Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 08:51:00 -0700
From: Eric Sterling (ESTERLING@IGC.APC.ORG)
To: drctalk-l@netcom.com
Subject: Re: Atlanta Mayor's Drug Education
OPENING A DISCUSSION ABOUT
EFFECTIVE ANTI-DRUG STRATEGIES
May 15, 1995
by Eric E. Sterling
President, The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation
There is a movement, gathered here in Atlanta, Georgia, that
argues that the means to fight the drug problem cannot be discussed.
This movement is based on a false fundamentalism: society's fight
against drugs can be carried out either by means of prohibition
(namely the status quo) or it must surrender to what it calls
legalization. The arguments of those who advocate legalization are
too dangerous even to be heard. Thus the Atlanta Resolution's first
point is to reject all proposals to legalize illicit drugs. This is
simplistic thinking at its worst.
Ninety-five percent of The Atlanta Resolution is plain common
sense, but that is not what the Atlanta conference has gathered to
discuss.
The conference agenda describes the catastrophe that would result
from legalization, but no person who advocates any version of
legalization has been invited to present their view or to answer
questions. The conference characterizations of drug legalization
are as fair and as realistic as using Star Wars movies to describe
the outcome of the NASA manned space flight program. Implicit in
the conference agenda is that our current strategy is simply dandy.
But the American people don t think our current strategy is dandy
at all. A nationwide survey in February 1995 by Peter Hart Research
Associates for Drug Strategies, Inc. found that 50% of the American
people gave the Federal government a grade of F or D for dealing
with the problems of drug use and addiction, and 59% gave those
grades for the problem of drug-related crime. Only 10% would give
the Federal government a grade of A or B for dealing with drug use,
and only 11% for drug-related crime. Only 6% of Americans thought
that drug abuse was less of a problem today than 5 years ago.
A strategy must set forth goals and means. The 1995 National Drug
Control Strategy (the Strategy) promulgated by President Clinton
sets forth clear and worthwhile goals that are a distinct
improvement from previous strategies (Table 1-1). The means
proposed, however, are largely the same ones -- prohibition, and its
enforcement -- which have failed.
The National Drug Control Strategy is, in a sense, schizophrenic
-- it reads as though it were drafted by a committee of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde. It reflects an internal conflict between realistic
goals and priorities, and the exaggeration characteristic of
politicized discussions of the drug problem. The Strategy writes
about various drug problems oblivious to the causes of the problems
and reasonable methods to correct those problems.
Prohibition has failed to reduce crime or addiction. There is no
prohibition-based strategy that will substantially address those
problems. A drug-free society is unrealistic. Our strategy of
punishing drug addicts is akin to expelling from school students
with learning disabilities. To claim to be taking the profits out
of $50 billion of a year's drug trafficking through the yearly
forfeiture of $1 billion in property is absurd. Even sales taxes
would be more effective in taking the profits out. Certainly much
more extensive taxation is required but it is only possible when
prohibition is repealed.
We must change our strategy, but we must do so cautiously. A
regulatory, management approach to the myriad drug problems is
called for. It should be tailored to specific issues and adopted
incrementally. There will be addicts and crime no matter what we do.
An example of regulatory complexity is the regulation of alcohol,
one legal drug. There are probably 10,000 different alcohol laws
reflecting multiple goals from revenue collection to reducing
consumption. For this one drug, the regulation of the sale,
advertising, taxation, and places of distribution and consumption
vary in every jurisdiction depending whether it is beer, wine or
whiskey. Alcohol regulation has evolved since 1933. In some ways
it has improved, and in others it has gotten worse. Developing a
comprehensive regulatory scheme for dozens of classes of drugs can t
be accomplished overnight. There is much necessary market and
regulatory research.
National Drug Control Strategy -- A Strategy Founded on
Deceptions and Failures
A strategy for action should identify the most important problems
and recognize the limits of what the strategy can effect -- it must
be honest. The first problem identified in the White House's
National Drug Control Strategy -- February 1995: The crime-drug
cycle continues. Second, More teenagers are smoking pot. The third
problem is described as: Less of them [America's teenagers] think
cocaine use is dangerous.
What does the Strategy say about the crime-drug cycle? It simply
sets forth the number and percentage of drug-related murders for the
past eight years which ranged between 751 (3.9%) in 1986 and 1403
(7.4%) in 1989, down to 1287 (5.2%) in 1993, and states that there
has been a marked increase youth homicide reported by Dr. Alfred
Blumstein. The Strategy provides no analysis of the problem. It
fails to explain the crime- drug cycle and how to break it.
