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The Collective
Tuesday, August 9, 2024
By Dr. Steven Taylor

John Tierney writes in the NYT regarding the Drug War and crystal meth: Debunking the Drug War

It’s the same pattern observed during Prohibition, when illicit stills would blow up, and there was a rise in deaths from alcohol poisoning. Far from instilling virtue in Americans, Prohibition caused them to switch from beer and wine to hard liquor. Overall consumption of alcohol might even have increased.

Today we tolerate alcohol, even though it causes far more harm than illegal drugs, because we realize a ban would be futile, create more problems than it cured and deprive too many people of something they value.

Amphetamines have benefits, too, which is why Air Force pilots are given them. “Most people took amphetamines responsibly when they were freely available,” said Jacob Sullum, the author of “Saying Yes,” a book debunking drug scares. “Like most drugs, their benefits outweigh the costs for most people. I’d rather be driving next to a truck driver on speed than a truck driver who’s falling sleep.”

Shutting down every meth lab in America wouldn’t eliminate meth because most of it is imported, but the police and prosecutors have escalated their efforts anyway and inflicted more collateral damage.

In Georgia they’re prosecuting dozens of Indian convenience-store clerks and managers for selling cold medicine and other legal products. As Kate Zernike reported in The Times, some of them spoke little English and seemed to have no idea the medicine was being used to make meth.

The prosecutors seem afflicted by the confused moral thinking that Mr. Bennett blames on narcotics. “Drugs,” he wrote, “undermine the necessary virtues of a free society - autonomy, self-reliance and individual responsibility.”

If you value individual responsibility, why send a hard-working clerk to jail for not divining that someone else might manufacture a drug? And why spend three decades repeating the errors of Prohibition for a drug that was never as dangerous as alcohol in the first place?

Indeed. We never seem to look into the possibility that the cure may be worse than the disease (for example, I blogged on the arrests of a number of convenience store clerks several days ago).

Part of the problem is that we start from the premise that drug addicts are violent criminals, assuming that it is the drugs themselves that lead to the violence and the crime (remember Reefer Madness?). While there is no doubt that persons under the influence do dangerous and criminal things (think about those who abuse alcohol), but on balance the especially onerous crimes that we fear are linked to trafficking and production, not usage. The question has to be asked (and it is one that is death if said by a politician): if users could more easily obtain the substances in question, would that not decrease the crime associated with drugs? Again, the alcohol model is relevant.

The normal objection to that notion is that drugs are so addictive that if they were easier to get, there would be a substantial increase in addiction. However, there is evidence to suggest that there is only a relatively small percentage of the population that is likely to be hardcore users, and that those persons are likely to use whether the drugs are easy to obtain or hard to obtain. Even setting that hypothesis aside, the bottom line is that drugs, whether meth, heroin or whatever, aren’t exactly hard to come by these days, now are they? The argument about current policy usually proceeds from the assumption that all the money being poured into law enforcement and interdiction is actually succeeding-but if the policy is so successful, why is it so easy to obtain these substances from the largest city to the smallest town in the Unted States? The truth of the matter is that all we are accomplishing is the radical increase in profits from trafficking in illegal substances, and therefore we are encouraging criminality. People will risk death and engage in great violence if they can make thousands of dollars in a night. Take the profit motive out of the equation, and the situation will change radically.

And it is clear that the current hype is meth-just like it was crack when I was younger. These “epidemics” are rarely the true spikes in activity and usage that they are described in the press (as Tierny notes). Rather, they tend to reflect a specific law enforcement/press focus. This leads to fear in the population, and to further support for a set of policies that have failed.

One will find that a great deal of attention in the “drug war” these days is on marijuana and crystal meth (indeed, recent reports have noted how the highest percentage of drug-related arrests these days are over marijuana). The reason: there is substantial domestic production of those drugs, making it easier to attack law-enforcementwise than cocaine and heroin, which comes from outside the country.

Think about the money and time decidated to stopping potheads and then think about whether we are really safer because less guys can get getting stoned. The general reaction to marijuana smoking is extreme lethargy.

And in terms of drug profits: they fund guerrilla war in Colombia, organized crime in Mexico and gang violence in US cities. Further, there is a substantial potential for opium to fund Middle Eastern terrorists. The irony is that all of the products in question (cocaine, heroin, meth, etc.) are cheap to produce-but profits are obscene because of the value added by the need to produce and distribute in a blackmarket.

Understand, I am not in favor of drug use. However, it is impossible, I would argue, to look at the money we spend and the results we get and then state that our drug war policy makes any sense whatsoever.

