Legalize Recreational Drugs
___________________________________
'No' to legalizing more drugs By JAMES M. CUMMINGS
March 25, 2009
If you legalize something, you are certain to get more of it. This is the simplest and most compelling reason why November's vote to decriminalize marijuana was so wrong.
If munching M&Ms were a criminal violation one day but not the next, supermarkets would soon stock more of that trademark candy — not less.
It's the same with marijuana. And if you're wondering where much of the "new" stuff might come from, a nervous glance to our southern border should suffice. Mexico, long a main source supplier, remains awash in marijuana. With drug-cartel outlaws fomenting widespread civil unrest there, the pipeline will likely expand before it contracts.
Now that the pro-marijuana lobby has succeeded in getting it decriminalized in Massachusetts, what does this easier availability portend? A number of facts confront us, none of them comforting.
The first comes courtesy of the Drug Enforcement Agency, which reports that, next to alcohol, marijuana is the drug most often detected in impaired drivers, fatally injured drivers, and motor-vehicle crash victims. A sobering thought indeed.
Then there's the Dutch experiment. It predicts the increase in use may not come right away — but come it will. Here is how John Walters, former director of the National Office of Drug Policy Control, once explained it to The Wall Street Journal: "The Dutch decriminalized marijuana in 1976 and there was little initial impact. But as drugs gained social acceptance, use increased consistently and sharply, with a 300 percent rise in use by 1996 among 18- to 20-year-olds."
Again, legalizing something brings more of it. This iron law falls with special ferocity on our younger generation. Credible sources report that children who abuse drugs are far more likely to engage in unhealthy, unproductive behavior, most especially high-risk sexual and criminal activity as well as other forms of juvenile delinquency. Children who begin smoking marijuana early are more likely to drop out of school and more likely to engage in theft, violence and vandalism. Children ages 12 to 17 who used marijuana were 85 times more likely to use cocaine than children in the same age group who never did.
At the Barnstable County Correctional Facility the ravaged face of marijuana and other drug and alcohol abuse is more than a statistic. It is forlornly visible every day. If you're looking for Cape Cod's underclass, you've come to the right place: How else to reconcile the haggard mug shot of an abuser being booked compared to the far healthier face we often see leaving the institution — thanks to a dose of jail-enforced sobriety.
How easy to amass a collection of grim narratives from the booking information we collect on new arrivals. Many are stuck in a revolving door of addiction and ping-pong between mean streets and life behind bars. Family and friends, gone. Work skills and work ethic, almost nil. Episodic violence and destructive behavior, ingrained ways of life.
Finally, how visible the connection here between cause and effect. When the fuel is drugs, and that includes marijuana, these portraits behind the stories have a hardscrabble sameness: under-educated, maybe homeless, too-often jobless, poor hygiene and health.
We do what we can with them, of course. More than 120 have received GEDs since the county facility opened 4½ years ago, and that's at least a start. But our resources are limited, the task can be daunting, and our venue is no substitute for the quiet halls of intellectual inquiry. As the old saying goes, "This is jail, not Yale." I have no quarrel with that.
My dispute is with the social activists who brought us decriminalized marijuana in the first place. If we cannot put that genie back in the bottle, as the Noble Experiment of Prohibition would suggest, might we at least stop the madness here? When the next illegal drug comes up for decriminalization, can we muster the commonsense to cry: "Enough is enough." It's either that or ignore the fire bell sounded by wise man and author Joseph Califano in his 2007 book, "High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravishes America and What To Do About It."
Califano reminds us, "Substance abuse funds terrorism, spawns crime, drives up health care costs, breaks up families, spreads AIDS, promotes unwanted teen pregnancies, and frustrates efforts to eliminate poverty." Do we need more reasons to stem the tide?
James M. Cummings is the Barnstable County sheriff.
______________________________________________________________________________________
March 25, 2009
If you legalize something, you are certain to get more of it. This is the simplest and most compelling reason why November's vote to decriminalize marijuana was so wrong.
If munching M&Ms were a criminal violation one day but not the next, supermarkets would soon stock more of that trademark candy — not less.
It's the same with marijuana. And if you're wondering where much of the "new" stuff might come from, a nervous glance to our southern border should suffice. Mexico, long a main source supplier, remains awash in marijuana. With drug-cartel outlaws fomenting widespread civil unrest there, the pipeline will likely expand before it contracts.
Now that the pro-marijuana lobby has succeeded in getting it decriminalized in Massachusetts, what does this easier availability portend? A number of facts confront us, none of them comforting.
