FEDERALIST SOLUTION ON DRUGS

Economists Suggest Letting States Decide Their Own Drug Policy

Has the time come for the federal government to cede the "war on drugs" to
America's state and local governments?

A powerful case for devolving critical drug policy -- choices of which
substances to forbid, whether to focus police on drug cases, imprisoning
versus treating offenders -- has been made by two Florida State University
economists, David Rasmussen and Bruce Benson.

Of course it's hard to imagine rational debate about drug policy as long as
President Bush and his ideologically driven attorney general, John
Ashcroft, are in office. Even the never-inhaling Clinton administration sat
quietly as both federal and state incarcerations for drug offenses skyrocketed.

But the common-sense case for fresh thinking has become overwhelming.
Largely because of drug cases, the United States, with 2,071,686 people
behind bars, had the world's highest incarceration rate in 2000. It cost
the country $26 billion that year to imprison 1.3 million nonviolent
offenders -- including hundreds of thousands of drug offenders.

Rigid prohibition remains federal policy even as substantial experiments in
decoupling hard and soft drugs, especially decriminalizing possession of
small amounts of marijuana, are spreading in Europe and Canada. Ashcroft is
even cracking down hard on California co-ops that administer marijuana to
relieve the acute pain of terminally ill persons -- a policy specifically
approved by California voters in a 1996 referendum.

But it's not just authoritarian or moralistic ideology that drives harsh
drug policy. Our political system continues to condone stiff penalties,
long sentences -- even though there's ample evidence that treatment of
addiction, dollar for dollar, is far more effective. Indeed, a much-cited
RAND study which focused on cocaine use concluded that an added dollar on
drug treatment is seven times more cost-effective than a dollar more for
drug enforcement.

From 1968 to 1998, drug arrests per capita rose from 26 per 100,000
population to 615 per 100,000. Yet illicit drug use is still flourishing.
Why aren't we objecting?

Most blame is usually thrown at politically opportunistic legislators. But
legislators, argue Rasmussen and Benson in a law review article, respond
largely to interest groups. And there's a massive lobby out there pushing
the drug war -- the police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and their allies
in federal enforcement bureaus.

Indeed, goes this argument, bureaucrats instinctively fight to expand their
funds and turf, using direct lobbying, policy manipulation and selective
release of information and misinformation. Back in 1937, enforcement
agencies pushed for the Marijuana Tax Act, which proved pivotal in the
criminalization of marijuana. The federal Bureau of Narcotics fed the
"reefer madness" of the time, claiming -- contrary to scientific fact --
that marijuana causes insanity, rape, delirious rages and violent crimes.

More recently, police departments have tended to blame most local crime on
drug use, thus expanding their budgets as well as encouraging legislators
to pass increasingly strict sentencing for drug offenders. Which of course
keeps the prosecutors busy and pleases yet another lobby -- contractors who
build prisons.

On top of that, police and sheriffs' groups lobbied successfully to let
their departments retain proceeds from the sale of assets confiscated in
drug raids. Result: they profit directly from drug busts, a practice
raising serious ethical and constitutional questions.

The net result, argue Rasmussen and Benson, is "a tragedy in the criminal
justice commons," as drug enforcement dominates budgets, making funds
scarce for such unfolding needs as community policing and homeland security.

Plus, drug operations expose police departments to corruption -- the peril
of officers going bad, even lining up with one group of drug dealers
against another, as they deal in a world awash with literally millions of
illegal dollars.

So how do we think afresh about the drug issue? Only, the Florida State
authors argue, by decentralizing drug policy. They would leave the federal
government to deal with such issues as interstate drug shipments but revoke
national rules (like blanket prohibition of marijuana) and hold state
legislatures, agencies and bureaucrats more directly responsible for the
costs and results -- positive or negative -- of their policies.

Would such a move lead to wholesale liberalization of drug laws? Probably
no time soon, in most states. The same law enforcement bureaucracies would
almost surely fight change.

With a loosening of the federal hand, at least we could have debate about
new research in physiological effects of various drugs, consequences of
less regulation and dramatic treatment alternatives. States could compare
notes, be "laboratories of democracy." Less Washington dictation plus more
local autonomy equals federalism at work. What's not to like about that?