IS ILLINOIS WINNING THE WAR ON DRUGS?

Drug Use May Have Gone Down Since the '70s, but How and Why Are Up For
Debate

Jack Riley and Stephanie Schmitz have staked out opposite sides of the
"War on Drugs" debate in Illinois -- whether it has been won or lost.

Yet they agree on certain points.

Riley, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration
in Chicago, and Schmitz, associate director of the Illinois Consortium
on Drug Policy, say the three-word phrase oversimplifies the insidious
nature of illegal drugs.

And that, they say, can polarize honest discussion of how to fight
drug use.

Both agree that diverting some users from incarceration is an
important element in breaking the grip of illegal drugs, and that
enforcement also is key. Both like what they hear from new Chicago
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy.

And both employ statistics to make their points, which is where
trouble can start.

Riley contends authorities are winning Illinois' version of the "War
on Drugs," a phrase coined in 1971 when then-President Richard Nixon
called drug abuse "public enemy No. 1."

Not so, says Schmitz, who argues the war as it has been fought hasn't
been an effective tool in combating the problem.

Since the early 1970s, the U.S. government has emphasized aggressive
law enforcement and interdiction and, to a lesser degree,
investigations abroad and treatment. Some estimates put the cost at
nearly $1 trillion over 40 years.

Riley and other advocates for continuing the current approach point to
a drop in illegal drug use in the U.S.

In 1979, when the nation's population totaled around 225 million,
government surveys showed that 25.4 million were regular users of
illegal drugs. In 2009, when the U.S. population was 305 million, data
from the Office of National Drug Control Policy showed that 21.8
million people were using drugs illegally.

He also noted that Chicago's decreasing crime is an important
indicator that the so-called War on Drugs is working. About 70 percent
of all crime can be traced to drugs, he said, and crime in the city is
at its lowest in years, even though Chicago is home to about 100,000
"die-hard gang members," and gangs' biggest source of money is drug
trafficking, he said.

Riley said he is encouraged by McCarthy's willingness to cooperate
with law enforcement agencies to "leverage" the fight against drugs.

Schmitz, whose group's goals are "to promote discussion of
alternatives to Illinois' current drug policies and to serve as a
forum for the open, honest and thoughtful exchange of ideas," has a
slightly different reason for her optimism when it comes to McCarthy.

She likes that McCarthy, whom Mayor Rahm Emanuel picked in May, has
expressed concern with "mass incarceration" of drug offenders. She
also was encouraged at McCarthy's observation that narcotics are the
cause of crime and not the crime itself.

But she said the statistics about drug use in the 1970s are
suspect.

Even the Office of Applied Studies, which compiled the statistics,
discouraged researchers from drawing trends from the figures before
2001.

More accurate trends can be drawn from those statistics compiled from
2002 to 2009, Schmitz said. Those numbers show that 8.7 percent of
people 12 and older are using illicit drugs per month, up from 8.3
percent in 2002.

She acknowledged that fewer people may be using drugs than in the
1970s, but statistics for the last decade suggest drug use has been
stable.

"If this is true," Schmitz said, then the War on Drugs "has done all
it can do and does not appear to be an effective tool for reducing
current substance use."

In Illinois, she said, as penalties for drug offenses increased and
more people were incarcerated in the late 1970s and 1980s, illicit
drug use rose very slightly.

"If the goal is to reduce substance abuse," Schmitz said, "then
arresting ourselves out of it just isn't going to work."

Countered Riley: "Ask the policeman. Ask the DEA agent. There is no
crack in their armor. They believe in what we're doing because they see
the devastation drugs are causing."