America's Own 100 Year Failed War on Drugs
WSJ Letter: This year marks the 100th anniversary of the drug war, which started in 1909 with the prohibition of opium processed for smoking. Over the course of the past 100 years, more substances have been banned and enforcement has become more brutal. Despite these measures, the percentage of Americans addicted to drugs has increased.
WSJ Article: Much as Pakistan is fighting for survival against Islamic radicals, Mexico is waging a do-or-die battle with the world's most powerful drug cartels. Last year, some 6,000 people died in drug-related violence here, more than twice the number killed the previous year. The dead included several dozen who were beheaded, a chilling echo of the scare tactics used by Islamic radicals. Mexican drug gangs even have an unofficial religion: They worship La Santa Muerte, a Mexican version of the Grim Reaper.
In growing parts of the country, drug gangs now extort businesses, setting up a parallel tax system that threatens the government monopoly on raising tax money. In Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, handwritten signs pasted on schools warned teachers to hand over their Christmas bonuses or die. A General Motors distributorship at a midsize Mexican city was extorted for months at a time, according to a high-ranking Mexican official. A GM spokeswoman in Mexico had no comment.
"We are at war," says Aldo Fasci, a good-looking lawyer who is the top police official for Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is the capital. "The gangs have taken over the border, our highways and our cops. And now, with these protests, they are trying to take over our cities."
WSJ Editorial: The war on drugs has failed. And it's high time to replace an ineffective strategy with more humane and efficient drug policies. This is the central message of the report by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy we presented to the public recently in Rio de Janeiro.
Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalization of consumption simply haven't worked. Violence and the organized crime associated with the narcotics trade remain critical problems in our countries. Latin America remains the world's largest exporter of cocaine and cannabis, and is fast becoming a major supplier of opium and heroin. Today, we are further than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs.
Over the last 30 years, Colombia implemented all conceivable measures to fight the drug trade in a massive effort where the benefits were not proportional to the resources invested. Despite the country's achievements in lowering levels of violence and crime, the areas of illegal cultivation are again expanding. In Mexico -- another epicenter of drug trafficking -- narcotics-related violence has claimed more than 5,000 lives in the past year alone.
The revision of U.S.-inspired drug policies is urgent in light of the rising levels of violence and corruption associated with narcotics. The alarming power of the drug cartels is leading to a criminalization of politics and a politicization of crime. And the corruption of the judicial and political system is undermining the foundations of democracy in several Latin American countries.
39 Comments:
So, I'm wondering, who is going to step up and take on the incredible liability of producing and selling heroin or cocaine in this utopian, "decriminalized" America? First, there is the tobacco precedent. Then, you have the trail lawyers using every angle of the tort system to displace or bankrupt gun and ammunition manufacturers, arguing that they should be held responsible for the actions of criminals who use their products. Notice, I say use, not misuse. Who is going to cater to the heroin and cocaine crowd? Let's just assume that some intrepid soul steps forward, by the time he prices in the risk of litigation and taxes are assessed, prices may be just high enough to encourage a black market. I guess that just leaves the government. Of course, the government will have to enforce their monopoly position in order to secure revenue and that will mean a war on illegal drug dealers. Back to square one.
Yeah, your right, it makes so much more sense.
How baseball solves its steriod problem may help solve society's illegal drug use. It seems, Japan has been successful:
The Japanese in 1954...inaugurated a system of forced hospitalization for chronic drug users. Under this policy, drug users were rounded up in droves, forced to go through cold-turkey withdrawal and placed in work camps for periods ranging from a few months to several years...This approach to drug users, still in force today, is seen by the Japanese as a humane policy focussed primarily on rehabilitation. By American standards, however, these rehabilitation programs would be seen as very tough.
The Japanese from the very beginning have opted for a cold-turkey drug withdrawal. Thus, every heroin addict identified in Japan is required to enter a hospital or treatment facility, where they go immediately through withdrawal. Conviction through the criminal justice system is not necessary for commitment. Any addict identified, either through examination by physicians or through urine testing, is committed through an administrative process. As a result courts are not burdened with heavy caseloads of drug users, drug users are not saddled with criminal records and punishment for drug users is swift and sure.
