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DEA Statement
The three groups discussing legalization at Quantico touched on a number of significant issues. It was evident to the participants that the prolegalization arguments have remained fairly consistent over the years and that there are ten major claims that can be made in opposition of legalization.
The Facts
The participants have missed the point again. The arguments have changed over the last few years in particular, which is what brought them to Quantico in the first place.
DEA Statement
We have attempted to provide the ten simple, compelling claims to help you frame your arguments against legalization. The claims are backed up by facts, quotes and statistics. Periodically, these will need to be updated to ensure that the most current information is being used to craft arguments against legalization.
The Facts
In this booklet, the DEA puts its arguments on the line. When these ten claims are gone, it will have no more argument for continuing this drug war.
DEA Statement
The Facts
In this claim, the DEA does the first of its major distortions - the lumping together of all drugs into the same group. Different drugs have different effects and, for some drugs, there is clearly very little association with violence. Marijuana and tobacco are two examples of drugs with little reason to believe that they are connected to violence. The DEA does not mention hemp (marijuana) in this Claim so we must assume that they agree that this argument would not apply to hemp (marijuana) in any case.
Even if we accepted the DEA's arguments that drugs, and not prohibition, causes violence, the best way to reduce the crime and violence would be to reduce the drug use. There is no evidence that throwing people in prison is the most effective way to reduce drug use. All the evidence shows that treatment and education are more cost-effective.
DEA Statement
Proponents of legalization contend that if drugs were legalized, crime and violence would decrease. They believe that it is the illegal nature of drug production, trafficking and use that fuels crime and violence. They state that turf wars, gang activity and drugrelated crimes are the result of the illegal nature of the drug trade. Proponents state that users commit crimes to pay for drugs now because they cannot easily obtain them. If drugs were legal, they say, the enormous profits associated with drugs because of their illegal status would evaporate and, once gone, the black market and criminal activity associated with drugs would also be eliminated.
The Facts
If this was really the number one concern of the DEA then they should be advocating tough prison sentences against alcohol.
Psychoactive Substances and Violence, published by the Department of Justice, Series: Research in Brief, February 1994
The image of the insanely violent drug user has been a common argument for drug prohibition since the earliest days of the laws when the New York Times published front page articles about "Negro Cocaine Fiends, New Southern Menace", and quoted a sheriff saying, "Those cocaine niggers sure are hard to kill." (NY Times, February 17, 1914) It is an image which has been used to justify the cruelest kinds of responses to social problems, as shown by the sheriff's own words. It never did have any basis in fact.
The Department of Justice's own research clearly shows that the only real connection between illegal drugs and violence is the violence created by the fact that it is illegal. This is the same kind of violence that we saw with respect to alcohol Prohibition with the wars between rival alcohol distributors. It was during this period that the Thompson submachine gun became a symbol of gangs and Prohibition. All of that ended when Prohibition ended. Violent crime dropped 65 percent in the year Prohibition was repealed and it continued to drop every year thereafter until World War II. (Need citation from Ethan N. on this one.) We could expect similar results from the repeal of drug Prohibition.
DEA Statement
Participants in the AntiLegalization Forum, who are experts in crime and violence, disagreed strongly with the notion that crime and violence would be reduced if drugs were legalized. It is widely claimed by those advancing the case for legalization that crime is largely committed by drug traffickers protecting their turf. Sadly, it is the experience of many local police officers that crime is committed not only because people want to buy drugs, but more often because people use drugs. There is no denying the fact that drug use changes behavior and exacerbates criminal activity.
The Facts
The Department of Justice's own studies of the issue disagree. See the information presented above.
DEA Statement
The experts also believe that legalization will lead to increased availability of drugs, which will, in turn, lead to increased use. The use of drugs, especially cocaine, crack, methamphetamine, and PCP is often associated with violent criminal behavior. There is ample evidence which demonstrates the links between drugs, violence and crime, and the links between a currently legal substance--alcohol--and crime is well documented. Police can attest to the fact that alcohol plays a significant role in domestic violence cases. Drug use would only swell the statistics regarding crime, even if the drugs were legally purchased.
The Facts
The Department of Justice's own studies of the issue disagree.
