DRUG LEGALIZATION WOULD HELP BRING END TO RELATED CRIME

The Post and Courier's May 12 front-page article that revealed the
Charleston County Council had given $500 to a group that "aims to
legalize all drugs" has kicked up a tempest and brought scorn on the
council and on our organization.

While that phrase and versions of it used by other news media are
technically accurate, it is a gross oversimplification. The public has
a right to a fuller and more accurate picture of who we are and what
we stand for.

South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform is composed mostly of
middle-aged and older adults. Two of our four officers are
grandparents and the other two are parents. We have a doctor and
lawyer on our advisory board, and until his recent death, a Lutheran
pastor.

Our mission is "to educate the public and our political
representatives about the true results of the U.S. 'war on drugs' and
about alternative drug policies, and to stimulate discussion and
legislation that will address drug problems through treatment,
education and other creative ways, instead of through
imprisonment."

In practical terms, that means we want to legalize all drugs for sale
to adults, and let the states control production and distribution. In
other words, we want the government to control all addictive drugs
like it controls alcohol and tobacco.

The reason we want this is that the so-called "war on drugs" has
failed miserably in its mission to stop people from using drugs.

Worse, the war has damaged society far more than the drugs themselves
ever could. Before drugs were outlawed there was no illicit drug
empire. As bizarre as it seems, Congress actually created it by
declaring some drugs (marijuana, cocaine and heroin among others)
illegal, and then enforcing the law by imprisoning violators. However,
Congress did very little to stem the demand, which created a market
and invited criminals to supply it. As a result, federal and state
governments now spend tens of billions of dollars a year - a
half-trillion dollars since the war began - fighting the monster it
created.

The harsher government made the penalties, the higher the profit
potential climbed and the more alluring the drug business became. In
2003, the sale of illicit drugs exceeded all global exports of ores
and other minerals. It also exceeded the total sale of agricultural
exports from Latin America and the Middle East combined. And yet, if
Congress would just treat all drugs alike, the benefits that would
accrue to society would be stunning.

All levels of government would save billions of dollars by not having
to fight the crime that Congress created. They also would receive
countless billions in new dollars by taxing the sale of drugs. By
taking control of drugs away from the criminals, Congress would
virtually halt all drug-related crime at all levels, because where
there is no profit motive there is no crime. Drug pushers would vanish
from our schools, and drug-related violence would virtually disappear
from our streets. Thousands of experienced law enforcement officers
could be reassigned from endlessly chasing people who buy and sell
drugs to preventing and investigating crimes where people are in real
trouble. Our prisons could release more than a half-million
non-violent drug prisoners, most of whom are serving time for nothing
more than selling or possessing marijuana. The prisons could focus on
keeping truly dangerous people separated from society.

The list of good that "drug legalization" would accomplish is almost
endless. Civil rights that have been denied us in the name of the war
on drugs could be returned. Drug addicts could be treated like alcohol
addicts - as sick people who need help, not criminals who need
imprisoning. The spread of AIDS, hepatitis-C and other wasting
diseases would drop dramatically as needle exchange programs became
legal. (Where such programs have been tested they have cut the spread
of those diseases by as much as 50 percent.) International terrorism
would lose an important source of money.

We have an important precedent. By 1919, alcohol abuse had become such
a problem in the U.S. that Congress adopted the 18th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution to prohibit the substance. But 14 years later, in
1933, Prohibition had created so many opportunities for organized
crime, among many other problems, that Congress repealed the
amendment. When it did, the crime empire and the other problems
associated with Prohibition evaporated.

The only difference between alcohol prohibition and drugs prohibition
is the substance itself. And the only difference between the damages
each causes is that drug prohibition's damages are immeasurably worse.

The strongest argument I've heard against ending drugs prohibition is
that it would cause a rise in drug use and abuse, but this is plainly
not true. Everyone who wants to use drugs is already using them, and
the law is irrelevant. All this in the face of overwhelming evidence,
including studies performed by the RAND Corporation, that programs
based on treatment, education and rehabilitation work multiple times
better than programs based on law enforcement and cost a fraction as
much. So that's why we want to "legalize" all drugs. It's also why,
under rules that were in effect at the time, the county's $500 grant
to us was perfectly legitimate. We are a group doing a recognized
public service (although granted the majority might not recognize that
yet).

But that's a moot point now. The grant arrived too late for us to
spend for the stated purpose within the time limit imposed by the
grant's language, so we returned it to the council. Since then the
council has changed its criteria for public service grants to outside
organizations, so we are no longer eligible.

Skip Johnson

President, South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform