THE DISASTROUS WAR ON DRUGS TURNS 40

How Do We Stop the Madness?

Four Decades After President Nixon Declared His War on Drugs, Let's
Take a Look at the Devastation and Figure Out How to End This Thing.

Some anniversaries provide an occasion for celebration, others a time
for reflection, still others a time for action. This June will mark
forty years since President Nixon declared a "war on drugs,"
identifying drug abuse as "public enemy No. 1." As far as I know, no
celebrations are planned. What's needed, indeed essential, are
reflection -- and action.

It's hard to believe that Americans have spent roughly a trillion
dollars (give or take a few hundred million) on this forty-year war.
Hard to believe that tens of millions have been arrested, and many
millions locked up in jails and prisons, for committing nonviolent
acts that were not even crimes a century ago. Hard to believe that
the number of people incarcerated on drug charges increased more than
ten times even as the country's population grew by only half. Hard to
believe that millions of Americans have been deprived of the right to
vote not because they killed a fellow citizen or betrayed their
country but simply because they bought, sold, produced or simply
possessed a psychoactive plant or chemical. And hard to believe that
hundreds of thousands of Americans have been allowed to die -- of
overdoses, AIDS, hepatitis and other diseases -- because the drug war
blocked and even prohibited treating addiction to certain drugs as a
health problem rather than a criminal one.

Reflect we must on not just the consequences of this war at home but
abroad as well. The prohibition-related crime, violence and
corruption in Mexico today resemble Chicago during alcohol
Prohibition -- times fifty. Parts of Central America are even more
out of control, and many Caribbean nations can only hope that they
are not next. The illegal opium and heroin markets in Afghanistan
reportedly account for one-third to half of the country's GDP. In
Africa, prohibitionist profiteering, trafficking and corruption are
spreading rapidly. As for South America and Asia, just pick a moment
and a country -- and the stories are much the same, from Colombia,
Peru, Paraguay and Brazil to Pakistan, Laos, Burma and Thailand.

Wars can be costly -- in money, rights and lives -- but still
necessary to defend national sovereignty and core values. It's
impossible to make that case on behalf of the war on drugs.
Marijuana, cocaine and heroin are effectively cheaper today than they
were at the start of the war forty years ago, and just as available
now as then to anyone who really wants them. Marijuana, which
accounts for half of all drug arrests in the United States, has never
killed anyone. Heroin is basically indistinguishable from
hydromorphone (aka Dilaudid), a pain medication prescribed by
physicians that hundreds of thousands of Americans have consumed
safely. The vast majority of people who have used cocaine did not
become addicts. Each of these drugs is less dangerous than government
propaganda claims but sufficiently dangerous that they merit
intelligent regulations rather than blanket prohibitions.

If the demand for any of these drugs were two, five or ten times what
they are today, the supply would be there. That's what markets do.
And who benefits from persisting with doomed supply control
strategies notwithstanding their evident costs and failures?
Basically two sets of interests: those producers and sellers of
illicit drugs who earn far more than they would if their product were
legally regulated rather than prohibited; and law enforcers for whom
the expansion of prohibitionist policies translates into jobs, money
and the political power to defend their self-interests.

Republican and Democratic governors confronting massive state budget
deficits are now endorsing alternatives to incarceration for
nonviolent drug law offenders that they would have rejected out of
hand just a few years ago. It would be a tragedy, however, if these
modest but important steps result in nothing more than a kinder,
gentler drug war. What's really needed is the sort of reckoning that
identifies as the problem not just drug addiction but prohibition as
well - and that aims to reduce the role of criminalization and the
criminal justice system in drug control to the maximum extent
possible while enhancing public safety and health.

What better way to mark the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs than
by breaking the taboos that have precluded frank assessment of the
costs and failures of drug prohibition as well as its varied
alternatives. Barely a single hearing, audit or analysis undertaken
and commissioned by the government over the past forty years has
dared to engage in this sort of assessment. The same cannot be said
of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or almost any other domain of
public policy. The war on drugs persists in good part because those
who hold the purse strings focus their critical attentions only on
the implementation of the strategy rather than the strategy itself.

The Drug Policy Alliance and our allies in this rapidly growing
movement intend to break that tradition of denial -- by transforming
this anniversary into a year of action. Our objective is ambitious --
to attain the critical mass at which the momentum for reform exceeds
the powerful inertia that has sustained punitive prohibitionist
policies for all too long. This requires working with legislators who
dare to raise the important questions, and organizing public forums
and online communities where citizens can take action, and enlisting
unprecedented numbers of powerful and distinguished individuals to
voice their dissent publicly, and organizing in cities and states to
instigate new dialogues and directions in local policies.

