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?