DEA Statement
Legalization proponents ignore the fact that the people committing violent crimes are career criminals who will not stop their illegal activities once drugs are legalized; they will instead seek new sources of illicit revenue. Criminal activity would not be reduced as a result of drug legalization any more than gangster activity disappeared after the Repeal of Prohibition.
The Facts
This is the argument that if we "legalized" drugs then the criminals would just find another line of work. There is nothing else which offers the opportunity to get rich so easily. By comparison, all the other crimes are hard work.
The DEA says that criminal activity would not be "reduced" because gangster activity did not "disappear" after the repeal of Prohibition. Of course, anyone who has seen "The Untouchables" should know that gangster activity was significantly "reduced" after the repeal of Prohibition, even if it did not "disappear". Therefore, we could expect similar results again.
This is an interesting argument. We must keep drugs illegal because it gives work to criminals who might be doing something more dangerous if we did not. That is, having these people sell drugs is a good thing because it keeps them out of bigger trouble. Relatively speaking then, selling drugs is not so bad as other potential crimes so we should make sure they keep doing it.
Of course, then the question becomes: What would happen if we actually did stop the flow of drugs? Would we have to start manufacturing drugs and distributing them through these same criminals just to keep them from doing something worse in society?
According to this argument, we are better off if the drug war never does succeed.
DEA Statement
The group discussed the fallacy that legalizing drugs would eliminate the black market environment which seems to fuel the drug trade and its attendant violence. The existence of a black market is heavily dependent on the parameters set by the legalizers: which drugs would be legal, the potency level of drugs and the age at which legal drugs could be purchased. If drugs were legal for persons over 18, for example, drug traffickers would still target those 17 and younger; if only marijuana were legalized, drug traffickers would continue to traffic in heroin and cocaine.
The Facts
Who do the drug traffickers target now? What drugs do they traffic in now?
No sensible person pretends that any drug policy is going to solve all the problems related to drugs. That is clearly unrealistic. At the same time, there is no reason to undertake policies, such as we have now, which only make the situation worse.
Let's face it. The DEA never has had any effective control over the drug markets and they never will. By taking this approach the DEA has insured that only the outlaws will have control of drug sales and distribution.
DEA Statement
Some facts which help to confirm the observations of the forum participants may be used in debates:
· A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (7/6/94) reports that cocaine use is linked to high rates of homicide in New York City and that "homicide victims may have provoked violence through irritability, paranoid thinking or verbal and physical aggression which are known to be pharmacologic effects of cocaine."
The Facts
The DOJ's own studies, mentioned above, tell a different story.
What the DEA is alluding to here in the last part of this paragraph is the fact that people are more likely to be victims or homicide than to be perpetrators of homicide while under the influence of cocaine. The same statistic is true of alcohol. What it means is that people who get stoned on anything sometimes do stupid things, such as getting themselves killed. This is even more true of alcohol, but does not make a good reason to throw people in prison for drinking wine or beer.
DEA Statement
· An April, 1994 report titled "Violent Drug Related Crime" compiled by Drug and Crime Data Center and Clearinghouse indicates that drugs are used by many offenders committing crimes. In 1991, the following percentages of State prison inmates involved in violent offenses reported that they had used drugs at the time the offense was committed.
Violent Offenses: 28%
Homicide: 28%
Sexual Assault: 20%
Robbery: 38%
Assault 23%
The Facts
The Drug and Crime Data Center and Clearinghouse reports that they have no publication with this title. The Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics of 1992 lists the breakdown of drug use during commission of violent offenses. The figures shows that, with the exception of robbery, about 75 to 90 percent of all the reported drug use was use of alcohol, not illegal drugs. For robbery, the figures are roughly equal.
People who commit violent crimes are likely to have a lot of problems in their lives, including use of illegal drugs as well as higher rates of use of alcohol and tobacco. That doesn't necessarily mean that one problem is causally related to another.
Even if we assumed, as the DEA implies, that all of this was due to illegal drugs, they don't mention comparison data for the number of people who took whatever drug and did not commit a violent crime.
Even if we assumed the DEA is right, there is no evidence that the best way to control the problem is to put people in prison.