Count on five themes to emerge over and over during this anniversary year.

1. Marijuana legalization is no longer a question of whether but when
and how. Gallup's polling found that 36% of Americans in 2005 favored
legalizing marijuana use while 60% were opposed. By late 2010,
support had risen to 46% while opposition had dropped to 50%. A
majority of citizens in a growing number of states now say that
legally regulating marijuana makes more sense than persisting with
prohibition. We know what we need to do: work with local and national
allies to draft and win marijuana legalization ballot initiatives in
California, Colorado and other states; assist federal and state
legislators in introducing bills to decriminalize and regulate
marijuana; ally with local activists to pressure police and
prosecutors to de-prioritize marijuana arrests; AND assist and
embolden prominent individuals in government, business, media,
academia, entertainment and other walks of life to publicly endorse
an end to marijuana prohibition.

2. Over-incarceration is the problem, not the solution. Ranking first
in the world in both absolute and per capita incarceration is a
shameful distinction that the United States should hasten to shed.
The best way to address the problem of over-incarceration is to
reduce the number of people incarcerated for non-violent drug law
violations -- by decriminalizing and ultimately legalizing marijuana;
by providing alternatives to incarceration for those who pose no
threat outside prison walls; by reducing mandatory minimum and other
harsh sentences; by addressing addiction and other drug misuse
outside the criminal justice system rather than within it; and by
insisting that no one be incarcerated simply for possessing a
psychoactive substance, absent harm to others. All this requires both
legislative and administrative action by government, but systemic
reform will only happen if the objective of reducing
over-incarceration is broadly embraced as a moral necessity.

3. The war on drugs is "the new Jim Crow." The magnitude of racial
disproportionality in the enforcement of drug laws in the United
States (and many other countries) is grotesque, with African
Americans dramatically more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and
incarcerated than other Americans engaged in the same violations of
drug laws. Concerns over racial justice helped motivate Congress to
reform the notorious crack/powder mandatory minimum drug laws last
year but much more needs to be done. Nothing is more important at
this point than the willingness and ability of African American
leaders to prioritize the need for fundamental reform of drug
policies. This is no easy task given the disproportionate extent and
impact of drug addiction in poor African American families and
communities. But it is essential, if only because no one else can
speak and act with the moral authority required to transcend both
deep seated fears and powerful vested interests.

4. Politics must no longer be allowed to trump science - and
compassion, common sense and fiscal prudence - in dealing with
illegal drugs. Overwhelming evidence points to the greater
effectiveness and lower cost of dealing with addiction and other drug
misuse as matters of health rather than criminal justice. That's why
DPA is stepping up our efforts to transform how drug problems are
discussed and dealt with in local communities. "Think global but act
local" applies to drug policy as much as any other domain of public
policy. Of course it would be better if a president appointed someone
other than a police chief, military general or professional moralist
as drug czar. But what really matters is shifting the locus of
authority in city and state drug policies from criminal justice to
health and other authorities. And equally important is ensuring that
new dialogues about drug policy are informed by scientific evidence
as well as best practices from around the country and abroad. One of
our specialties at DPA is getting people to think and act outside the
box about drugs and drug policies.

5. Legalization has to be on the table. Not because it is necessarily
the best solution. Not because it is the obvious alternative to the
evident failures of drug prohibition. But for three important
reasons: first, because it is the best way to reduce dramatically the
crime, violence, corruption and other extraordinary costs and harmful
consequences of prohibition; second, because there are as many
options -- indeed more -- for legally regulating drugs as there are
options for prohibiting them; and third, because putting legalization
on the table involves asking fundamental questions about why drug
prohibitions first emerged, and whether they were or are truly
essential to protect human societies from their own vulnerabilities.
Insisting that legalization be on the table -- in legislative
hearings, public forums and internal government discussions -- is not
the same as advocating that all drugs be treated the same as alcohol
and tobacco. It is, rather, a demand that prohibitionist precepts and
policies be treated not as gospel but as political choices that merit
critical assessment, including objective comparison with
non-prohibitionist approaches.

So that's the plan. Forty years after President Nixon declared his
war on drugs, we're seizing upon this anniversary to prompt both
reflection and action. And we're asking all of our allies -- indeed
everyone who harbors reservations about the war on drugs -- to join
us in this enterprise.