Mostly, the crime-drug cycle exists because drugs are prohibited.
Prohibition inevitably requires violence. All businesses are
subject to conflict among market- participants. Such conflict is
resolved nonviolently for legal businesses by means of the courts or
other nonviolent dispute resolution programs. Prohibited businesses
are forced to resolve conflict illegally -- either through violence
or through adjudication by organized crime figures who rely upon
violence for enforcement.
Prohibition markets are especially attractive robbery targets
because of the inevitably high volumes of cash and over-priced
contraband. Unlike legitimate businesses that can take checks or
credit cards, illegal drug markets take only cash. Legitimate
business can hire licensed security guards. Prohibition businesses
only hire for protection those who demonstrate they are prepared to
kill. Legalizers share the nation's goal of ending the crime-drug
cycle.
Second, certainly teenage marijuana use is a problem. But more
teenagers start a lifetime of addiction to cigarettes every year
than use marijuana one time, and the smoking prevalence is
increasing. More teenagers got drunk in the past two weeks than
used marijuana once in the past year, and the alcohol consumption
prevalence is up. The Strategy presents strong evidence that
teenage use of liquor is a more serious problem in violence and
suicide than teenage marijuana use. Teen drunkenness is also a major
factor in teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, school
failure, and crime. Dr. Lloyd Johnston pointed out over a decade
ago that teen tobacco use is one of the best predictors of teen hard
drug use, but aside from a couple of paragraphs in the 150-page
Strategy, alcohol and tobacco are ignored.
Teen smoking and drunkenness are not political hot-buttons. There
is no multi- billion Federal, State and local tax-funded
establishment to address those problems. The sponsors of the
Partnership for a Drug Free America earn millions of dollars
annually from the promotion of tobacco and alcohol. And the tobacco
and alcohol industries are among the biggest of corporate
contributors to political campaign committees of both political
parties. They fight every effort to increase the taxes on alcohol
and tobacco and to limit the advertising of these drugs. Public
health and safety is not on their agenda. Our political leadership
is craven in failing to challenge these industries. Most legalizers
share the nation's goal of reducing teenage drug, alcohol and
tobacco use.
Typically, the Strategy is given to exaggeration. Saying fewer
teenagers think cocaine is dangerous, the Strategy implies that
children are largely misled about the dangers of drugs. In fact,
89.3% of last year's high school seniors believed that they would be
at great risk if they took cocaine regularly. Or the Strategy says,
"Drug using adults from every social strata are clogging court
dockets, crowding emergency rooms..." Clogged court dockets, a top
national emergency...or some trial lawyers nightmare? The serious
problems are often nowhere near as widespread as implied by the
Strategy. In 1991, there were 93.5 million emergency room visits
according to the 1993 Statistical Abstract, and less than 500,000 of
them were drug-related, hardly crowding emergency rooms. Emergency
room episodes involving drugs have tripled since 1985 -- when the
war on drugs was kicked into high gear under President Reagan. This
data is actually more evidence that our prohibition-based strategy
is failing to protect the public.
Outside the realm of exaggeration, hype and political posturing,
in the real world of 1995, the three most pressing problems from
drugs in America are the violence in the drug trade, the spread of
AIDS, and the immense and growing power of the criminal underworld.
This has been the case for at least a decade:
* Drug trade violence was identified as the cause of 40% of the
homicides in New York City in the late-1980s. More importantly, the
drug trade is responsible for the proliferation of guns among
American youth. Since 1985 the white juvenile homicide rate grew by
80%, and the black juvenile homicide rate more than doubled, growing
120%. According to Dr. Alfred Blumstein, this is directly linked to
the prohibition-created crack cocaine trade.
* In 1993, AIDS became the biggest killer of Americans between
the ages of 25 and 44. In 1992, there were 24,000 new AIDS cases
where the infection involved the injection of drugs. By 1992,
roughly 40% of all new AIDS cases involved injection of drugs. On
average, each AIDS case costs the taxpayers $100,000. Unless
checked, dirty needle - related AIDS will soon cost $24 billion per
year.
