Contents
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| Between Politics and Reason ©1997 by St. Martin's Press appears in The Schaffer Library at the request of the author. ISBN 0-312-13297-2 Please Use This Link to order from Amazon.com |
Foreword
Preface
About the Author
1. Introduction
Unanticipated Consequences
Ideology and Morality
Drug Laws: An Introduction
Definitions: What Is a Drug?
Legalism
Psychoactivity
2. Drug Use in America: An Overview
Studying Drug Use
Alcohol
Tobacco
Prescription Drugs
Continuance Rates
Illegal Drugs
3. Drug Abuse: Definitions, Indicators, and Causes
The Legalistic Definition of Drug Abuse
A Harm-Based Definition of Drug Abuse
DAWN
Tobacco
Alcohol
Is Dependence Always Abuse?
Conclusions on Abuse
Why Drug Abuse?
4. Prohibition: The Punitive Model
Two Punitive Arguments
Drug Control: The Current System
Summary of the Current System
Are We Becoming Increasingly Punitive on Drug Control?
5. Strange Bedfellows: Ideology, Politics, and the Drug Legalization Debate
Cultural Conservatives
Free-Market Libertarians
Radical Constructionists
Progressive Legalizers
Progressive Prohibitionists
Summary
6. Legalization and Decriminalization: An Overview
Generalism versus Specifism: An Introduction
Generalism
Specifism
Four Legalization Proposals: An Introduction
Legalization
Decriminalization
Partial Decriminalization
Prescription and Maintenance Models
Harm Reduction
Why Criminalization Can't Work
7. Business as Usual?
Stamping Out Drugs at Their Source?
Push Down/Pop Up
The Logistics of Eradicating Drugs at Their Source
The Drug Trade as an Employer
Drug Production as a Violent Enterprise
Smuggling: Intercepting Drugs at the Border
Arresting at the Dealer Level
8. Will Drug Use/Abuse Rise under Legalization?
Prohibition
Legalization and Use: Two Issues
Worst-Case Scenario
Human Nature
Using Drugs, Drug Effects
Frequencies of Use
Continuance Rates
9. Drugs and Crime
Drug Crimes
The Drug Use—Property Crime Connection: Three Models
Drugs and Violence: Three Models
The Drugs-Crime Connection Generally
Violence, Dealing, and Organized Crime
Summary
10. Alcohol and Tobacco: The Real Dangerous Drugs?
Apples and Oranges
Extent and Frequency of Use
Years of Life Lost
Primary versus Secondary Harm
The Scorecard
Controls on Alcohol and Tobacco
11. Summary and Conclusions
Appendix: A Brief Guide to Drug Effects
Stimulants
Depressants
Narcotics
Hallucinogens
Marijuana
References
Foreword
As we move toward the close of the twentieth century, we confront a seemingly endless array of pressing social issues: crime, urban decay, inequality, ecological threats, rampant consumerism, war, AIDS, inadequate health care, national and personal debt, and many more. Although such problems are regularly dealt with in newspapers, magazines, and trade books and on radio and television, such popular treatment has severe limitations. By examining these issues systematically through the lens of sociology, we can gain greater insight into them and be better able to deal with them. It is to this end that St. Martin's Press has created this series on contemporary social issues.Each book in the series casts a new and distinctive light on a familiar social issue, while challenging the conventional view, which may obscure as much as it clarifies. Phenomena that seem disparate and unrelated are shown to have many commonalities and to reflect a major, but largely unrecognized, trend within the larger society. Or a systematic comparative investigation demonstrates the existence of social causes or consequences that are overlooked by other types of analysis. In uncovering such realities the books in this series are much more than intellectual exercises; they have powerful practical implications for our lives and for the structure of society.
At another level, this series fills a void in book publishing. There is certainly no shortage of academic titles, but those books tend to be introductory texts for undergraduates or advanced monographs for professional scholars. Missing are broadly accessible, issue-oriented books appropriate for all students (and for general readers). The books in this series occupy that niche somewhere between popular trade books and monographs. Like trade books, they deal with important and interesting social issues, are well written, and are as jargon free as possible. However, they are more rigorous than trade books in meeting academic standards for writing and research. Although they are not textbooks, they often explore topics covered in basic textbooks and therefore are easily integrated into the curriculum of sociology and other disciplines.
Each of the books in the St. Martin's series "Contemporary Social Issues" is a new and distinctive piece of work. I believe that students, serious general readers, and professors will all find the books to be informative, interesting, thought provoking, and exciting.
