Dealing With The Failed War On Drugs
The Article: Dealing With The Failed War On Drugs by Amanda Richards in The Speckled Axe.
The Text: After 40 years, the Nixon-initiated War on Drugs has lived up to the promise of its name: families have been displaced, lives and livelihoods have been lost in communities destroyed, fears have amplified and propaganda is now regarded as truth. There is no clear winner and, despite a growing body of evidence that challenges the efficacy of the United States’ current approach to drug use and the widespread global protest against it, there is no real end in sight. How many more years will it take before our society and its leaders acknowledge the facts, dispel the taboos of drug use and decide that enough is enough?
In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drugs released a twenty four-page document that outlines various common misconceptions surrounding the decriminalization of drug use and the societal impact of its continued criminality. The Commission’s panel consisted of nineteen impressive prominent international public figures including the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Prime Minister of Greece and the former Presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. Their major finding: “The global war on drugs has failed.”
Meanwhile, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which disregards the Global Commission’s conclusion, uses an obscure tally that includes numbers of arrests, incarcerations, pounds of illicit substances confiscated and the displacement of manufacturing facilities and growth operations as its measuring stick for success. The higher the number, the higher the DEA and US government esteem themselves and their advances on the drug front.
But looking at the data through another lens, isn’t it a bit problematic that the number of pounds of marijuana confiscated last year, say, is greater than the number confiscated the year before? Doesn’t that mean it’s actually more likely that more illicit drugs were produced from year to year? It seems that if the War on Drugs were a true success, we should see these numbers trend downward. Yet the Global Commission on Drugs insists that America’s drug consumption is rising by 34.5%, 27% and 8.5% in opiates, cocaine and cannabis, respectively.
With the Drug War strategy focused primarily on drug supply, little has been done to address the steadily growing appetite and demand for drugs in first world countries, particularly in the US. However, this demand has been successfully tapered in the UK and Switzerland through education, socioeconomic outreach and the decriminalization of certain controlled substances. Switzerland’s heroin substitution program, which targeted chronic users, was found to have three major positive effects:
• It substantially reduced the consumption among the heaviest users, and this reduction in demand affected the viability of the market. For example, the number of new addicts registered in Zurich in 1990 was 850. By 2005, the number had fallen to 150.
• It reduced levels of other criminal activity associated with the market. For example, there was a 90 percent reduction in property crimes committed by participants in the program.
• By removing local addicts and dealers, Swiss casual users found it difficult to make contact with sellers.
The US has chosen a much different approach. Popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign is the narcotic equivalent of the abstinence-only approach, with both campaigns yielding markedly similar results: one inadvertently created an epidemic of teen pregnancy and the other spawned a generation of bewildered youths who aren’t fully aware of the risk of illicit drug use yet are too intimidated by threat of legal retribution to seek guidance.
In the same month last fall, two separate tragedies spoke to this nagging reality. In November 2011, four teens were charged with involuntary manslaughter for standing by and watching as their 18 year-old friend, Griffen Kramer, overdosed on heroin. 19 year-old David Nernberg, who was later found to be in possession of heroin, cocaine and marijuana, drove Kramer around for hours seeking advice from friends before he carried Kramer into his house where he passed away some hours later. According to Sgt. Barry Hall of the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department, “Rather than seek medical attention, he took him to his house and let him sleep it off.” These teens, acting out of fear of the harsh legal consequences and social stigma of being “busted” for their own drug use, were too terrified to seek out an authority that could have administered the adrenaline shot that might have saved this young man’s life.
That same month two brothers were arrested in North Charleston, South Carolina. Fearing jail time for possession, 23 year-old Deangelo Mitchell asked his little brother Wayne Joshua Mitchell, 20, to eat the cocaine that he had stashed in his rectum. His brother obliged, and as a tragic result Wayne Mitchell died within the hour.
While these young people made horrible mistakes with excruciating consequences, the system that upholds archaic and misinformed doctrines to reinforce a floundering war on drugs has also failed them. Victims of these misguided policies can be seen across the world, manifesting themselves as civilian casualties, separated families and destroyed lives via death or the revolving door to an overcrowded prison population convicted of non-violent crime or petty drug possession.
Instead of being plagued by fear of incarceration and social stigma, addicts should be given treatment and counsel. Drug addiction is a disease that must not be marginalized as petty criminal activity. Criminalizing addictive behavior assumes that the addict has some level of control over the matter, but addiction affects the wiring of the brain and tricks the body into thinking a certain substance is necessary for its self-sustainment. Much like a starving person will steal food to survive, an addict is driven by primal, overpowering urges to consume whatever substance it is their body desires—often as if their life depends on it. If we are not willing to consider debilitating diseases like emphysema, diabetes, and the attendant abuse of cigarettes and junk food as criminal, we should recognize drug abuse for what it is: a disease that requires treatment.
According to Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, “Drug offenses account for two-thirds of the rise in the federal inmate population since 1985; approximately half a million people are in prison for a drug offense today compared to 40,000 in 1981—an increase of 1,100 percent.” A major reason that prison populations have continued to grow is that the US has longer sentences when examined against other countries: first time offenders in the United States can be locked up 5 to 10 years compared to mere 6 month sentences in other developed countries.
There is also the glaring reality that not all drugs are created equal. The current classification of drugs is loosely based on whether the drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse, lacks a currently accepted use as a medical treatment in the United States or if the drug is not considered safe for use under medical supervision.
Somewhat surprisingly, many class A drugs like Ecstasy and LSD are regarded by doctors and scientists to be less physically and socially dangerous than class C drugs like marijuana or unregulated substances like tobacco and alcohol. To determine this, scientists take into account the physically addictive qualities of a substance, the impact on the physical self and the impact on the family and society. As a result, the more physically addictive substances like heroin and cocaine rank highest in the risk assessment. However, the classification and subsequent sentencing requirements for use and possession of these substances are more reflective of the social stigma around their use rather than actual scientific data.
The unintended repercussions of the war on drugs have left many producer, transit and consumer countries in dire circumstances as well. A summary put together by Antonio Maria Costa, the former Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, outlines 5 explicit categories of the unforeseen fallout:
1. The growth of a ‘huge criminal black market’, financed by the risk-escalated profits of supplying international demand for illicit drugs.
2. Extensive policy displacement, the result of using scarce resources to fund a vast law enforcement effort intended to address this criminal market.
3. Geographical displacement, often known as ‘the balloon effect’, whereby drug production shifts location to avoid the attentions of law enforcement.
4. Substance displacement, or the movement of consumers to new substances when their previous drug of choice becomes difficult to obtain, for instance through law enforcement pressure.
5. The perception and treatment of drug users, who are stigmatized, marginalized and excluded.
The US has historically vocalized its staunch stance against the decriminalization of drugs domestically or in any other country. In a statement released in February 2012 by the US Embassy in Guatemala, it asserted “The United States continues to oppose such measures because evidence shows that our shared drug problem is a major public health and safety threat. In the U.S., drugs are present in roughly half of all those who commit crimes, ranging from misdemeanors to felonies.”
Despite a general continuation of the hard-line stance on foreign and domestic drug policy, the Obama Administration did give a nod to the Global Commission on Drugs findings and upped 2012 funding for drug abuse prevention and treatment programs to $10.1 billion, a $98.7 million increase from 2010. The Administration has also acknowledged the need for hard science to help shape drug policy, a key element missing from the Drug War debate for over 40 years. While shifting our societal awareness of the impact of drug policies is not going to happen overnight, small adjustments over time may yield significant positive changes for our future.
