HOW THE WAR ON DRUGS WAS LOST

The War on Drugs Has Been a Cornerstone of America's Criminal Justice
System Ever Since President Richard Nixon Coined the Phrase Four Decades Ago.

Three recent developments suggest that policy-makers are finally
losing faith in its effectiveness.

The National Drug Threat Assessment, released on Thursday, showed
that drugs are cheaper and easier to obtain than ever before.
Traffickers and violent street gangs either side of the US-Mexico
border are thriving. Law enforcement has failed to interrupt the
chain of supply and demand.

On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill that would reduce the number
of crack-cocaine users receiving lengthy jail sentences, by raising
the threshold at which a mandatory minimum of five years in prison
kicks in. If it passes the House Of Representatives, the law will
reduce the glaring disparity between sentences for crack and powder
cocaine possession - as a result of which millions of poor, largely
African-American addicts have been locked up, while affluent,
middle-class drug users escape with fines.

The same day, officials in California announced that a proposal to
legalise the sale of marijuana will be on the ballot on election day
this November. Supporters of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis
Act provided 694,248 signatures, initiating a political campaign
against prohibition that is likely to have national implications. It
is only a coincidence that these three events occurred in the same
week, but a subtle shift in priorities is evidently under way, driven
by fiscal crisis, escalating violence and changes in public opinion.

Norm Stamper, a former police chief of Seattle, has been a
spokesperson for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition since he
retired. "The war on drugs has been an abysmal failure," he says. "We
have spent a trillion dollars and what do we have to show for it?
Tens of millions of Americans incarcerated and families fractured.
Drugs are more readily available, at lower prices and higher levels
of potency. Young people, poor people and black people have been the victims.

"In the last year, there has been a massive change in people's
thinking. We've seen support grow very rapidly in recent months and
it's clearly fuelled by the economic situation. California is
considering legalisation because it needs the money badly. They need
to spend less on criminal justice and prisons for non-violent drug offenders."

Every President since Nixon has enthusiastically prosecuted the war
on drugs. George H W Bush mentioned it in his inaugural address:
"Take my word for it. This scourge will stop." Bill Clinton spent
$1.3 billion on Plan Colombia, which financed paramilitary crackdowns
and sprayed acres of crops with herbicide ... without significantly
disrupting the cocaine trade.

George W Bush signed the Merida Initiative, which committed $1.4
billion in aid to Mexico, with the specific aim of breaking up the
narcotics business. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Mexico
City this week to re-affirm the pact's basic principles, albeit with
a new emphasis on economic development.

The Obama administration has been sending mixed messages about the
possibility of reform. Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said he considers
the phrase "war on drugs" to be counter-productive. "Regardless of
how you try to explain to people it's a war on drugs or a war on a
product, people see a war as a war on them," he told the Wall Street
Journal. "We're not at war with people in this country."

Kerlikowske is another former Seattle police chief, whose own stepson
has been to prison on drugs charges. Last October, his office
announced that the FBI would no longer arrest medical marijuana
users, as long as they abided by state laws. But this month he told a
meeting of police chiefs in San Jose that he is strongly opposed to
legalisation of the drug.

The US Government's primary focus has been the epidemic of drug
violence in Mexico, which has frequently spilled over into Texas,
California and Arizona. In travelling to Mexico, Clinton indicated
that the US will continue to support President Felipe Calderon's
policy of flooding border towns such as Ciudad Juarez and Reynosa
with military personnel.

In one particularly bloody week, there were 256 drug-related murders,
according to the Mexican daily newspaper Reforma. Journalists in
Ciudad Juarez have stopped reporting from crime scenes, following
death threats from the cartels. Estimates of the total death toll in
the three years since Calderon won power vary from 10,000 to 18,000.

"The government's point shared, incomprehensibly, by the Obama
administration that the rise in violence is a sign of success
brings back tragic and uncanny memories of body counts in Vietnam,"
wrote Jorge Castaneda, a former foreign minister of Mexico. "There
is, for now, no cost-benefit analysis that justifies the pursuit of a
war that is clearly going nowhere." When Intelligence Director Dennis
Blair suggested that the Mexican government had lost control of its
cities, Calderon responded with a pointed reminder that the US was
"the biggest consumer of drugs in the world and the largest supplier
of weapons in the world".