George Ritzer
Preface
First, there were the atrocity tales. Federal agents assault the San Diego home of Donald Carlson, a 45-year-old executive for a Fortune 500 computer company, using "flash-bang" grenades and automatic weapons; Carlson is hit three times and winds up in a hospital in critical condition. He was not a drug dealer, of course, but a completely innocent victim. His name was supplied to the police almost at random by a police informant seeking leniency for his arrest (Levine, 1996). The name of a parking lot attendant, Miguel, is given to the Drug Enforcement Administration by Tony, an often-arrested drug dealer. Together with federal agents, Tony entraps his friend in a bogus operation that literally involves the exchange of no drugs—indeed, not even any mention of drugs. The dealer walks away scott-free, with $300,000 for his troubles, while Miguel is arrested, ultimately managing to plea-bargain his way down to a four-year prison sentence (Levine, 1996). A 13-member SWAT team breaks down the door of the domicile of a 75year-old retired Methodist minister, Accelyne Williams, who is chased around the apartment and handcuffed. Rev. Williams suffers a heart attack and dies. It turns out the police had the wrong address (Anonymous, 1996). Kemba Smith, a college student, becomes romantically involved with a drug dealer; she is sucked into some of his operations. Today, Kemba sits in the Federal Corrections Institution for Women in Danbury, Conn., serving out a 24-year sentence; ineligible for parole, she will not breathe the air of freedom until 2016, five presidential elections from her sentencing (Stuart, 1996).Taken by themselves, these tales are frightening enough. But then there are the statistics, the overall picture. In 1970, there were roughly 200,000 prisoners behind bars in the United States; today, there are over a million, with another half a million in local and county jails. In 1950, 30 percent of all inmates in the United States were Black; in 1970, it was 40 percent. Today, it is a majority, over 50 percent, and growing. Between 1980 and the mid-199Os, the number of new commitments per year to state prisons on drug violations jumped well over 10 times—over 1,000 percent—from 8,800 to more than 100,000. In contrast, the increase for violent offenses during that period was only a shade over 50 percent. Today, there are more inmates incarcerated in state prisons for drug violations than for violent offenses. In 1980, drug violators made up 25 percent of all federal prisons; today, it is a clear majority, over 60 percent. A federally mandated sentence for the possession of 500 grams of powdered cocaine is five years imprisonment; possessing only five grams of crack draws the same five-year sentence. In federal court, while only 27 percent of powdered cocaine defendants are Black, 88 percent of crack cocaine defendants are African-American (Lindesmith Center, 1996).
Since 1981, with the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the United States has been waging a "War on Drugs." In many ways, this war has been harmful. One of its by-products has been the call for an end to the war. The issue has been hotly debated for more than a decade and a half, since this war was launched. Emphatic, righteous voices have chimed in on both sides. Today, what was regarded as an almost "unspeakable" proposal, the legalization of the currently illegal drugs, is seriously advanced in major newspapers and magazines across the country by serious, credible figures. Are we now facing a "new crisis of legitimacy" in the criminal justice system, brought on by a growing public awareness of penal institutions that are almost literally bursting at the seams with new prisoners and of a criminal justice system that administers grotesquely racially biased sentences (Duster, 1995)? Do these new and troubling developments cry out for drug legalization? Many observers believe so.
This small book will attempt to answer such questions. In investigating the drug legalization issue, I remain convinced of several basic propositions. For starters, yes, the current war on drugs has been harmful; yes, changes need to be made. To determine a wise and sane drug policy, we need relevant evidence, facts, information. But ultimately, our decision as to what works best will be based mainly on ideological, not factual, issues. Facts are relevant here; they certainly rule out manifestly loony proposals. But at bottom, we'll choose one over another because it is more likely to yield the results we like. Even if we all were to agree on what the facts are, we won't agree on weighing certain values over others. Thus, investigating questions of value and ideology are central in any consideration of drug legalization.
In the end, I am forced to remain a staunch proponent of a harm reduction policy. While the current system desperately needs fixing, I strongly believe that outright legalization would be a catastrophe. (In any case, there is quite literally no chance of implementing such a proposal any time soon; at the present time, discussing it remains little more than an interesting intellectual exercise.) Moreover, as I explain, different observers mean very different things when they use the term "legalization." Some imagine that the Netherlands, or the United Kingdom (or Canada, I have been told, or Sweden!), pursues a policy of legalization. Far from it! Hence, I've found it necessary to spell out just what different observers mean when they so glibly discuss what they imagine to be "legalization." I heartily endorse some of their proposals; some others would produce results that even those who propose them would have to agree are worse than our current conditions. Still, let's be clear on this: Many observers on both sides of the debate use the issue of harm versus harm reduction as window dressing. For them, the main issue is the triumph of one ideology or worldview over another. The victims be damned! In the face of such arguments, I cannot help but be a staunch pragmatist and utilitarian.
Let us explore, then, you and I, the world of drugs and drug use, drug abuse and drug control, drug criminalization and drug legalization, to determine what we should do about these pressing, disturbing issues. The answers are far from obvious, despite what many combatants in this debate claim; all too often, they attribute their opponents' views to stupidity or villainy. In my view, the issues are complex and are filled with painful dilemmas. We are inevitably forced to accept the least bad of an array of very bad options, a single mix of results that range from poisonous to somewhat less poisonous. And those of us who do nothing will be forced, willy-nilly, to take a stand one way or another, since, if we do nothing, someone else will do it for us. We need to be armed with facts, a clarity of vision, a logical frame of mind, courage, and an awareness of how these issues fit in with the big picture. I hope that this book provides some of these things, and enables the reader to draw his or her own conclusions concerning some of the more urgent questions of our day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have adapted a very few sentences, paragraphs, and pages from the fourth edition of my book Drugs in American Society (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993); they are sprinkled throughout this volume. Permission to use this material is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank a number of friends and colleagues who have helped me in one way or another in writing this book: Ethan Nadelmann, Barbara Weinstein, Josephine Cannizzo, William J. Goode, and Nachman Ben-Yehuda. The idea for the book was more George Ritzer's than my own. Scholars and researchers too numerous to mention shared necessary information with me. My students asked many questions that clarified my thinking about key issues. Perhaps most of all, I'm grateful to work in an area that offers interesting issues, lively debates, and intelligent researchers and authors. I would also like to thank the reviewers who offered constructive suggestions for the final draft of the manuscript: John F. Galliher, University of Missouri, Columbia; Marvin Krohn, State University of New York, Albany; and Peter J. Venturelli, Valparaiso University.