* Large, international criminal organizations -- funded with drug
profits -- are steadily growing more powerful. They are subverting
democratic governments on every continent around the world. In the
1990 election, the drug cartels assassinated four candidates for
President in Colombia. Last year, the leading candidate for
President of Mexico was assassinated in a crime linked to political
protection of the drug traffickers. These criminal organizations
have acquired enormous economic power rivaling that of the largest
corporations on the Fortune 500. Only one drug trafficking cartel,
based in Medellin, Colombia, has been put of out business, but
dozens of others around the world are growing, and increasingly
collaborating. The Strategy claims success because the number of
casual users of cocaine has gone down. However, the consumption of
cocaine in the U.S. has actually remained stable since 1985. The
profits from supplying that cocaine (as well as heroin and
marijuana) is the greatest transfer of wealth to criminals in the
history of the world.
Americans have been given a Strategy that denies the reality of
prohibition economics, that ignores the law of supply and demand,
and that is blind to the relation between cause and effect. What is
needed is a more effective national drug strategy that is no longer
bound by the counterproductive paradigm of prohibition.
This paper outlines a strategy to fight violence and reduce AIDS
that could be more effective. It is based not on polls, but on what
is humane and realistic. It is based on what can be accomplished,
not on political slogans such as attaining a drug-free America.
1. Remember that drug laws and drug policy should help people,
not hurt them
People who have drug problems should not be demonized, they need
help. People with drug problems are usually in some kind of
physical or psychological pain. Addicts should not be treated like
lepers in the Old Testament who were stoned by their neighbors or
banished. People who don t have drug problems, and who aren't
hurting anyone, should be left alone.
Everyone who wants to quit using drugs should be able to get
appropriate treatment. Addicted single parents need residential
treatment that won t break up families. Pregnant addicts need
treatment, not imprisonment -- but most treatment programs won t
accept pregnant addicts. HIV positive addicts should be the top
priority for treatment, yet many programs won t take HIV positive
people. All drug addicted prisoners should get treatment, but no
one should be prosecuted or imprisoned simply to get treatment.
Relief of physical pain is one of the oldest medical traditions
and a basic human value. Our policy should be compassionate toward
those who are in pain from disease or from its treatment. Marijuana
has well documented medical uses. Even the Chief Administrative Law
Judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration, Francis L. Young,
after hearing evidence gathered from around the nation over a four-
month period, agreed that marijuana has medical uses. Those
Americans who can benefit from using marijuana medically should get
it legally from their doctors. This is a perfectly respectable
position, and it was endorsed by the National Association of
Attorneys General on June 25, 1983.
Heroin relieves pain for some people who obtain no relief from
other drugs -- those people should get heroin legally. In the late
1980s, without weakening the severe penalties for the unauthorized
use of heroin, the conservative Canadian government joined the
United Kingdom in legalizing heroin for medical use only.
The medical uses of marijuana and heroin do not mean these drugs
are good. Nor does it mean these drugs are better than other drugs.
Simply, these drugs are useful for some people. The people who can
benefit from these drugs should not be denied them.
Some persons, justifiably concerned about the abuse of these drugs
by drug addicts and by children, oppose even the very carefully
controlled medical use of these drugs because medical use of
marijuana or medical use of heroin supposedly sends the wrong
message. First, drug abusers aren't listening for this message.
Cocaine, Valium , Dilaudid , and most controlled substances have
uses in medicine, but many addicts who abuse those drugs don t care,
even if they are actually aware of such uses. Drug abusers don t
rationalize their drug use as medical.
Secondly, there isn't a single positive value we want our children
to learn that is not being undermined by a host of wrong messages.
For every virtue -- honesty, thrift, industry, studiousness,
cleanliness, chastity, charity, responsibility, civic-mindedness,
moderation, non-violence, or sobriety and abstinence from drugs --
movies, television, advertising and popular music are sending
messages that directly conflict with positive values. Every
teenager everyday has to deal with, and we hope disregard, seductive
messages that conflict with virtue.
Exaggerating the dangers to children of the wrong message when it
comes to subtleties of medical practice is unwarranted and
irrational. It is the job of drug abuse prevention programs to
teach children the important differences between drugs prescribed by
doctors and street drugs. People who are dying or going blind
should not be forced to endure more suffering because drug abuse
prevention programs might sometimes be ineffective in helping
children draw the necessary distinctions between the legitimate and
the inappropriate uses of drugs.
The Controlled Substances Act makes cocaine, THC, methadone and
other synthetic opiates perfectly legal -- when their use is
prescribed for by a physician in the proper circumstances. Debating
how systems of control can be improved does not undermine the drug
abuse prevention effort. To say that the American public should not
openly debate other forms of drug legalization because children
might get the wrong message, is like saying the public should not
debate gun control, militia groups or the Second Amendment because
children might get the wrong message. It is fundamental to the
health of democratic governments that public policies be debated.