The first comes courtesy of the Drug Enforcement Agency, which reports that, next to alcohol, marijuana is the drug most often detected in impaired drivers, fatally injured drivers, and motor-vehicle crash victims. A sobering thought indeed.
Then there's the Dutch experiment. It predicts the increase in use may not come right away — but come it will. Here is how John Walters, former director of the National Office of Drug Policy Control, once explained it to The Wall Street Journal: "The Dutch decriminalized marijuana in 1976 and there was little initial impact. But as drugs gained social acceptance, use increased consistently and sharply, with a 300 percent rise in use by 1996 among 18- to 20-year-olds."
Again, legalizing something brings more of it. This iron law falls with special ferocity on our younger generation. Credible sources report that children who abuse drugs are far more likely to engage in unhealthy, unproductive behavior, most especially high-risk sexual and criminal activity as well as other forms of juvenile delinquency. Children who begin smoking marijuana early are more likely to drop out of school and more likely to engage in theft, violence and vandalism. Children ages 12 to 17 who used marijuana were 85 times more likely to use cocaine than children in the same age group who never did.
At the Barnstable County Correctional Facility the ravaged face of marijuana and other drug and alcohol abuse is more than a statistic. It is forlornly visible every day. If you're looking for Cape Cod's underclass, you've come to the right place: How else to reconcile the haggard mug shot of an abuser being booked compared to the far healthier face we often see leaving the institution — thanks to a dose of jail-enforced sobriety.
How easy to amass a collection of grim narratives from the booking information we collect on new arrivals. Many are stuck in a revolving door of addiction and ping-pong between mean streets and life behind bars. Family and friends, gone. Work skills and work ethic, almost nil. Episodic violence and destructive behavior, ingrained ways of life.
Finally, how visible the connection here between cause and effect. When the fuel is drugs, and that includes marijuana, these portraits behind the stories have a hardscrabble sameness: under-educated, maybe homeless, too-often jobless, poor hygiene and health.
We do what we can with them, of course. More than 120 have received GEDs since the county facility opened 4½ years ago, and that's at least a start. But our resources are limited, the task can be daunting, and our venue is no substitute for the quiet halls of intellectual inquiry. As the old saying goes, "This is jail, not Yale." I have no quarrel with that.
My dispute is with the social activists who brought us decriminalized marijuana in the first place. If we cannot put that genie back in the bottle, as the Noble Experiment of Prohibition would suggest, might we at least stop the madness here? When the next illegal drug comes up for decriminalization, can we muster the commonsense to cry: "Enough is enough." It's either that or ignore the fire bell sounded by wise man and author Joseph Califano in his 2007 book, "High Society: How Substance Abuse Ravishes America and What To Do About It."
Califano reminds us, "Substance abuse funds terrorism, spawns crime, drives up health care costs, breaks up families, spreads AIDS, promotes unwanted teen pregnancies, and frustrates efforts to eliminate poverty." Do we need more reasons to stem the tide?
James M. Cummings is the Barnstable County sheriff.
______________________________________________________________________________________
Bob Marcus’s response to Sheriff Cummings' recent editorial in the Cape Cod Times:
Legalization of Recreational Drugs
The main problem in discussing the legal status of recreational drugs is that we’ve ‘demonized’ recreational drugs---made ‘drugs’ an evil thing. Once a word or idea has been demonized, it’s hard to think and reason coherently about it. We react instead to the demonized perception of the idea.
Let’s look beyond the demonized meaning of ‘drugs’ and instead take a rational look at whether recreational drugs ought to be criminalized.
We criminalize a thing or an action---that is, we make it illegal---when that thing is perceived as being hazardous---a threat to a person’s health or possessions. Although guns, tobacco, alcohol, and cars can be a potential threat to life through misuse, the manufacturing and possession of these things are not illegal. Rather, our governing bodies (local, state, and federal) impose restrictions on how these things can be safely (legally) sold and used, and impose punishment in cases where these things are used illegally.
Recreational drugs are treated quite differently. It is illegal to manufacture, distribute, or sell them, and illegal to use them. Why? Are the hazards of recreational drugs so much more severe than the hazards of tobacco and alcohol, for example, that we must we must treat them differently? Let’s take a look at these hazards.
Three major hazards can result from misuse of recreational drugs and alcohol: addiction, impairment of the user’s ability to think straight, and death of the user.