The government also launched a substantial public education campaign, including distributing anti-drug messages through government-controlled television movies, radio, newspapers, magazines and books, and posters in airports, railroad stations, bus terminals, and public buildings. Cabinet ministers, governors, mayors and other public officials regularly conducted public forums on the perils of drug use.
These policies dramatically and rapidly cut drug use. Within four years of the 1954 amendments, the number of people arrested for violating the Stimulant Control Law dropped from 55,654 to only 271in 1958.
Japan began experiencing serious problems with heroin. By 1961 it is estimated that there were over 40,000 heroin addicts in Japan...tougher penalties against importation and selling, and by imposing a mandatory rehabilitation regime for addicts.
The results of Japan's tough heroin program mirrored those of its successful fight against stimulants. The number of arrests for heroin sale and possession fell from a high in 1962 of 2,139 to only 33 in 1966 and have never risen above 100 since.
Article above from September 24, 1990 Fighting Drugs in Four Countries: Lessons for America?
Well maybe the way the prohibition on drugs today is seriously flawed...
Maybe the 'tobacco model' is a valid argument the pro dcriminalization of drugs...
Is so then the real question is, do we want to be another Amsterdam?
Peak Trader-
Singapore and Japan are the two countries that your article cites as positive examples of a tough stance on drugs working. Extrapolating the experiences to the US is risky (in the sense of gaining meaningful insight). Both of these countries are islands which give them a massive advantage in fighting a drug war. How much more effective would the US drug war be if there was magically a cost free solution to stopping the drug traffic across the mexican and canadian borders? Solutions that work for much more homogeneous countries with no land boarders are not likely to work for a country like the US. (and this isn't even mentioning the constitutional issues that have to be raised)
Especially now with federal and state budgets bloated and dragging down the economy, we can't afford such a counter productive expenditure as regulating what people put into their bodies. Legalizing drugs should be part of a real stimulus bill, one that eliminates wasteful, failed programs.
The Japanese model sounds horrible and very expensive... and for *WHAT*? What is the payoff for society? With government agents deciding if I'm an "addict", and without even convicting me of a crime, imprisoning me in a "cold turkey" work camp, for "months to years"? Do we really have money for, or even desire, this?
Tom, if you effectively eliminate demand, including through "humanitarian rehabilitation programs" (some may call it "tough love"), you'd also effectively eliminate supply.
I went into a Walgreens in California one time and the cashier told me she picks up the pennies the panhandlers throw away on the sidewalk.
Apparently, many homeless people spend and trade away their $1,500 a month in government cash and welfare benefits to buy drugs. They spend everything within a week and panhandle for three weeks. However, they don't want the pennies.
The U.S. may have the most diversified population. China has land borders. However, of course, the U.S. shouldn't follow China's solution to prison overcrowding and reducing the crime rate:
"Since 1949, the CCP has persecuted more than half the people in China. An estimated 60 million to 80 million people died from unnatural causes. This number exceeds the total number of deaths in both World Wars combined.
As with other communist countries, the wanton killing done by the CCP also includes brutal slayings of its own members in order to remove dissidents who value a sense of humanity over the Party nature. The CCP's rule of terror falls equally on the populace and its members in an attempt to maintain an "invincible fortress."
In addition to the destruction of countless lives, the CCP also destroyed the soul of the Chinese people. A great many people have become conditioned to react to the CCP's threats by entirely surrendering their reason and their principles. In a sense, these people's souls have died—something more frightening than physical death."
I wonder how many of the legalization advocates are currently drug users. If you are, than you are partly responsible for all of the malignant things described in this article. There are real people suffering as a result of your drug usage. This is something you can effect simply by changing your behavior.