The National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010 is a grim summary of
failure. It found that heroin, ecstasy, methamphetamine and marijuana
have all fallen in price, as drugs cross the border in record
amounts. Only cocaine has become slightly harder to obtain.
Prescription drug abuse has also soared, including opiates such as
morphine, methadone and codeine as well as antidepressants and
- -medicine for attention deficit disorder. The number of overdose
deaths doubled between 2002 and 2006.

Heroin production in Mexico has risen sharply. The arrest on Thursday
of the so-called heroin king Jose Antonio Medina may block the
pipeline for a week or two, but even the most optimistic
law--enforcement officials concede that he will soon be replaced.

The report provided insights into how drug wholesale and retail
operations are changing, as Hispanic gangs become involved in every
phase of the business. "Street gangs such as Shelltown 38th Street,
Tri-City Bombers and Vallucos have been increasingly acquiring larger
wholesale quantities of drugs at lower prices directly from Mexico
and along the southwest border," it noted.

Many of the most powerful gangs are run from prison. According to the
latest available figures from the American Correctional Association,
the average daily cost per state prison inmate is $67.55. That means
that, in 2007, states spent more than $6 billion incarcerating drug
offenders. Treatment and rehabilitation programmes are gaining in
popularity because states can no longer afford to keep so many people
behind bars.

The Urban Institute has estimated that for every $1 spent on drug
courts which offer counselling, strict probation and regular blood
tests as an alternative to jail $2.21 is saved in criminal justice,
prison and healthcare costs.

If California was not in the grip of a fiscal crisis, it is doubtful
that the marijuana legalisation bill would stand any chance.
Advocates of legalisation argue that taxing it could bring in $1.4
billion per year. "We need the tax money," says marijuana
entrepreneur Richard Lee. "Second, we need law enforcement directed
towards real crime."

If passed, the law would allow personal possession of up to one ounce
of the drug and the cultivation of a small plot of marijuana plants.
All three of the principal candidates for governor oppose it, but a
recent survey found that 56% of voters were in favour. More
surprisingly, in a nationwide Gallup poll, 44% of respondents said
they would support full legalisation, an outcome that would have been
unthinkable five years ago.

"The California situation is, at a minimum, going to provoke a loud
national debate on the issue," says Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer
in economics at Harvard University. "If the pre-initiative polling is
accurate, a majority supports it. If it passes, it has unbelievable
ramifications, because federal law will conflict with state law, so
it will go to the Supreme Court." Both sides of the debate are
well-funded, with high-profile political backers.

The war on drugs has, so far, proved impervious to criticism. Every
attempt to adjust the government's approach - to prioritise
prevention and treatment over strict enforcement - has been easily
defeated by groups with an interest in maintaining the status quo,
not least the prisons industry. In 1994, Bill Clinton's drugs czar
Lee Brown submitted a budget including $355 million to treat hardcore
drug addicts. By the time it had passed through Congress, that
funding had been cut by 80%.

"Federal, state and local law enforcement officers have become
dependent on the funding that the drug war brings in," says Norm
Stamper. "There are many police officers who believe that with more
money, more equipment, more manpower, more time, we will win this war
on drugs. But they are in a minority. Increasingly, police officers,
from rank and file all the way up to police chiefs and sheriffs, are
whispering their support for drug policy reform."

A spokeswoman for the National Association of Police Organisations
said officers generally welcome a common-sense approach to dealing
with drug offenders, provided enforcement remains a priority.
"Putting minor offenders in jail isn't going to help them," she said.
"If they don't use weapons or commit violent acts, we prefer
treatment to help addicts recover, allied to strong community
policing. Officers don't want to be arresting the same addicts off
the street over and over again."

Last year, Mexico quietly decriminalised possession of small amounts
of drugs. Four years ago, a similar bill was rejected by President
Vicente Fox after the Bush administration objected. The official
White House line this time is that they will "wait and see" what effect it has.

Advocates of reform are cautiously optimistic that a turning point
has been reached. "It's important to recognise that politicians are
followers, not leaders, by definition and by habit," Stamper says.
"Once they understand that people are way out ahead of them on this
issue, they will come around."