Addiction to alcohol (alcoholism) is not a crime, but a health problem. While the use of recreational drugs should be discouraged, especially by young people, drug abusers should be encouraged to enter a treatment program similar to those available to alcohol abusers. There is no reason to treat drug addiction differently from alcoholism.
Too much alcohol can certainly impair the drinker’s ability to think straight, and there are laws punishing a person who commits a potentially hazardous act such as driving a car while under the influence of too much alcohol. There is no reason to treat the drug abuser who is ‘under the influence’ any different.
This leaves death of the user as the third hazard. Tobacco caused more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2002. 150,000 deaths were attributed to too much salt intake in 2004, and 100,000 deaths were attributed to alcohol in 1996. In 2001, only 19,000 deaths were caused by recreational drugs. The extreme hazard of accidental death is far more prevalent with alcohol, tobacco and salt than with recreational drugs, and it is hard to justify the severe legal treatment of drug abusers on the basis of the hazard of a perceived high rate of self-inflicted death through drug use.
Decriminalizing drugs would essentially eliminate drug-related organized crime. In addition to eliminating the horrendous cost of fighting the ‘drug war’ ($136B in 2000) and the cost of incarceration of drug offenders ($28B in 2007), state, local, and federal governments would receive income from business and sales taxes from legitimized drug-related businesses concerned with manufacturing, distribution, and sales.
In summary, recreational drug abuse is a health problem, not a criminal problem. There is every good reason to decriminalize recreational drugs, and no good reason not to.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Legalization of Recreational Drugs
The main problem in discussing the legal status of recreational drugs is that we’ve ‘demonized’ recreational drugs---made ‘drugs’ an evil thing. Once a word or idea has been demonized, it’s hard to think and reason coherently about it. We react instead to the demonized perception of the idea.
Let’s look beyond the demonized meaning of ‘drugs’ and instead take a rational look at whether recreational drugs ought to be criminalized.
We criminalize a thing or an action---that is, we make it illegal---when that thing is perceived as being hazardous---a threat to a person’s health or possessions. Although guns, tobacco, alcohol, and cars can be a potential threat to life through misuse, the manufacturing and possession of these things are not illegal. Rather, our governing bodies (local, state, and federal) impose restrictions on how these things can be safely (legally) sold and used, and impose punishment in cases where these things are used illegally.
Recreational drugs are treated quite differently. It is illegal to manufacture, distribute, or sell them, and illegal to use them. Why? Are the hazards of recreational drugs so much more severe than the hazards of tobacco and alcohol, for example, that we must we must treat them differently? Let’s take a look at these hazards.
Three major hazards can result from misuse of recreational drugs and alcohol: addiction, impairment of the user’s ability to think straight, and death of the user.
Addiction to alcohol (alcoholism) is not a crime, but a health problem. While the use of recreational drugs should be discouraged, especially by young people, drug abusers should be encouraged to enter a treatment program similar to those available to alcohol abusers. There is no reason to treat drug addiction differently from alcoholism.
Too much alcohol can certainly impair the drinker’s ability to think straight, and there are laws punishing a person who commits a potentially hazardous act such as driving a car while under the influence of too much alcohol. There is no reason to treat the drug abuser who is ‘under the influence’ any different.
This leaves death of the user as the third hazard. Tobacco caused more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2002. 150,000 deaths were attributed to too much salt intake in 2004, and 100,000 deaths were attributed to alcohol in 1996. In 2001, only 19,000 deaths were caused by recreational drugs. The extreme hazard of accidental death is far more prevalent with alcohol, tobacco and salt than with recreational drugs, and it is hard to justify the severe legal treatment of drug abusers on the basis of the hazard of a perceived high rate of self-inflicted death through drug use.
Decriminalizing drugs would essentially eliminate drug-related organized crime. In addition to eliminating the horrendous cost of fighting the ‘drug war’ ($136B in 2000) and the cost of incarceration of drug offenders ($28B in 2007), state, local, and federal governments would receive income from business and sales taxes from legitimized drug-related businesses concerned with manufacturing, distribution, and sales.
In summary, recreational drug abuse is a health problem, not a criminal problem. There is every good reason to decriminalize recreational drugs, and no good reason not to.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
A safer society? Legalize drugs By Bill Fried | June 6, 2006
I HAVE WATCHED Eddie grow up in the Lakeview Manor public housing development. Tougher than he could ever want to be, confronting family issues that just make me sigh, he turned to drugs. Now a young man, he has become an outlaw, riding the edge with nothing to lose.
