WE NEED TO CONSIDER WHAT WAR ON DRUGS HAS WROUGHT

State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson's bill to legalize and tax marijuana in
Washington addresses a state revenue shortfall and challenges a federal policy.

State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson's bill to legalize and tax marijuana in
Washington addresses a state revenue shortfall and challenges a federal policy.

In considering her proposal, it's important to examine not just its
local effect but also the context of federal prohibition because one
influences the other.

In Washington and across the country, there is a significant
discrepancy between drug prohibition and practice. U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services surveys show little change in our habits
over the three decades of an all-out domestic drug war.

Recent episodes of the next legal high, whether bath salts, salvia or
Four Loko, reflect a critical truth. We are a nation of users; we
indulge in all sorts of consciousness-altering substances and practices.

Yet, the domestic drug war continues as a social policy. What are the
effects of this effort? Billions of dollars have been spent
prosecuting and incarcerating people for low-level drug offenses.
From 1989-2009, more people were incarcerated for drug offenses than
for all violent crimes combined.

To fully consider decriminalization in Washington, we need
well-informed discussion to examine our assumptions about various
drugs and their users. The problem is that the drug war has limited
research, silenced casual users and intimidated people about
discussing the realities of drug use.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and its drug czar
can't be a public resource because their mission excludes the
possibility of legalization. Researchers with data to share should
inform this debate. The following points are offered in that spirit:

The U.S. drug war is not, as stated, a war on drug distribution. It
has become a war on users. In 2008, 4 out of 5 drug arrests were for
possession, not for distribution. Since the ONDCP was founded in
1988, incarceration for drug offenses has risen 1,100 percent, but
drug use continues relatively unabated. Even law enforcement
professionals acknowledge the futility of policing drug use.

The drug war's propaganda is costly, but is it effective? In a
domestic drug war funded by over $15 billion a year, the focal media
campaigns (including D.A.R.E.) have not demonstrated efficacy in
curtailing illicit drug use.

We are all users. Most everyone seeks to intentionally affect
consciousness in one way or another, from caffeine and alcohol to
practices such as yoga or running (which stimulate endocannaboids in
the brain). We support the use of pharmaceuticals to manage moods.

So we should rethink "use," especially the urge to get high, as a
human appetite and broaden our understanding of that desire.

Our drug scheduling system is unscientific and illogical, and its
related penalties are unjust. A re-evaluation of controlled
substances classification is overdue because it is incongruent with
what we have learned about many of these substances since 1970.

For example, marijuana and ecstasy are listed with heroin in Schedule
I the most dangerous drugs. Cocaine, methamphetamine and oxycodone,
however, are in Schedule II seen as less hazardous. The schedules
should be revised with updated scientific data.

The drug war, whose policy goal is "the creation of a drug-free
America," is an abject failure. Although it's imprisoned many people
for low-level drug offenses, this domestic war has not significantly
influenced the urge to use drugs, except perhaps to make illicit
substances less available and increase the recreational use of pharmaceuticals.

We celebrate substance use in this country, whether through coffee
culture, cocktail mixology or synthetic drugs. If we consider growing
trends of substance use, it's hard to see a drug-free America as
anything but a fantasyland that most of us don't want to inhabit.

We like our mood-altering substances ... with or without a black
market economy.

The U.S. drug war's consequences have become part of an invisible
cultural landscape. As a police sergeant says in "The Wire," "You
can't call this a war . . . wars end." Drug prohibition is
ineffective but has created an industry that is costing us a great deal.

With the proposal to legalize marijuana, Washingtonians have an
opportunity and an obligation to reconsider what this war has wrought.