The War on Drugs

Try to find a social problem without connection to the war on drugs:

Half of new AIDS and Hepatitis cases result from drug prohibition, as dirty needles are shared unnecessarily. Our court system bogs down, as we make 1.9 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses annually. Only 50% of homicide investigations are cleared today as compared to 90% in 1950, before so many police were diverted to nonviolent drug offenses. Prisons overflow and violent offenders are released to make room for nonviolent drug offenders who receive mandatory-minimums. Overdose deaths multiply, as users inject a concoction of drugs whose content and potency they cannot determine.

Terrorists are funded, as they convert some of the half-trillion dollars in yearly drug profits to their ends. Corrupt cops, lawyers, judges, and politicians abound, as the 17,000 percent markup from harvest to sale proves predictably irresistible. Environmental problems multiply, as we spray poisons on peasant farmer’s crops, alienating peasant farmers and destabilizing governments. Patients here and especially the developing world are denied pain relief, as drug war hysteria intimidates doctors.

Ordinary citizens (112 million of us according to DEA) become “outlaws” through their drug use. Racism is perpetuated, as African-Americans who account for 13% of drug use receive nearly 80% of related jail time. Sexism is perpetuated, as vulnerable women take the fall for their boyfriends’ dealing and have become the fastest growing portion of the prison population while families are torn apart and children are used as expendable mules. Economically unproductive investment suffocates the economy, as prison construction has become the fastest growing industrial sector. Constitutional problems multiply, as citizen’s rights are trampled in the name of this abstinence-only policy. The militarization of our civilian police force expands, as officers train for a “war” in which paramilitary violence is a “logical” tactic used against people in their own homes.

Democracy is thwarted, as millions of poor, mostly minority Americans, are denied the vote because of drug arrest records. Street crime plagues communities, as users are forced to prostitution or theft to pay the thugs who control and regulate drugs. Gang wars escalate, as rival dealers settle financial disputes out of court. Class divides intensify, as 200,000 kids can’t get college loans because of simple marijuana possession records (those convicted of rape or murder don’t have as strict sanctions) and on it goes. Madness heaped upon madness.

In the last 39 years we have made 38 million drug arrests and spent a trillion tax dollars. Yet today, drugs are cheaper, more potent and far easier for our children to access than when we bought them undercover in 1970—when only one twenty-seventh as many Americans were using them.

No other policy has such widespread consequences. Resolving no other issue will let us solve so many problems at once.

The per capita rate of marijuana use in the US is twice that of Holland, where for the last 30 years adults could legally buy it in “Brown Bars.” And when Switzerland recently studied their decade-long program of giving heroin with social support to heroin addicts, they found a tremendous reduction in the rates of addiction, disease, crime and overdose death. They took out the drug dealers (you can’t compete with free) the way we cops always fantasized. Just like that. There is no longer an incentive to hook the young, unlike our current playground scene where our children continue to report that it is easier for them to get illegal drugs than cigarettes or alcohol.

When we treat drug addiction as a health issue rather than as a sign of poor character, we will enjoy less violence, less disease, less corruption, greater freedom, and less drug use over time, especially among our young.

Halfway measures are not called for. We need to face this perfect storm of a failed policy head on and legalize so we can truly regulate hard drugs.