Dangerous to himself, his family, and strangers, he waits for his connection on the corner of a public housing development, in plain view of kids and cowering families. A police car slows up and goes on its way.
Eddie is an addict and a seller. He feeds his addiction by stealing, often violently. He did prison time, where taxpayers fed and housed him and gave him a stigma that made it virtually impossible for him to re integrate into society upon his release. Except as a drug dealer.
He is part of an established food chain, an elaborate, international protection racket. To defend his turf -- maintain market share -- he joins an armed gang, as does his connection, as does the syndicate that supplies his connection, as do those who protect the producers.
At every stage, corruption and violence. Elements of the police and military look the other way. Selected judges and politicians look the other way. The great source of drug demand, the United States, hops into bed with drug runners to pursue its geopolitical aims. Billions of dollars slide around. Those who don't have their hands out have their hands tied. Those without connections get hounded and jailed.
Eddie's use of drugs is the center of a vortex whose ever - widening spirals have devastating consequences for everyone in its path.
It's not safe to park your car or leave your house when he and his gang are around. He has a positive incentive to hook neighborhood children on drugs, and so he does. The drugs he ingests are not controlled. He had a psychotic reaction to a dose of impure heroin and assaulted a neighbor. He is a danger to everyone.
The Housing Authority is evicting his family because of his illegal drug activities. So his mother and young sister face homelessness.
His failure is defined as a personal one; his usage is defined as criminal. He may be arrested, put in expensive jails, and guarded. Meanwhile, politicians puff sanctimoniously about ``cleaning the streets" and ``ridding the projects of drug dealers."
But, in fact, we know that he'll be replaced, as will every corrupt person in the entire international supply chain. There will be inevitable ``personal" failings all up and down the line. The incentives and despair are too great.
But what if we step back and take a radical new look at this, what if we dive down to the epicenter and pull the plug from this dysfunctional vortex? What if we legalize and control the drugs in question: marijuana, heroin, cocaine, to name three? Clinics could dispense these drugs affordably, and some of the $69 billion that Law Enforcement Against Prohibition documents we spend on ``enforcement" and ``interdiction" could go to treatment , for which there is already unmet demand. For the kids, hip anti drug messages could parallel the successful anti-smoking campaign. In the absence of prohibition, drug use may actually decline among the young.
What will our society look like as we transform outlaws into clients?
There will be millions of people on drugs.
There are currently millions of people on drugs.
But there would be significantly fewer human tragedies; fewer broken lives and families; less crime on the street; fewer people in jail (especially minorities); less State Police and State Department corruption. We would live in a safer, gentler country.
Many drug addicts will be cured and live normal lives.
Many will never kick the addiction but will live mostly normal lives, like functioning alcoholics; holding down jobs, remaining in marriages, and raising children; a monkey on their back, but getting by.
And many will remain mired in drugs. They will consume drugs as the morbidly obese consume food -- until they self destruct. Even with legalization and control and all the support in the world. Some folks will simply fail, and their failure will be a small though intense tragedy. But it will be theirs and that of their families. Not ours. Not everyone's.
As long as Eddie lives in fear of the government, we will live in fear of Eddie.
It is time to stalk the politicians and demand that they confront this issue the right and honorable way.
No half way measures. Full legalization and control.
Bill Fried is executive director of the Lakeview Manor Tenant Association in Weymouth.
________________________________________________________________________________________
I HAVE WATCHED Eddie grow up in the Lakeview Manor public housing development. Tougher than he could ever want to be, confronting family issues that just make me sigh, he turned to drugs. Now a young man, he has become an outlaw, riding the edge with nothing to lose.
Dangerous to himself, his family, and strangers, he waits for his connection on the corner of a public housing development, in plain view of kids and cowering families. A police car slows up and goes on its way.
Eddie is an addict and a seller. He feeds his addiction by stealing, often violently. He did prison time, where taxpayers fed and housed him and gave him a stigma that made it virtually impossible for him to re integrate into society upon his release. Except as a drug dealer.
He is part of an established food chain, an elaborate, international protection racket. To defend his turf -- maintain market share -- he joins an armed gang, as does his connection, as does the syndicate that supplies his connection, as do those who protect the producers.
At every stage, corruption and violence. Elements of the police and military look the other way. Selected judges and politicians look the other way. The great source of drug demand, the United States, hops into bed with drug runners to pursue its geopolitical aims. Billions of dollars slide around. Those who don't have their hands out have their hands tied. Those without connections get hounded and jailed.
