DRUG WAR HARMS MORE THAN IT HELPS

As the war on drugs caused an exodus of legitimate business from
inner cities, a vacuum was created. In that vacuum lay fertile
ground to guarantee the proliferation of the illegal drug trade. The
war on drugs has been a self-defeating policy. It is a fraud that
will never end until its insanity is understood.

The drug war is supported by three major factors: greed; fear; and
racism. All of these results in unequal treatment based either
directly or indirectly on race, class or white privilege. The drug
war opposes two basic principles of life, human nature and economics.

We have had almost nine decades of drug prohibition; over three
decades of the so called War On Drugs; we have spent almost a
trillion dollars, and yet we have more illegal drugs at cheaper
prices on our streets than ever before.

The United States represents five percent of the world's population,
but has an astounding 25 percent of world's prison population. In
total, our country has almost seven million people in our criminal
justice system. That is, they are either on probation, parole, jail,
halfway houses or prison. Almost two thirds are young Black and
Latino males. Ten percent of the African American population is in
the criminal justice system.

Here in Connecticut we have a population of 3.4 million. Black and
Latino men make up less than 6% of that population but account for
almost 68% of the prison population. Almost 70% are in prison for
drug related charges. This scenario is repeated in state after state
according to the study done by "Human Rights Watch". Are race and
class factors in the enforcement of our drug laws and if not how do
we prove that to sceptics?

Should drugs remain illegal? Our present drug policies support the
price of illegal drugs which is responsible for the billions of
dollars that flow into our banking, mercantile, and political
systems. This drug money helps maintain much of the value of our
stock market and mutual funds, and gets politicians elected. It also
gives competitive advantage to those who have access to it over those
who have to pay retail for their financing.

Major players in all these venues, including much of the Fortune 500
companies - via bond and Treasury bill prices - enjoy access. That's
because the so-called "drug lords" (or producers) collect only the
wholesale price, which is a small part of the total. The rest of
those dollars are laundered through businesses patronized by you and
me. As for those who get caught violating these laws; they're just
collateral damage.

When considering alternatives for the drug war, all conversation has
to start with one question: Do we think that people are going to stop
using illegal drugs? The overwhelming response is NO. Those that say
yes are not of this planet. So the next question becomes: How are we
as society going to create an atmosphere that will cause the least
amount of harm to the people who use these drugs, and just as
important, the least amount of harm to society? Anyone that says we
should not, could not, would not, or that we would be sending the
wrong message to our children by legalizing, medicalizing and
decriminalizing these handful of illegal drugs simply does not have a
clue. Most of the damage done is not by the drugs but by the drug
policies themselves.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a
different result. Therefore we can confidently state that the drug
war is the most insane [public policy of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Insanity is electing the same people to public offices who created
and sustain this mess. Insanity is believing that the above ground
economy can compete with the underground economy when through the
strategy of drug prohibition and the war on drugs we have made these
drugs worth seven times more than our gold standard. Insanity is
thinking that the war on drugs protects our children when they have
unlimited access to these illegal drugs. Insanity is having more
policemen in our communities who take away so many of our young and
believing the community will some how be better off.

Until we bring these drugs inside of the law and remove the,
race/class, greed and fear factors from this diabolical mess called
the "war on drugs", we will continue to look like a dog chasing its
tail, as a dog never catches its tail, we will never come to grips
with this problem using the same old tactics.

Clifford Wallace Thornton, Jr. is co-founder of Efficacy (
http://www.Efficacy-online.org ) and a member of their speakers
bureau. He has recently joined the newly created DrugSense Drug
Policy Writers Group ( http://www.mapinc.org/resource/dpwg/ ) which
connects activists with authors to facilitate increased opinion page
coverage of drug policy reform.