DEA Statement
· Data from the National Institute of Justice (US Department of Justice) Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program underscore the crimedrugs link. Of a sample of males arrested in 24 US cities in 1991, the percent testing positive for at least one drug in the DUF survey ranged from 36% in Omaha to 75% in San Diego. Among female arrestees, the percent testing positive for any drug ranged from 45% in San Antonio to 79% in Cleveland
The Facts
The data of the Drug Use Forecasting program is interesting but it does not underscore the crime-drugs link. The data are simply measures of the number of people arrested who had drugs in their system. There is no similar comparative data on people who were not arrested, or did not commit crimes.
It is also a long way from showing any causal relationship between drugs and crime except, perhaps, for the fact that people who are stupid enough to get severely drunk or stoned are prone to do stupid things. That would not make it a good idea to have drug prohibition any more than the fact that we arrest people who are drunk and disorderly makes it a good idea to have alcohol prohibition.
DEA Statement
· A May 1993 Bureau of Justice Statistics report states that "Drug use was common among inmates serving time for burglary, robbery or drug offenses. Among inmates serving a sentence for burglary or robbery, about 6 in 10 inmates had used drugs in the month before the arrest for the current offense, and about 4 in 10 were under the influence at the time of the offense."
The Facts
The number of inmates who used drugs in the month before the arrest is as irrelevant as the number who drank a beer during the month before the arrest.
It should be noted that being under the influence of drugs is a convenient excuse which seems to suit everybody involved in a criminal prosecution. The defendant can plead that he wasn't himself because he was out of his mind on drugs and thereby play on the court's sympathies for leniency. The prosecutors can point to another horrendous drug problem, which suits their interests as well.
DEA Statement
The same study indicates that female inmates were more likely than male inmates to have used drugs in the month before the offense (54% versus 50%) and to have been under the influence at the time of the offense (36% versus 31 %).
The Facts
How does this show that we ought to have a general program to imprison women who use drugs?
DEA Statement
Another finding of the study indicated that among 18-49 year old males, those who had used alcohol, cannabis and cocaine at some point during the past year were ten times more likely to commit a violent act (26.1 percent versus 2.7 percent) than those who used none of the above.
The Facts
The DEA conveniently ignores the fact that alcohol has the highest association with violence and that cannabis (hemp) has none.
The DEA contends that, because someone had a beer up to a year ago, they are potentially violent today.
There is no evidence of a causal relationship here at all. Even if there was, there is no evidence that prison would be the best way to control drug use.
DEA Statement
· Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D., president of a major New York City drug treatment center, Phoenix House, and chairman of the New York State Advisory Council on Substance Abuse, notes that one of the basic contentions of advocates of legalization is that drug users are essentially normal people. Actually, Dr. Rosenthal said in a speech in 1993, drugs undo the bounds that keep many seemingly normal people on an even keel. "The treatment community does not contend that society is at risk from the behavior of all drug abusers or even the great majority of them," he said. "The case for prohibition rests on the substantial number of abusers who cross the line from permissible self-destruction to become 'driven' people, who are 'out of control' and put others in danger of their risk taking, violence, abuse or HIV infection."
The Facts
The DEA argues that drug users are not "essentially normal people", even while they state that at least two-thirds of them are gainfully employed taxpayers.
As for undoing "the bounds that keep many seemingly normal people on an even keel" and all the other problems mentioned, these problems are equally true of alcohol. Yet they do not recommend that we bring back Prohibition of alcohol.
Again, the DEA attempts to lump all drugs together, as if they all had the same effects. General statements about "all" drugs are intentionally misleading.
DEA Statement
· The International Association of Chiefs of Police published a report in 1993 titled "Violent Crime in America." It states "Drug abuse and crime, both violent and nonviolent, are linked. National Crime Victimization surveys in 1989 and 1990 revealed over 2,000,000 crimes committed by offenders under the influence of drugs or alcohol...this represented 36% and 34% of total violent crime recorded by the surveys."
The Facts
The important phrase here is "drugs or alcohol". The table below shows that alcohol's association with violent crime is far greater than the association of all illegal drugs combined. The biggest problem is alcohol, and yet no one is suggesting that we have a war on booze.
Again, the DEA attempts to lump all drugs together as if they were all equally responsible for the problems. It is irresponsible and misleading to lump all drugs together, particularly in view of the large role that alcohol plays in the figures.