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Filed under: US Politics, War on Drugs | |

5 Comments

  • el
  • pt
    1. Well put. And now I am going to pick up on one thing you said and make my usual pitch for electoral reform. (What? Electoral reform linked to the ‘war on drugs”? Only by Matthew! No, seriously…)

      “The question has to be asked (and it is one that is death if said by a politician): if users could more easily obtain the substances in question, would that not decrease the crime associated with drugs?”

      Such a perfectly reasonable statement is “death” to a politician only in a zero-sum electoral system (”winner take all”). Someone steps outside the cozy mainstream consensus (drugs are bad, so we have to fight them) and gets tarred by his opponent (”look, my opponent is soft on drugs”).

      But allow minority views within the community to get represented and you change the whole term of the debate. You have some members of congress who think like you and I do on this issue, or like other ‘boat-rockers’ (hey, that’s what you are on the “war on drugs”!) on other issues. Now you have elected representatives who start pushing the atlernative view.

      Some of the minority views even wind up becoming the majority view, with time and debate and exposure and a thinking citizenry.

      It’s called the marketplace of ideas, and our current electoral system, alas, stifles that market.

      Comment by Matthew Shugart — Tuesday, August 9, 2024 @ 4:29 pm

    2. Nailing the Drug War

      Steven Taylor gets it right:However, it is impossible, I would argue, to look at the money we spend and the results we get and then state that our drug war policy makes any sense whatsoever.Read the Rest. Then call your elected representatives and tell…

      Trackback by Modulator — Wednesday, August 10, 2024 @ 1:19 am

    3. The Drug War

      Dr. Steven Taylor has a good post up over at PoliBlog. Think about the money and time decidated to stopping potheads and then think about whether we are really safer because less guys can get getting stoned. I've tried to make this point before. R…

      Trackback by The Unabrewer — Wednesday, August 10, 2024 @ 6:05 am

    4. While I agree with a lot of what you said about the drug war, this NYT article is ridiculous.

      The author of this article seems to have done *some* research but large portions of this are laughable.

      “Shutting down every meth lab in America wouldn’t eliminate meth because most of it is imported, but the police and prosecutors have escalated their efforts anyway and inflicted more collateral damage.”

      OK. But why not try to curb these labs because the are often rife with toxic chemicals that can explode or cause serious health risks. Anytime a lab is found, hazardous materials teams need to be called out. Chemicals like ammonia anhydrous and red phosphorus are not easy to clean up.

      Since all meth production requires pseudoephedrine, it would make good sense to limit access to it in hopes of cutting down these labs.

      “Amphetamines have benefits, too, which is why Air Force pilots are given them.”

      Meth isn’t chemically in the amphetamine family, it’s an analogue. That is splitting hairs, but it does eventually matter when talking about side effects and treatment. There are few good things about meth, but plenty of bad things. This isn’t Dexatrim in the same way Everclear is church wine. It’s a poor comparison. Worse yet, meth causes hallucinations and degredation of mental capacities. Sure, you are awake, but delusional. Would you want a hyped-up delusional truck driver on the road?

      I live in one of those meth-riddled states (Iowa) and I know how badly this drug has ruined people’s lives. With other things, yes, it is starting with the premise that people who do the drug are criminals. With meth, however, it is different. The people who initially do meth are not looked at as criminals, but they do have a higher probability of becoming criminals later on.

      Meth is also unusual because it is (or was) pretty easy to make and is a lot more addictive than other drugs. In some of the more sparse labs around us, sheriffs would find about two labs a week. In other more heavily populated counties, it was two per day.

      The approach most Iowa law enforcment officials have taken is to prevent usage. This includes community education, our wonderful pseudoephedrine law and treatment.

      The drug literally ravages the user’s body. It causes major problems in the home because of the chemicals it leaves behind and the emotional trauma it causes. In Story County, where I now live, people are entered into rehab programs. It’s easy to look down one’s nose high atop the New York Times building, or where ever Tierney wrote this from, but out west the problem is real.

      Our pseudoephedrine law has enacted positive results that have allowed law enforcement to funnel more money back into drug treatment and prevention. It’s allowed the courts to not spend so much time prosecuting offenders and look more at other crimes. We had a 75 percent decrease in the amount of meth labs reported. I’m happy with that.

      Comment by Josh — Wednesday, August 10, 2024 @ 11:47 pm

    5. ACLU Wants All Drugs Legal

      “The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) opposes criminal prohibition of drugs. Not only is prohibition a proven failure as a drug control strategy, but it subjects otherwise lawabiding citizens to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment for wha…

      Trackback by Stop The ACLU — Thursday, August 11, 2024 @ 12:42 pm

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