2. Adopt a public health approach toward all drugs and drug users
This requires a comprehensive approach toward all drugs, not
simply now illegal drugs. What we should be concerned about is the
drug abuse problem -- not just the illegal drug problem. Illegal
drug use does not exist in legal or >social isolation. Treatment
professionals recognize cross-addiction and polydrug abuse.
Prevention professionals recognize a gateway relationship between
legal drugs and use of illegal drugs. Tighten the regulations
surrounding alcohol and tobacco -- for adults and for children --
and this will help reduce the use and abuse of other drugs as well.
In order to delay the onset of teen alcohol and tobacco use, which
delays the onset of other drug use, we must reduce the promotion and
availability of tobacco and alcohol to children.
To respond to our drug problem we must expand honest anti-drug
education. Honest comprehensive prevention programs work.
Cigarettes kill more than 400,000 Americans in a year and are as
addictive as heroin or cocaine, according to the U.S. Surgeon
General. Yet forty-four million addicted cigarette smokers have
quit in the past thirty years. This is the result of a tremendous,
successful public health campaign. This campaign succeeded without
jailing or urine-testing cigarette smokers, without prosecuting
tobacco sellers, without prohibition, and in spite of the annual
expenditure of billions of dollars to promote tobacco-use. Most
policy makers reject the idea of prohibiting cigarettes because it
would be a disaster of corruption and crime, and wholly inconsistent
with American values.
Cigarettes, alcohol, or marijuana can be gateways toward use of
harder drugs. Therefore prevention programs need to focus on all
drugs.
We must continue to evaluate drug abuse prevention programs.
Mathea Falco in The Making of a Drug-Free America (1992) pointed out
that most programs have not been evaluated. Research Triangle
Institute reviewed 18 studies in September 1994 and found D.A.R.E.,
America's most common drug abuse prevention program, was
substantially less effective in reducing drug use among the children
who took the program than certain other approaches. If we are
serious about prevention, we must be willing to abandon programs
that don t work well, even if they are politically popular.
Quality medical care and drug abuse treatment must be easily
available for those who need it. Heroin addicts, crack addicts, the
mentally ill, the homeless, the uninsured, and everyone at risk of
catching or spreading contagious disease are the highest treatment
priority. This will help halt the transmission of disease, and
reduce the use of illegal drugs as pain killers for untreated
disease.
To stop the spread of blood borne disease among injecting drug
addicts, clean needles should be exchanged for used ones. This is
the recommendation of the National Commission on HIV and AIDS, and
top government scientists who have studied the issue. Distribution
of hypodermic syringes is a crime in eleven states which should be
repealed. Until 1965 (Griswold v. Connecticut), distribution of
condoms to any person was a crime in some states. Thirty-years ago
sale of condoms in supermarkets and convenience stores was
unthinkable. Now, for the widely accepted public health purpose of
fighting sexually transmitted disease, condoms are widely
distributed to the sexually active as one component of a public
health program. When we think about drugs and disease in less
judgmental terms, public health distribution of hypodermic syringes
to drug injectors will no longer be shocking.
Under appropriate controls and supervision, drugs must be made
available to addicts to reduce harms. Smoking tobacco is the most
dangerous means for ingesting nicotine. If Nicorette gum were
cheaper and more freely available many more smokers and snuff
dippers would be likely to quit. Cigarettes, after all, are only
crude, disposable nicotine ingestion devices -- of the most
dangerous kind. Nicotine is addicting but is not as dangerous as
the tars, particulates and gases in cigarette smoke. Heroin is
addicting but is not as dangerous as HIV, hepatitis, and the
adulterants added by criminals who distribute street drugs.
Heroin addicts who can t or won t quit should not be banished to
the underworld, nor put at risk of death from criminally
contaminated drug supplies. They ought to be able to get clean,
affordable opiates under medical and pharmaceutical supervision if
it will prevent them from spreading disease or committing crimes.
Incidentally, Dr. Alfred Blumstein, former president of the American
Society of Criminology, whose work on the crime-drug cycle is cited
in the Strategy, endorses this approach to certifiable addicts.
(Of course, the use of heroin by addicts must not violate the
principle of user accountability discussed below.)