I know that many believe that they have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior, and in a limited way, I would have to agree. But, as the tobacco experience shows, those who engage in self-destructive behavior are rarely willing to accept and live with the consequences. The public will be asked to pick up the pieces of users broken lives resulting in the cost of their behavior being shifted to someone else. Until someone can figure out a way to insure that those costs are born solely by the individual making the decision to use, I say let's adjust our tactics and continue the "war".
Also, I may add, it's better for the state to destroy the bad habit to save the individual rather than for the bad habit to destroy the individual to save the state.
The money being wasted on drugs (and related costs) can be used to reduce illegal drug use.
legalize pot and tax it. that would solve some of our deficit problems, remove one source of income for drug cartels, and free up courts, police, and prisons for more serious crimes.
believe me, anybody that wants pot is already getting it.
the harder drugs, i don't have a good solution for. but the way it is currently being handled is an obvious failure.
"But, as the tobacco experience shows, those who engage in self-destructive behavior are rarely willing to accept and live with the consequences. The public will be asked to pick up the pieces of users broken lives resulting in the cost of their behavior being shifted to someone else. Until someone can figure out a way to insure that those costs are born solely by the individual making the decision to use, I say let's adjust our tactics and continue the "war"."
Tobacco? What, you're telling me that heroin addicts force their second-hand injections onto people?
Seriously though, if you want the solution to the problem of having to bear it, then get rid of laws and the lawyers that play them that make it other people's responsibility. But I must point out that prior to the war on drugs, and prior to their illegalization, there wasn't really a problem to solve. That is what is terrible about the war, there never was a reason for it to begin with.
Anyway, Paul Hue had an excellent point. Where would such a measure as Japanese-style control draw the line, especially considering that today just about everything is called an addiction?! Internet, shopping, sex(!), gasoline, meat, sugar...
The line would soon fade and anything that could even remotely called a "social ill" would and people would be harassed for it. Just look at Europe and the UK with their "health police" problems, armed with the best junk-science that taxpayer money can buy! Across the pond, apparently they have invented second-drinking and slowly but surely any amount of alcohol is considered leathal not only to the drinker, but everyone else as well.
No, the only war I am interested in sustaining is the war to retain what little rights we have left. Especially since for every "social ill" there never was a great big problem to begin with.
One of the drug prohibitionists asked if any of us drug libertarians are drug users. I'm not a drug user, but the drug laws are not the reason that I don't consume drugs. I notice, though, that lots of pro athletes perform at the top level while consuming drugs. So much for all the propaganda about drugs. I have enough sense, though, to see the long term affects.
Exactly how much are you prohibitionists willing to spend, though, to ensure that I never get my hands on any drugs? All you are ensuring is that (1) I never get my hands on any standardized, non-adulterated drugs; (2) I risk transformation from tax payer to tax consumer; (3) I may resort to property crimes or violence to obtain drugs that would otherwise be as inexpensive as booze.
Nice work.
Should everyone also be able to pollute as much as they want? Or should there be restrictions? Where do you draw the line?
Tobacco? What, you're telling me that heroin addicts force their second-hand injections onto people?
Wow, do I really have to explain this for you? The tobacco companies were sued by smokers who freely chose to use their products. These people were not willing to accept the consequences of their actions. It is for that reason, the threat of litigation, that no private company will set up to provide you your fix. Or, if they did the price would invite black market competition. That leaves the government. The government would have to enforce it's monopoly. Again, back to square one.
The line would soon fade and anything that could even remotely called a "social ill" would and people would be harassed for it.
I really don't care what you do with your life, as long as I do not have to pick up the tab for your behavior.
No, the only war I am interested in sustaining is the war to retain what little rights we have left.
That's is exactly the point. Even if drugs are legalized, they will be abused since they are addictive by nature. Society will have to deal with the consequences of this behavior, shifting the costs onto others. Shouldering those costs denies those forced to bear them their freedom. Property = freedom.
Exactly how much are you prohibitionists willing to spend, though, to ensure that I never get my hands on any drugs? All you are ensuring is that (1) I never get my hands on any standardized, non-adulterated drugs; (2) I risk transformation from tax payer to tax consumer; (3) I may resort to property crimes or violence to obtain drugs that would otherwise be as inexpensive as booze.
