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Gypsy Jan
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US Drug War Has Met None of Its Goals
By MARTHA MENDOZA, Associated Press Writer Martha Mendoza, Associated Press Writer Thu May 13, 5:15 pm ET
MEXICO CITY – After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is
rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.
"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug
problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."
This week President Obama promised to "reduce drug use and the great damage it causes" with a new national policy that he said treats drug use more as
a public health issue and focuses on prevention and treatment.
Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars and in percentage terms;
this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget.
Kerlikowske, who coordinates all federal anti-drug policies, says it will take time for the spending to match the rhetoric.
"Nothing happens overnight," he said. "We've never worked the drug problem holistically. We'll arrest the drug dealer, but we leave the addiction."
His predecessor, John P. Walters, takes issue with that.
Walters insists society would be far worse today if there had been no War on Drugs. Drug abuse peaked nationally in 1979 and, despite fluctuations,
remains below those levels, he says. Judging the drug war is complicated: Records indicate marijuana and prescription drug abuse are climbing, while
cocaine use is way down. Seizures are up, but so is availability.
"To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous," Walters said. "It destroys everything
we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcment, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these
people's work is misguided."
___
In 1970, hippies were smoking pot and dropping acid. Soldiers were coming home from Vietnam hooked on heroin. Embattled President Richard M. Nixon
seized on a new war he thought he could win.
"This nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people," Nixon said as he signed the
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. The following year, he said: "Public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to
fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive."
His first drug-fighting budget was $100 million. Now it's $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon's amount even when adjusted for inflation.
Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where
that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years,
taxpayers spent more than:
• $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca
cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.
• $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates
of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early
1970s to more than 20,000 last year.
• $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow,
inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.
• $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail
time tends to increase drug abuse.
• $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug
offenses.
At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — "an overburdened
justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" — cost the United States $215 billion a year.
Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.
"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."
___
From the beginning, lawmakers debated fiercely whether law enforcement — no matter how well funded and well trained — could ever defeat the drug
problem.
Then-Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who had his doubts, has since watched his worst fears come to pass.
"Look what happened. It's an ongoing tragedy that has cost us a trillion dollars. It has loaded our jails and it has destabilized countries like
Mexico and Colombia," he said.
In 1970, proponents said beefed-up law enforcement could effectively seal the southern U.S. border and stop drugs from coming in. Since then, the U.S.
used patrols, checkpoints, sniffer dogs, cameras, motion detectors, heat sensors, drone aircraft — and even put up more than 1,000 miles of steel
beam, concrete walls and heavy mesh stretching from California to Texas.
None of that has stopped the drugs. The Office of National Drug Control Policy says about 330 tons of cocaine, 20 tons of heroin and 110 tons of
methamphetamine are sold in the United States every year — almost all of it brought in across the borders. Even more marijuana is sold, but it's hard
to know how much of that is grown domestically, including vast fields run by Mexican drug cartels in U.S. national parks.
The dealers who are caught have overwhelmed justice systems in the United States and elsewhere. U.S. prosecutors declined to file charges in 7,482
drug cases last year, most because they simply didn't have the time. That's about one out of every four drug cases.
The United States has in recent years rounded up thousands of suspected associates of Mexican drug gangs, then turned some of the cases over to local
prosecutors who can't make the charges stick for lack of evidence. The suspects are then sometimes released, deported or acquitted. The U.S. Justice
Department doesn't even keep track of what happens to all of them.
In Mexico, traffickers exploit a broken justice system. Investigators often fail to collect convincing evidence — and are sometimes assassinated when
they do. Confessions are beaten out of suspects by frustrated, underpaid police. Judges who no longer turn a blind eye to such abuse release the
suspects in exasperation.
In prison, in the U.S. or Mexico, traffickers continue to operate, ordering assassinations and arranging distribution of their product even from
solitary confinement in Texas and California. In Mexico, prisoners can sometimes even buy their way out.
The violence spans Mexico. In Ciudad Juarez, the epicenter of drug violence in Mexico, 2,600 people were killed last year in cartel-related violence,
making the city of 1 million across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, one of the world's deadliest. Not a single person was prosecuted for homicide
related to organized crime.
And then there's the money.