DEA Statement
· Bureau of Justice Statistics surveys indicate that "25% of convicted inmates in jails, 33% of state prisoners, and 40% of youths in stateoperated facilities admit being under the influence of an illegal drug at the time of their offense." (BJS, Drug and Crime Facts, 1992)
The Facts
One reason is that a large number of them are in jail for selling illegal drugs.
Again, it is misleading to lump all drugs together as if they were all equally responsible and to imply a causal relationship.
The more complete figures, in the table below, show a somewhat different picture.
DEA Statement
· Data from Bureau of Justice Statistics Surveys show that 77.7 percent of jail inmates, 79.6 percent of State prisoners, and 82.7 percent of youth in longterm public juvenile facilities had used drugs the
The Facts
One reason is that a large number of them are in jail for illegal drug offenses.
This what the DEA did not tell you.
Convicted jail inmates under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the current offense.
Percent of convicted jail inmates under the
influence of:
Most Serious (All Alcohol Both Total
Offense Illegal) Only
Drugs Only
Violent Offenses 8.8 30.7 16.1 56.6
Homicide 5.5 49.5 13.7 68.7
Sexual Assault 3.5 21.1 21.1 45.7
Robbery 17.7 18.1 17.3 53.1
Assault 4.5 44.3 9.8 58.7
Other violent 10.0 21.8 27.3 59.2
Property Offenses 18.2 17.9 12.8 48.9
Drug Offenses 28.6 7.3 12.3 48.2
Public-Order 6.4 54.1 9.6 70.1
Offenses
From: Sourcebook on Criminal Justice Statistics, 1992, Table 6.54, page 603.
DEA Statement
The Facts
The DEA's table of the effects of illegal drugs is a notable example of their failure to consider the whole picture. The table does not include any information on the effects of either alcohol or tobacco for comparison, even though these drugs are clearly the bigger problems in our society.
Some of the information in the table the DEA presented is, of course, patently wrong but, in the interest of brevity, we will forgo the detailed rebuttal of the information in this table.
DEA Statement
Short-Term Effects Duration of DEA View of Risk
Acute of
Drug Type Desired Other Effects Dependence
Heroin euphoria respiratory 3 to 6 physical - high
pain depression hours psychological -
reduction nausea high
drowsiness
·Cocaine excitement increased 1 to 2 physical
euphoria blood hours possible
increased pressure psychological
alertness, increased high
wakefulness respiratory
rate
nausea
cold sweats
twitching
headache
Crack cocaine same as same as about 5 same as cocaine
cocaine cocaine minutes
more rapid
high than
cocaine
Marijuana euphoria accelerated 2 to 4 physical unknown
relaxation heartbeat hours psychological
impairment of high
perception,
judgement,
fine motor
skills, and
memory
Amphetamines euphoria increased 2 to 4 physical
excitement blood hours possible
increased pressure psychological
alertness, increased high
wakefulness pulse rate
insomnia
loss of
appetite
LSD illusions and poor 8 to 12 physical none
hallucinations perception of hours psychological
time and unknown
excitement distance
euphoria acute
anxiety,
restlessness,
sleeplessness
sometimes
depression
The Drugs the DEA Did Not Include
Alcohol euphoria poor 2 to 4 physical - high
excitement perception of hours psychological -
relaxation time and high
distance
impairment of
perception,
judgement,
fine motor
skills, and
memory
respiratory
depression
nausea
drowsiness
headache
death from
overdose
Tobacco relaxation nausea 1 to 2 physical - high
headache hours psychological -
lung cancer high
throat cancer
Central
Nervous
System damage
death from
overdose
AN1142 Sources NIDA, ·Heroin, NIDA capsules, August 1986; DEA, Drugs of abuse, 1989, G R Gay, 'Clinical management
and chronic cocaine poisoning Concepts, components and configuration, Annals of emergency medicine,
11(10); 562572 as cited in NIDA, Dale D Chitwood, Patterns and consequences of cocaine use, in Coca,
America: Epidemiologic and clinical perspectives, Nicholas J Kozel and Edgar H Adams, eds, NIDA research
monograph 61, 1985; NIDA, James A Inciardi, Crackcocaine in Miami, in The epidemiology of cocaine u
abuse, Susan Schober and Charles Schade, eds, NIDA research monograph 110, 1991; and NIDA; ·ManjL
NIDA Capsules August 1986
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