If you are a casual user, not much. If your arrested you should get a very short sentence and a very large fine.
(1) I don't care if your drugs are "standardized" or "non-adulterated". If you get a bad dose and wind up permanently impaired your story will serve as a cautionary tale for others.
(2) As far as you switching from tax payer to tax consumer, I don't see how the risk diminishes because the drugs are legal.
(3) And the idea that drugs will be "as inexpensive as booze" is complete crap. By the time the potential liability costs are priced in and the taxes assessed the prices will be very high indeed.
Sorry, it should be "If you're arrested ...
"I know that many believe that they have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior, and in a limited way, I would have to agree. But, as the tobacco experience shows, those who engage in self-destructive behavior are rarely willing to accept and live with the consequences. The public will be asked to pick up the pieces of users broken lives resulting in the cost of their behavior being shifted to someone else"...
Per the usual libtard style, long on smoke, short on substance...
Tobacco users have paid their fair share and heck of a lot more...
Perhaps, some believe drugs for recreational use isn't a problem. However, it seems, the Japanese have an effective strategy to win the "war on drugs."
Peak Trader: Why the heck do we want the government to save us from doing something that you think is "a problem"?
Anony:
(1) Data show that most OD deaths result from dope that would not exist if drugs were regulated like booze, by above-board companies.
(2) Drug laws take people like Darryl Strawberry who pay taxes while maintaining jobs during their drug usage, and puts them into prison where he loses his income and we pay to house him.
(3) If you are correct that cocaine will remain expensive, at least we won't be spending (borrowing!) billions annually to stop people from consuming.
Per the usual libtard style, long on smoke, short on substance...
Tobacco users have paid their fair share and a heck of a lot more ...
All I'm arguing is that by deciding to sue the cigarette manufacturers smokers sought to shift the consequences of their decisions onto someone else. I think that they have every right to smoke and have been subjected to ridiculous intrusions into their personal lives. Further, the monies secured from the state tobacco settlements and the punitive taxes assessed on cigarettes have not gone to the care of people suffering from smoking related illnesses but to liberal pet projects. I find that pathetic. I don't believe in "sin taxes" or any other attempt by the government to use the tax code as a form of behavior modification. That is a power the founding fathers never intended government to have.
I'm certainly not "liberal" in the leftist/socialist sense of the word. I believe that people should be free to make their own decisions and required to accept the consequences of those decisions.
Part of it would mean to turn up the heat - even if it means a "scorched earth" policy.
That doesn't mean going Singapore in law, but to just outright clean them out - regularly.
Paul, if the goal is to win the "war on drugs," Japanese (government) policies seem effective. However, the Japanese only reduced global drug trafficking, health risks, poor value judgments, lost productivity, negative externalities, etc.
Don't forget the people abusing legal prescription drugs. How did japan fix that problem.
Cocaine at the checkout!
Next - Emergency Christmas
Anon said: Wow, do I really have to explain this for you? The tobacco companies were sued by smokers..."
Do I have to explain that I was JOKING? I said... "But seriously, though..."
Anyway, the threat of litigation is a weak argument because that is a risk everyone faces, for a number of things, be it faceless citizen or mega-corporation. Anyone can sued by another. So I don't follow your logic that threat of litigation prevents a private party from undertaking the sale of recreational drugs, epecially when it's the legality issue that is preventing them.
Get rid of that, though, and you insist that it will either succumb to black market competition or that the government will have monopolize it.
But what about untaxed/smuggled cigarettes? Organized crime deals in that legal drug and you don't see them driving tobacco stores out of business, let alone the tobacco companies. Well, that's because much of the risk is removed by the fact that cigs are legal! Organized crime can under-cut the cost of the tax, but they don't undercut the price, so free market competes with organized crime in that arena.
As for government monopoly, aside from being moot now that it's use is no long required, that makes no sense. More on this in a minute...