The $320 billion annual global drug industry now accounts for 1 percent of all commerce on the planet.
A full 10 percent of Mexico's economy is built on drug proceeds — $25 billion smuggled in from the United States every year, of which 25 cents of each
$100 smuggled is seized at the border. Thus there's no incentive for the kind of financial reform that could tame the cartels.
"For every drug dealer you put in jail or kill, there's a line up to replace him because the money is just so good," says Walter McCay, who heads the
nonprofit Center for Professional Police Certification in Mexico City.
McCay is one of the 13,000 members of Medford, Mass.-based Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of cops, judges, prosecutors, prison wardens
and others who want to legalize and regulate all drugs.
A decade ago, no politician who wanted to keep his job would breathe a word about legalization, but a consensus is growing across the country that at
least marijuana will someday be regulated and sold like tobacco and alcohol.
California voters decide in November whether to legalize marijuana, and South Dakota will vote this fall on whether to allow medical uses of
marijuana, already permitted in California and 13 other states. The Obama administration says it won't target marijuana dispensaries if they comply
with state laws.
___
Mexican President Felipe Calderon says if America wants to fix the drug problem, it needs to do something about Americans' unquenching thirst for
illegal drugs.
Kerlikowske agrees, and Obama has committed to doing just that.
And yet both countries continue to spend the bulk of their drug budgets on law enforcement rather than treatment and prevention.
"President Obama's newly released drug war budget is essentially the same as Bush's, with roughly twice as much money going to the criminal justice
system as to treatment and prevention," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. "This despite Obama's
statements on the campaign trail that drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue."
Obama is requesting a record $15.5 billion for the drug war for 2011, about two thirds of it for law enforcement at the front lines of the battle:
police, military and border patrol agents struggling to seize drugs and arrest traffickers and users.
About $5.6 billion would be spent on prevention and treatment.
"For the first time ever, the nation has before it an administration that views the drug issue first and foremost through the lens of the public
health mandate," said economist and drug policy expert John Carnevale, who served three administrations and four drug czars. "Yet ... it appears that
this historic policy stride has some problems with its supporting budget."
Carnevale said the administration continues to substantially over-allocate funds to areas that research shows are least effective — interdiction and
source-country programs — while under-allocating funds for treatment and prevention.
Kerlikowske, who wishes people would stop calling it a "war" on drugs, frequently talks about one of the most valuable tools they've found, in which
doctors screen for drug abuse during routine medical examinations. That program would get a mere $7.2 million under Obama's budget.
"People will say that's not enough. They'll say the drug budget hasn't shifted as much as it should have, and granted I don't disagree with that,"
Kerlikowske said. "We would like to do more in that direction."
Fifteen years ago, when the government began telling doctors to ask their patients about their drug use during routine medical exams, it described the
program as one of the most proven ways to intervene early with would-be addicts.
"Nothing happens overnight," Kerlikowske said.
___
Until 100 years ago, drugs were simply a commodity. Then Western cultural shifts made them immoral and deviant, according to London School of
Economics professor Fernanda Mena.
Religious movements led the crusades against drugs: In 1904, an Episcopal bishop returning from a mission in the Far East argued for banning opium
after observing "the natives' moral degeneration." In 1914, The New York Times reported that cocaine caused blacks to commit "violent crimes," and
that it made them resistant to police bullets. In the decades that followed, Mena said, drugs became synonymous with evil.
Nixon drew on those emotions when he pressed for his War on Drugs.
"Narcotics addiction is a problem which afflicts both the body and the soul of America," he said in a special 1971 message to Congress. "It comes
quietly into homes and destroys children, it moves into neighborhoods and breaks the fiber of community which makes neighbors. We must try to better
understand the confusion and disillusion and despair that bring people, particularly young people, to the use of narcotics and dangerous drugs."
Just a few years later, a young Barack Obama was one of those young users, a teenager smoking pot and trying "a little blow when you could afford it,"
as he wrote in "Dreams From My Father." When asked during his campaign if he had inhaled the pot, he replied: "That was the point."
So why persist with costly programs that don't work?
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, sitting down with the AP at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, paused for a moment at the
question.
