Radley Balko has an excellent piece at Culture11 on the War on Drugs: The Collateral Damage. It covers the basics and has links to a variety of sources to
The conclusion gets to the heart of it:
Even if the drug war were working—even if all the horrible things the federal government says are caused by illicit drugs were accurate (and some of them admittedly are), and even if the war on drugs were proving successful in eradicating or even significantly diminishing our access to those drugs—you’d have a difficult time arguing that the benefits would be worth the costs.But the kicker is, of course, that it isn’t working. Much of the federal government claims about the evils associated with illicit drugs are either exaggerated or misapplied effects not of the drugs, but of the government’s prohibition of them.
More to the point, none of this is working even taking drug war advocates’ positions at face value. It is as easy to achieve an illegal high today as it was in 1981, as it was in 1971, as it was in 1915. The vast majority of you reading this either know where to get a bag of marijuana, or know someone who knows where to get one. Specific drugs come in and out of vogue, but the desire to alter one’s consciousness, to escape life’s drab monotonies, or just to call in a different mindset is as strong and pervasive as it’s ever been, going back to the stone age. It’s also just as easy to fulfill.
And that is the crux of it all: we spend trillions, and yet the drugs are still available–and no matter what we do, they will continue to be available. If we could set aside emotional responses to the drugs themselves (whether it be our moral beliefs or our fear for our children) and look at what we are getting for our expenditures, we would conclude that we need another policy.
Indeed, one of the main things that we point to when we talk about the scourge of drugs is the violent crime associated with it. However, when we look at things like gang violence or the very serious violence in Mexico, we are seeing the fruit of prohibition, not the automatic result of the existence of drugs. There are no wars over whiskey production and distribution (unlike, say, during the years when alcohol was an illegal substance). Indeed, one of the ironies of our anti-drug policies is that if they successfully constrict supply, the price goes up, which increases the incentive for traffickers and dealers to engage in violence to protect their profits.
However, it remains impossible to have a serious debate about this issue, because the drug war paradigm has been so thoroughly ingrained in our national psyche and because a very large number of people think that any alteration of this approach to the subject will lead to a radical increase in drug addicts, if not their own kids becoming hooked on heroin. Indeed, I think that latter fear is as big a motivating factor in the constancy of our drug policies than anything else.
In the name of balance, I should note that David Freddoso has a piece in the same series arguing against legalization: Keep Drugs Illegal!. The piece is far shorter than Balko’s and has nowhere near the documentation to back it up. Instead it boils down to: hard drugs are bad for you and legalization will lead to more usage. Interestingly, he starts the piece in retreat, rejecting the idea that there is a “war” on drugs and even seems to suggest that the war on marijuana should be stopped.
On that subject (marijuana), another piece in the series is worth reading: War on Drugs: The Price Tag.
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January 18th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Great post. Who, in your estimation, would be a good pick for “Drug Czar” for Obama?
If he really is a pragmatist, of course, he would question the very mission of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
But, save that move, any speculation? I would love to see a health professional get the post.
Drug Czar seems to have receded in public consciousness during the Bush years, so maybe Obama could get by with an “unconventional”–yet rational–pick.
Many of the Czar’s duties are dictated by law, so true reform would require legislative changes, but a gesture towards “change” could be accomplished easily by the type of person he nominates.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
That’s a really good question, about which I haven’t given much thought. I suppose I would like to see someone who has does some serious study of the subject and who understands the various options. Mark Kleiman is an off-the-top of my head name, but I really don’t know how suited he would be to the position.
I fear that anyone who has even hinted at policy shifts could not be nominated, as Congress runs scared on this subject like no other. And while the Bush administration has taken some attention away from the drug war, they have also directly connected it to the war on terror, making it doubly difficult to change our direction.