"That is exactly the point. Even if drugs are legalized, they will be abused since they are addictive by nature. Society will have to deal with the consequences of this behavior, shifting the costs onto others. Shouldering those costs denies those forced to bear them their freedom. Property = freedom."
Yes, property is a component of freedom. I never said otherwise. But your argument is quite flawed because you're not siding with the free market, you're condemning it to the lawlessness of the black market and the government to that of nanny. And so you do the very thing you were hoping to avoid, which is to avoid an outrageous bill.
Governments dictating behavior may sound noble, safer, and less costly, and I suppose to some unknowable extent they save people's money and lives, but I have seen over the years, here and elsewhere, that nannyism always leads to more such attempted behavioral modification, even in otherwise harmless things. Even if they do not think it a grand idea to spread the nobility about into other more helpful areas, the costs of the first crusade do not go down, but accumulate upward.
And that's because government invades the free market with it's costs of a moral crusade. Even if they didn't stop a single person from using drugs, and just paid lip-service to the idea, all that money and manpower would be taken to create something that defeated it's own purpose, thus wasteful. It's about as wasteful as the government getting into the drug trade. They can't force anyone to use drugs, and probably wouldn't even if they did create a monopoly "for our own good" so again... subsidizing them would be wasteful.
So governments are of no use whatsoever in the durg trade (or any other for that matter!).
Money/value, on the other hand, is something that increased productivity can always create more of... provided it doesn't collide with any nanny government's wishes, ie a free market. Which is tricky to accomplish, because so long as the government is dipping into the till to fight it, we're not more effective, we're less effective as a society!
Anti-drug laws see us investing in useless stuff like drug-sniffing dogs, drug-sniffing helicopters that could be put to better use (do you know how much it costs to deploy one, btw?), more spy equipment, more protective gear, more public defenders, more court time and space, more jails, and requires more cops that could be doing something better with their time besides learning what assholes they can be to the general public while pretending to be of greater use. I also contend that it hurts people's property values by inviting gangs and violence, all the while spedning more of that alraedy depleated revenue source on all that afore mentioned frivolous bullshit.
Compare that the cost of getting rid of the corpse of a self-abuser. Doesn't cost very much at all, considering that that level of addiction isn't as common as we're often told it is. Certainly some users to self-abuse their person, but it's not all. Far from it. Which then makes it possible to provide compassion, to help those addicts who do want to change and stop abusing themsleves. So it all comes down to paying for removing their corpse from the street or helping them reform. None of the other costs listed above.
So no, I don't fall for the bogus arguments that we MUST pay a hell of a lot more to protect our money from those "expensive druggies". What a fallacious argument to make, and some might even call that bullshit extortion (it would be, if so many people didn't just fall for it outright)!
"Perhaps, some believe drugs for recreational use isn't a problem. However, it seems, the Japanese have an effective strategy to win the "war on drugs."
I can give rat's rear what the Japanese do. But for all that uh... success... if someone from Japan had the chance would they? I don't know either. But the point is, if it doesn't coem from within it's superficial bullshit that winds up costing. Not just in monetary terms, but also the fact a government can use the "for your own good" point to justifiy whatever else they want. And what kind of self-respecting person NEEDS the government to decide for them?
I'd as soon commit hari-kari as live in such a world. At least it's dignified, but not without a fight first...
The idea of drug legalization appeals to me but I have a few questions.
After legalization what would a pharmacy look like? I assume all drugs would be available without prescriptions so the role of the Dr and Pharmacist would be advisory?
What about use of antibiotics that would have very negative societal effects if individuals self- medicated. I know this is a problem now but it would get worse with an open pharmacy.
While I don't believe in making adults rights dependent on protecting children do you have any ideas about how children could be protected?
Thanks,
-Yev
So no, I don't fall for the bogus arguments that we MUST pay a hell of a lot more to protect our money from those "expensive druggies".