"Look," she says, starting slowly. "This is something that is worth fighting for because drug addiction is about fighting for somebody's life, a young
child's life, a teenager's life, their ability to be a successful and productive adult.
"If you think about it in those terms, that they are fighting for lives — and in Mexico they are literally fighting for lives as well from the
violence standpoint — you realize the stakes are too high to let go."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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Mexicorn
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Good read Jan. I think the California State government should legalize marijuana even though I dont use it. The State could tax it.
Just my two pesos.
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Gypsy Jan
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The Above is News
What follows is my own, non-official speculation.
I have read that if the very large and major marijuana crops of Northern California were legalized, sufficiently regulated and taxed, then maybe there
would be some help out to the crushing civil debt and the efforts of law enforcement could be more effectively directed towards violent crime.
But, what do I know? (And, if you are asking, no, I do not smoke and I do not know anyone these days who does.)
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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BajaBruno
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I’m always rather ashamed of the American electorate when I read politicians saying things like, “Walters insists society would be far worse today if
there had been no War on Drugs.” All available evidence is that they took a bad situation and made it terrible, yet they insist that it would have
been even worse had they not taken their ill-advised action. Of course, there is no way to prove that, either way, but the children of other
industrialized nations are taught logic and the scientific method, and their politicians would never get away with such a silly justification.
One may think of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, down on one knee in the Bush White House to plead for his bailout plan for US banks, and the new
Secretary’s insistence that “things would be far worse today if there had been no bailout” (and maybe that is right or wrong), but there is historical
precedence for the actions they took. They were afraid of a second Depression and tried to avoid the mistakes of President Hoover.
The historical precedence for the War on Drugs is the war on alcohol that we call Prohibition, and we all know how that turned out. It turned a
country that had its lowest alcohol use in history into a gin-swilling, gun-slinging, murdering country with no respect for the law and even less for
the law enforcers.
All this may sound strangely current to the unfortunate residents of Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, and Acapulco, as well as LA, Oakland, Detroit, and
New York. Several years ago I was playing poker with a prominent defense attorney, the district attorney, and the county sheriff, and I brought up
the idea of legalizing marijuana. The district attorney said no, the only way to solve the drug problem is to legalize all drugs and start civil
clinics for addicts. Legalize heroin? Yes, all drugs.
He explained that when one can go into any bar in the country and buy any drug you want, drugs are de facto legal already. Formally legalizing
them just gives you the opportunity to cut out the abuses of the dealers, along with the murders and high taxes from bloated prisons, and put abusers
into rehab. Let the functional users alone, just as we do with alcohol users. He was more eloquent and convincing than I am tonight, I suppose,
because when he was finished, everyone at the table agreed with him and we went back to having c-cktails and playing poker illegally.
[Edited on 5-14-2010 by BajaBruno]
Christopher Bruno, Elk Grove, CA.
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Iflyfish
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Yup, there is always a cultural lag for information like this to sink in.
It is easier to take a simple "no to all drugs" posture than to engage in a more nuanced approach and to deal with drug use as a medical problem. What
an incredible waste of resources when the country needs a national health plan and infrastructure development.
It is interesting to note that the Northern California Pot growers are opposed to legalization, it would dry up their illicit markets. Hmm, dry up the
markets, put them out of business, hmm?? I wonder what the Cartels think of this possibility?
The ending of Prohibition created a situation where many bootleggers became legitimate business men, the Kennedy family is an excellent example among
many.
Iflyfish
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BillP
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mexicorn
Good read Jan. I think the California State government should legalize marijuana even though I dont use it. The State could tax it.
Just my two pesos. |
I agree CA should legalize it, but the tax revenue angle is a fallacy IMO(no disrespect
to mexicorn intended). Where's this controlled, taxable supply going to come from? The gubment? Do we create yet another overblown, costly, and
ineffective bureaucracy?
Legalize it, and allow folks to grow a 5X5 plot.
BTW A very good artical
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toneart
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Very good commentary by all! Right on, Jan! Thank you.
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Dave
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A war...
| Quote: | Originally posted by Gypsy Jan
MEXICO CITY – After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is
rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
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Never fought. 
Almost 70 years ago the U.S. declared war on Japan. We promptly went to work killing as many as we could find. Four years later it was over. Had we
taken the same tact with drug users/dealers this war would have been over even before it started.