In considering why some people use and abuse drugs, we must
address the causes and contributing factors. One major cause is
family violence and sexual abuse. Another co-factor with drug abuse
is teenage pregnancy. Public health and family-strengthening
programs to address those problems are key parts of an anti-drug
strategy. To further prevent addiction and overdoses, patients and
doctors need to know more about prescription drugs and their risks
and interactions.
3. Insist Upon Drug and Alcohol User Accountability and
Responsibility
People who hurt or endanger others must be held responsible for
their actions. Drug or alcohol use is not an excuse for criminal or
negligent conduct.
Protection of public safety (e.g. safety on the streets, of
travelers, medical patients, etc.): In critical safety situations
we should require performance tests to detect actual impairment by
drugs (legal and illegal), alcohol, exhaustion, etc. Following any
kind of accident, it is perfectly appropriate to immediately test
the blood of pilots, engineers, drivers, surgeons, etc. for evidence
of use of alcohol and drugs -- legal and illegal. This would be
appropriate not only for airplane, rail, maritime or motor vehicle
accidents, but also for medical accidents such as administering
medications improperly or making mistakes in surgery. Past use of
intoxicants identified by urine or hair tests is irrelevant to
public safety and drug user accountability.
We must encourage increased professional responsibility and peer
supervision of professions like medicine, airline piloting, etc. to
police against on-the-job recklessness such as alcohol or drug use.
Suspected misconduct that threatens public safety must be
investigated and prosecuted where criminal recklessness has occurred.
Criminal conduct: Drug or alcohol use is not an excuse for
criminal conduct such as robbery, theft, forgery, etc. All drug
addicted offenders and prisoners should get treatment. But in the
absence of actual harm or substantial risk of endangering others,
Americans should not be prosecuted or imprisoned as a means to get
treatment.
Convicted predatory criminals such as robbers, rapists,
assaulters, and burglars should be drug and alcohol-abstinent while
on probation and parole. This requires frequent and extensive
surprise drug and alcohol testing, and a system of consistent
sanctions for violations.
Drug and alcohol user licenses: Drug and alcohol use are
privileges, and should be subject to licenses which can be revoked
for misuse. Some states adopted alcohol use licenses after national
prohibition was repealed. Persons who use drugs or alcohol might be
required to get special liability insurance coverage. It should not
be presumed that persons over 21 are responsible alcohol or drug
users.
4. Insist upon vendor accountability and responsibility
Just like users, vendors of drugs and alcohol need to be held
responsible for their actions.
Violence, corruption, product adulteration, tax evasion, and
antitrust violations by drug, alcohol and tobacco sellers are crimes
and should be investigated and punished. Adulteration and
mislabeling of drugs and alcohol should also be subject to product
liability civil law remedies. Vendors must comply with reasonable
regulations and inspections, pay taxes, and resolve marketplace
conflicts through the law, not violence. These provisions are much
more easily investigated and enforced in a regulated environment
than under prohibition.
Convicted criminals can t be licensed to legally sell alcohol now
-- they shouldn't be allowed to sell other drugs after the repeal of
prohibition.
The prohibition against sales to minors of tobacco, alcohol and
other drugs must be enforced.
Sales to those who have been denied or deprived of their privilege
to use alcohol or drugs should be prohibited. Like alcohol dram-
shop laws, over-the-counter sales of drugs to those who are already
intoxicated should not be permitted.
Promotion of alcohol, tobacco and drug use should be severely
limited. Advertising that either targets kids or is placed in media
in which kids have legitimate interest in (e.g. professional and
amateur athletics, popular music, motion pictures, etc.) should be
disallowed.
5. Maximize the reach of law and respect for the law
Drug and alcohol buyers should be discouraged from patronizing
criminals. For example, growing one's own marijuana is today a
felony, and growers risk the forfeiture of their homes or land.
Every marijuana user today (between 9 and 20 million persons) either
becomes a felon or has to patronize criminals. Shouldn't home
cultivation for personal use be encouraged, even under prohibition?
We should be reducing the commercial opportunities of criminals, not
expanding them. Even under prohibition, decriminalizing home
marijuana cultivation would sharply reduce the tens of billions of
dollars in annual profits now funding organized crime.
Almost no police officers or revenue agents are killed or injured
enforcing the liquor laws. Marijuana, the most widely consumed
illegal drug, should be taxed and sold to adults with warning
messages -- but with prohibition of the promotion we suffer from
with tobacco and alcohol. Very few law enforcement officers will be
killed or injured enforcing a managed, regulated drug trade.