in-the-sky
government promises that build false expectations. When the toughest
action governments can take to change individual behavior - sending
its citizens to prison - doesn't work, it is time to try another
approach. Building more prisons will not reduce drug use in America.
Instead, across America, let's build thousands of down-to-earth
education and health programs that can actually help individuals in
your hometown and mine make informed life-style choices.