TIME HAS COME TO CHANGE THE POLICY ON DRUG ABUSE VIOLATIONS

The decades-long war on drugs in the U.S.
continues while prisons are becoming overcrowded,
the number of drug users is on the rise, and the
dollars needed to sustain it are draining federal and state treasuries.

It is high time that the nation's drug policies be given a serious look.

The most recent data collected by the Office of
National Drug Control Policy indicates that more
than 20 million Americans were users of illicit drugs in 2008.

This statistic alone is a bit troubling, but it
appears far worse if one considers that the
number is up from 12 million users in 1992.

How can law enforcement agencies be succeeding in
their war on drugs if the number of users is
rising? The answer to this question is quite simple: they are not.

The number of arrests for drug abuse violations,
as compared to other offenses, is
disproportionately high in many states. According
to ONDCP reports, the number of arrests for drug
abuse violations in West Virginia in 2006 was
higher than the number of arrests made for any other offense.

In fact, the number of arrests for drug abuse in
West Virginia in 2006, at 4,100, was higher than
the number of arrests made for murder, rape,
robbery, assault, burglary and theft combined.

The state numbers, taken in conjunction with the
national numbers, point out two things: Harsh
penalties for drug abuse violations have little
or no deterrent effect, and thousands of hours
and millions of dollars are being wasted on ineffectual drug policies.

The argument that relaxing penalties or
decriminalizing drugs could lead to higher rates
of drug abuse and an even bigger drug problem are
a bit too presumptuous. Bringing the hammer down
on non-violent drug abusers seems only to have stoked the fire.

If heavy-handed means for softening or
eradicating the drug problem are not working, why not try something else?

Esquire Magazine reported last year, on the basis
of statistics gathered by Neill Franklin, a
former commander in Maryland's Bureau of Drug
Enforcement and member of Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition, that the drug war was costing the
U.S. approximately 15,000 dead and $52 billion per year.

These numbers indicate that simply locking people
up for drug abuse violations is putting an even
greater fiscal strain on sagging federal and
state budgets and is proving to be an ineffective
method for quelling the drug problem.

This reality has spurred many law enforcement
officers to question current drug policies.

Franklin told Esquire: "I find that 95 percent of
my law-enforcement friends agree that we have to
take a different direction =AD and probably 60
percent to 65 percent agree that we should legalize."

According to Franklin, the majority of police
wanting to legalize drugs do not speak out for
"selfish reasons." Apparently, "one third of
every law-enforcement agency in this country"
would be shut down if drugs were to be legalized.

While it is certainly desirable to keep people
off drugs and to keep our neighborhoods as free
of drug use as possible, one must realize that
the overt stigmatization of drugs and those who
use them can be a detriment to that cause. It can
distort perceptions make monsters out of drug-addled mice.

Non-violent drug abusers have a problem that
requires treatment, not incarceration with hardened criminals.

Drug addiction should be seen as a health issue, not a criminal issue.

As long as we continue to treat drug addiction as
a criminal issue, we will continue to treat the symptom rather than the
cause.

The cause of the drug problem, whether it is
driven by poverty, depression or sheer boredom, is of utmost importance.

It is irrational to believe that prison sentences
for drug abuse violations have a deterrent effect.

The numbers simply do not bear this out. And
without proper treatment, drug abusers are doomed
to become repeat offenders, to fall back into the same flawed system.

There are promising steps being taken in some
states to combat problems embedded within current drug policies.

The Nation reported that Kansas was able to
reduce its prison population significantly enough
to close several of its facilities by approving a
large investment in drug treatment programs and
services for parolees designed to stop drug
offenders from simply cycling back into prison after their release.

The Nation also reported that Texas shelved a
$600-million prison expansion plan in favor of a
$241 million plan to expand community-based drug
and alcohol treatment services.

Legislators throughout the country would do well to bear such measures in
mind.

A shift in our perception of drugs and drug
abusers, and in our approach to dealing with
them, is necessary if we are going to get at the
root of the drug problem, stop the cycle of
incarceration and cut down on unnecessary drug-war spending.