A shift in tactics could reduce the costs dramatically. In one Florida program the police focused on the clients instead of the dealers. They would watch the transaction go down and then arrest the buyer, confiscating his vehicle as part of the bust. In very short order the drug activity in that neighborhood disappeared. Like I said, property is freedom, we should be substituting casual users property for time in jail. Dealers should get long hard time.
Confiscating somebody's property without a trial, and applauding it just because it "works" in blocking mutually consensual behavior in one location. This attitude frightens me. Any idea if this behavior simply shifted to another area, and how much this action COST?
Example of a recent article of a drug bust and property thieft. Note the word weapons, most of the time it sporting guns.
Police confiscated $835 in cash from the North Center home, $600 to $700 worth of marijuana, marijuana plants, weapons and drug paraphernalia
Confiscating somebody's property without a trial...
No one was denied a trial. The property was confiscated lawfully because it was being used in a drug transaction.
The point is that the financial burden of drug users behavior can be shifted from the public to the user with more creative tactics.
This explains it all
No one was denied a trial, hu? You mean that a trial occurred where the defendant was formally accused of violating the law, and after being found guilty had his property seized?
t jefferson: If drugs were legal, the weapons would not have existed, and the cash would have been in the ledgers of a legitimate, regulated, tax-paying enterprise... with no need for you and I to pay officers to confiscate.
What if one just legalized marijuana?
If anyone could grow, sell or consume marijuana, wouldn't one expect a relatively harmless substance to be consumed in preference to expensive, hard core drugs? Wouldn't marijuana offer an inexpensive, legal, substitute that would still provide the desired high?
I have never used drugs and opposed legalization for years. I have finally come to believe that the war on drugs is fighting an uphill battle against the forces of supply & demand at tremendous financial and social cost (ie. enforcement, jails, criminalization of youth, increase in property crimes to support drug addiction). Trying to reduce supply only serves to raise the price and create incentive to increase supply.
By working with the law of supply and demand, we may be able to improve overall health outcomes by legalizing the least dangerous option.
Currently, if someone is stopped and suspected of driving under the influence (DUI) they are required to submit to a breathalyzer test to determine if their blood alcohol level exceeds the legal limit. They can refuse, but they must surrender their license.
If we legalize pot and someone is suspected of DUI they will, by necessity, be required to submit to a blood or urine test. THC can stay in your blood or urine for days. A lot of people will be losing their driving privileges.
Excellent point, Anon. Not being familiar with this type of testing, I do not know if an expert would be able to discern the difference between a subject who had taken drugs an hour ago vs. a day ago. It does raise a very interesting question.
In Canada, an officer can still charge a driver even if they test below the legal alcohol limit if in the judgement of the officer, the subject appears to be impaired. There are many other things aside from alcohol and illegal drugs that can create impairment such as lack of sleep, hypoglycemia, prescription drugs, medical drug interactions or inappropriate dosage levels, etc.
Alternatively, one could develop a computerized test for evaluating a subject's reflexes and perception.
More information regarding drug testing. Looks like we do not have the research to establish what levels constitute impairment as we do with alcohol.
[I wish our dear host would ban anon postings, so that we could keep track of discussions.]
One of the various anons makes a connection between drug legalization and DWI, which I don't understand. With all drugs currently prohibited, it remains illegal to drive while under their influence.
One of the true "costs of freedom" is the potential that somebody has put into their systems a substance that impairs their ability to drive. We could use Saudi Arabian laws. They seem to have few drug problems over there. No freedoms, of course, but no drug usage problem.
There is a profit element that is tied to prohibition of narcotics in the global economy. For many, selling drugs is an occupation for survival in the wasteland of world capitalism. For many it is a high profit enterprise bringing the best of everything to those who can avoid the laws. Just think of all the prisons, military, police, hospitals, lawyers that survive on the continuance of illegal drugs. Even the governments are involved in drug trafficking. As a US citizen I know that the American government is guilty in smuggling heroin out of the eastern triangle and have had the nerve to pack it in the coffins with our dead young people coming back from wars that never end. Stop all drug sales and production and you will see a complete collapse of civilization!
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