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Bajahowodd
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Draconian?
Although the article mentioned returning GIs from Viet Nam hooked on heroin, do you have any idea of the percentage of our kids fighting over there
smoked pot virtually every day? Huge!
Besides, there's just something in human DNA that drives them to get high. Prohibition didn't work. I like the concept of legalizing everything and
then dealing with the consequences. The simple fact is that legally available drugs will not have any significant increase in abuse. Abusers are
generally people who are wired differently; no matter what their substance of choice is. After all, do we not now recognize alcoholism as a disease?
And sure, those NORCAL pot farmers can get their panties in a bunch, but if and when legalization is a reality, you can be certain that it will be big
pharma or the big tobacco, or the distilled spirits industry, or a combination therein that will control the production and distribution.
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Dave
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Draconian...
Measures DO work. Isn't that, by definition, what war is?
Given a choice between death or using illegal substances all recreational drug use would end. And those hopelessly addicted would die anyway.
No harm, no foul.
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DENNIS
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajahowodd
And sure, those NORCAL pot farmers can get their panties in a bunch, but if and when legalization is a reality, you can be certain that it will be big
pharma or the big tobacco, or the distilled spirits industry, or a combination therein that will control the production and distribution.
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Just like the small grape growers in Guadalupe Valley who join co-ops to get their stuff processed, the small dope growers will be co-opted by the big
boys when the time comes.
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Bajahowodd
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Those hopelessly addicted? Define hopelessly. We have millions of stories of folks who have recovered to live productive lives. As I said, there's a
percentage of us who have an addictive bent. Geez. I've know people who drink tens of cups of coffee during the day. Is that not addiction? I have to
admit that I have never been able to wrap my head round the situation, but, it just seems to me that it's always all about the money. Whether it
becomes private contractors working for the government, making zillions of dollars from taxpayer money or Starbucks, the final affect is that affected
people, lacking the ability to change, become cash cows for government and big business. I just think that, at the end of the day, if we, as a nation
placed our resources into rehabilitation, we would be far ahead, versus the idiotic war on drugs.
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Cypress
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Nomads in agreement! Legalize pot! Let everyone grow their own. Do you really
think the govt. is gonna let this cash cow slip by without getting it's cut?
No way.
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Packoderm
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We couldn't stop people from drinking booze, couldn't stop them from driving over 55 mile per hour, and it's foolhardy to try to keep them from
lighting up mary jane. The control freaks feel good for a while, and then common sense later takes over. A law against driving without seat belts
makes sense, so we have not needed to make driving without seat belts a capital crime, but it would take nothing less than instant executions to stop
people from picking their nose.
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oldlady
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Legalize it all. Aren't people who are old enough to have the responsibility of voting old enough to assume responsibility for the foods, drugs, and
beverages they put in their bodies, and concurrently determining that if they have issues whether it be obesity or addictions, to deal with those
issues and pay for their own remedy?
Tax it? Why?
[Edited on 5-15-2010 by oldlady]
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CaboRon
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Dave
Measures DO work. Isn't that, by definition, what war is?
Given a choice between death or using illegal substances all recreational drug use would end. And those hopelessly addicted would die anyway.
No harm, no foul. |
You Are Sick ....
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Bajahowodd
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I'm with dusty on this.
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Dave
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Bajahowodd
Those hopelessly addicted? Define hopelessly. |
Don't really care. An addiction to an any illegal substance won't get any sympathy from me...Unless one can prove they were tied down and
force fed. 
People who choose to ignore the law should accept the consequences.
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toneart
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| Quote: | Originally posted by oldlady
Legalize it all. Aren't people who are old enough to have the responsibility of voting old enough to assume responsibility for the foods, drugs, and
beverages they put in their bodies, and concurrently determining that if they have issues whether it be obesity or addictions, to deal with those
issues and pay for their own remedy?
Tax it? Why?
[Edited on 5-15-2010 by oldlady] |
Tax it? Why?
1.Badly needed revenue source for economically depressed governments at all levels.
2. To mollify the moral Puritans...money will win them over!
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Bajaboy
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Read my lips...no new taxes...you'll have the Tea Baggers all riled up if you tax it.
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