Eddie's use of drugs is the center of a vortex whose ever - widening spirals have devastating consequences for everyone in its path.
It's not safe to park your car or leave your house when he and his gang are around. He has a positive incentive to hook neighborhood children on drugs, and so he does. The drugs he ingests are not controlled. He had a psychotic reaction to a dose of impure heroin and assaulted a neighbor. He is a danger to everyone.
The Housing Authority is evicting his family because of his illegal drug activities. So his mother and young sister face homelessness.
His failure is defined as a personal one; his usage is defined as criminal. He may be arrested, put in expensive jails, and guarded. Meanwhile, politicians puff sanctimoniously about ``cleaning the streets" and ``ridding the projects of drug dealers."
But, in fact, we know that he'll be replaced, as will every corrupt person in the entire international supply chain. There will be inevitable ``personal" failings all up and down the line. The incentives and despair are too great.
But what if we step back and take a radical new look at this, what if we dive down to the epicenter and pull the plug from this dysfunctional vortex? What if we legalize and control the drugs in question: marijuana, heroin, cocaine, to name three? Clinics could dispense these drugs affordably, and some of the $69 billion that Law Enforcement Against Prohibition documents we spend on ``enforcement" and ``interdiction" could go to treatment , for which there is already unmet demand. For the kids, hip anti drug messages could parallel the successful anti-smoking campaign. In the absence of prohibition, drug use may actually decline among the young.
What will our society look like as we transform outlaws into clients?
There will be millions of people on drugs.
There are currently millions of people on drugs.
But there would be significantly fewer human tragedies; fewer broken lives and families; less crime on the street; fewer people in jail (especially minorities); less State Police and State Department corruption. We would live in a safer, gentler country.
Many drug addicts will be cured and live normal lives.
Many will never kick the addiction but will live mostly normal lives, like functioning alcoholics; holding down jobs, remaining in marriages, and raising children; a monkey on their back, but getting by.
And many will remain mired in drugs. They will consume drugs as the morbidly obese consume food -- until they self destruct. Even with legalization and control and all the support in the world. Some folks will simply fail, and their failure will be a small though intense tragedy. But it will be theirs and that of their families. Not ours. Not everyone's.
As long as Eddie lives in fear of the government, we will live in fear of Eddie.
It is time to stalk the politicians and demand that they confront this issue the right and honorable way.
No half way measures. Full legalization and control.
Bill Fried is executive director of the Lakeview Manor Tenant Association in Weymouth.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Miron
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.
Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this "war on drugs."
The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.
The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.
Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.
Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.
Don't Miss:
Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drug users face restrictions on clean syringes that cause them to share contaminated needles, thereby spreading HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.
Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.
Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits.
The right policy, therefore, is to legalize drugs while using regulation and taxation to dampen irresponsible behavior related to drug use, such as driving under the influence. This makes more sense than prohibition because it avoids creation of a black market. This approach also allows those who believe they benefit from drug use to do so, as long as they do not harm others.
Legalization is desirable for all drugs, not just marijuana. The health risks of marijuana are lower than those of many other drugs, but that is not the crucial issue. Much of the traffic from Mexico or Colombia is for cocaine, heroin and other drugs, while marijuana production is increasingly domestic. Legalizing only marijuana would therefore fail to achieve many benefits of broader legalization.
It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition. The U.S. has been at the forefront of this puritanical policy for almost a century, with disastrous consequences at home and abroad.
The U.S. repealed Prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Great Depression, in part because of increasing violence and in part because of diminishing tax revenues. Similar concerns apply today, and Attorney General Eric Holder's recent announcement that the Drug Enforcement Administration will not raid medical marijuana distributors in California suggests an openness in the Obama administration to rethinking current practice.
Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will abandon one of its most disastrous policy experiments.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jeffrey Miron.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.
Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this "war on drugs."
The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.
The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.
Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.
Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.
Don't Miss:
- Violence sparks talk of decriminalizing drugs Miron: Bailing out homeowners is a mistake In Depth: Commentaries
Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drug users face restrictions on clean syringes that cause them to share contaminated needles, thereby spreading HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.
Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.
Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits.
The right policy, therefore, is to legalize drugs while using regulation and taxation to dampen irresponsible behavior related to drug use, such as driving under the influence. This makes more sense than prohibition because it avoids creation of a black market. This approach also allows those who believe they benefit from drug use to do so, as long as they do not harm others.
Legalization is desirable for all drugs, not just marijuana. The health risks of marijuana are lower than those of many other drugs, but that is not the crucial issue. Much of the traffic from Mexico or Colombia is for cocaine, heroin and other drugs, while marijuana production is increasingly domestic. Legalizing only marijuana would therefore fail to achieve many benefits of broader legalization.
It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition. The U.S. has been at the forefront of this puritanical policy for almost a century, with disastrous consequences at home and abroad.
The U.S. repealed Prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Great Depression, in part because of increasing violence and in part because of diminishing tax revenues. Similar concerns apply today, and Attorney General Eric Holder's recent announcement that the Drug Enforcement Administration will not raid medical marijuana distributors in California suggests an openness in the Obama administration to rethinking current practice.
Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will abandon one of its most disastrous policy experiments.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jeffrey Miron.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Wicked vices or taxable resources? By TOM GELSTHORPE
June 17, 2009 6:00 AM
Drugs, sex and gambling bring out the hypocrite in everyone, myself included. In younger days, I lived among an extended family that inhabited the broad, happy, middle ground between bluenose and libertine. Parents, grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts set good examples or offered stern advice as needed, such as, "Stop acting like a nincompoop and get back to work!" They saved me from chronic trouble. Many souls are less fortunate. I've reached the age of starting to bury friends who never got their bad habits under control.
In recent decades, practices formerly condemned as vices have been legalized for the public goals of decreasing the costs of law enforcement, increasing tax revenues, or both. I try to be libertarian on personal behavior, but arguments for increased sin tax revenues set off my "mixed message" warning bells. Is the state protecting liberty or trying to divvy swag gathered from our weakest people?
Pundits regularly pronounce the "War on Drugs" a failure and recommend surrender. Let people get blotto on any drug of choice, then the state can tax the proceeds instead of letting the underworld hog all the revenue. Prostitution is called "the oldest profession," presumably ineradicable, so let it flourish — carefully regulated, of course — and tax collectors can savor the juicy additional revenue. Many types of gambling have expanded and boosted host states' revenues. Lotteries are operated by state governments. Massachusetts runs one of the most lucrative lotteries in the nation.
State lotteries function like a tax policy to "tax the stupid." In theory it's a voluntary tax; in practice Massachusetts' poorest communities provide the heaviest receipts. How ironic that large majorities favor the principle of progressive taxation — taxing people according to their ability to pay — then promote bets dependent on patrons' dim-witted notions of what their odds are. Lottery profits support public education. How odd to raise revenues for schools by promoting a risk that people in their right minds are not apt to take.
In fact, the "War on Drugs" is nothing new. Cocaine and opiates were legal before 1914. Prostitution was winked at. Centuries of suffering were addressed by 19th-century women's movement campaigns against alcoholism, drug abuse and other vices. In the 1800s more women than men were addicted to opiates, mainly through patent medicines peddled to housewives. Women have been victimized by prostitution more than liberated. Betty Friedan's 1963 book, "The Feminine Mystique," insisted that the advancement of women depended on equal respect and opportunity and de-emphasizing traditional sex roles in favor of other abilities. Most contemporary men concurred. Yet results are mixed. Feminism has failed to foil philandering. Self-inflicted miseries have shifted without abating much overall.
My old-fashioned libertarian inclinations clash with my old-fashioned hope that governments are run by dignified persons with solemn public goals. Is it dignified to exploit suffering to beef up the tax base? Will straight-arrow taxpayers forever feel patient with self-destructive behavior?
These questions tie into another topic of intense public debate — health care. It should be called medical care. Health is cheap; it's sickness that runs up big costs. Ancient habits once considered moral failings have been medicalized. Addiction has been labeled a disease and the list of addictions has grown. Skirt-chasing has become sex addiction; obesity is food addiction; games of chance feed gambling addiction. Instead of condemnation, we recommend treatment for a growing list of woes, while political pressure grows to send the tab to third-party payers.
Am I alone in seeing a mixed message? The Nanny State preaches safe sex, avoid tobacco, eschew carbon, do your exercises. Meanwhile, pressure subsides on vices hideous enough to trigger madness, shatter families and spread fatal diseases. Simultaneously, the Sugar Daddy State says, "Don't worry if you fall. I'll pick you up and send the bill to your rich Uncle Sam."
Treating addictions is an improvement over the ancient practice of letting people die in the gutter, but what about the proverbial ounce of prevention? Imaginary rich uncles are poor substitutes for actual uncles who set a good example and expect you to live up to it.
Tom Gelsthorpe, a sailor and former farmer, lives in Cataumet. E-mail him at [email protected].
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