- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -
Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. His definition fits America’s war on drugs, a multi-billion dollar, four-decade exercise in futility.
The war on drugs has helped turn the United States into the country with the world’s largest prison population. (Noteworthy statistic: The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population and around 25 percent of the world’s prisoners). Keen demand for illicit drugs in America, the world’s biggest market, helped spawn global criminal enterprises that use extreme violence in the pursuit of equally extreme profits.
Over the years, the war on drugs has spurred repeated calls from social scientists and economists (including three Nobel prize winners) to seriously rethink a strategy that ignores the laws of supply and demand.
Under the headline “The Failed War on Drugs,” Washington’s respected, middle-of-the-road Brookings Institution said in a November report that drug use had not declined significantly over the years and that “falling retail drug prices reflect the failure of efforts to reduce the supply of drugs.”
Cocaine production in South America stands at historic highs, the report noted.
Like other think tanks, Brookings stopped short of recommending a radical departure from past policies with a proven track record of failure such as spending billions on crop eradication in Latin America and Asia while allotting paltry sums in comparison to rehabilitating addicts.
Enter Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization started in 2002 by police officers, judges, narcotics agents, prison wardens and others with first-hand experience of implementing policies that echo the prohibition of alcohol. Prohibition, now widely regarded a dismal and costly failure of social engineering, came to an end 75 years ago this week.
As LEAP sees it, the best way to fight drug crime and violence is to legalize drugs and regulate them the same way alcohol and tobacco is now regulated. “We repealed prohibition once and we can do it again,” one of the group’s co-founders, Terry Nelson, told a Washington news conference on December 2. “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”
FROM AL CAPONE TO DRUG CARTELS
“In the 20s and 30s, we had Al Capone and his gangsters getting rich and shooting up our streets,” said Nelson, who spent a 32-year government career fighting drugs in the U.S. and Latin America. “Today we have criminal gangs, cartels, Taliban and al-Qaeda profiting from the prohibition of drug sales and wreaking havoc all over the world. The correlation is obvious.”
The before-and-after sequence is so obvious that the U.S. Congress passed a resolution in September noting that the 1933 repeal of alcohol prohibition had replaced a “dramatic increase” in organized crime with “a transparent and accountable system of distribution and sales” that generated billions of dollars in tax revenues and boosted the sick economy.
That’s where advocates of drug legalization want to go now, and some of them hope that the similarities between today’s deep economic crisis and the Great Depression will result in a more receptive audience for their pro-legalization arguments among lawmakers and government leaders.
The budgetary impact of legalizing drugs would be enormous, according to a study prepared to coincide with the 75th anniversary of prohibition’s end by Harvard economist Jeffrey A. Miron. He estimates that legalizing drugs would inject $76.8 billion a year into the U.S. economy — $44.1 billion through savings on law enforcement and at least $32.7 billion in tax revenues from regulated sales.
Miron published a similar study in 2005 looking only at the budgetary effect of legalizing marijuana, the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. That study was endorsed by more than 500 economists, including Nobel laureates Milton Friedman of Stanford University, George Akerlof of the University of California and Vernon Smith of George Mason University.
“We urge…the country to commence an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition,” the economists said in an open letter to President George W. Bush, congress, governors and state legislators. “At a minimum, this debate will force advocates of current policy to show that prohibition has benefits sufficient to justify the cost to taxpayers, foregone tax revenues and numerous ancillary consequences that result from marijuana prohibition.”
The advocates of current policy, led by outgoing President George W. Bush’s drug czar, John Walters, never took up the challenge to discuss cost-benefit equations. His Office of National Drug Control Policy has focused, with the single-minded determination of a moral crusader, on doing the same thing over and over again.
But the United States is not alone in pursuing drug strategies that are based more on wishful thinking than on sober analysis. If you put faith in declarations by the United Nations, a “drug-free world” is an attainable goal and the war on drugs all but over.
In 1998, a special session of the U.N. General Assembly forecast that the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy would be eliminated or significantly reduced by the year 2008, a deadline that also applied to “significant and measurable results in the field of demand reduction.”
The clock is ticking towards midnight, December 31, 2008.
— You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com. For more columns by Bernd Debusmann, click here. —
Want to debate? Send in your written submissions to debate@thomsonreuters.com.
Why should pot be illegal? Because the only companies poised to grow, package and sell it are the tobacco companies. Look at how they bastardized tobacco by adding so many additives and chemicals that American cigarettes have been banned in many countries. If Marlboro is allowed to sell joints we will end up with marijuana that is addictive and cancerous.
I'll take mine home-grown, thank you.
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Street drugs? or just ripped off from those who get them from a doctor.If the jails are not full alot of people will be out of work Yes the system is broke but more drugs AN`t the way to go!.
My perspective comes from living next to an international border and where drug violence is now becoming an open war. Our neighbor, the city of Nogales Sonora, has had running gun battles with grenades and automatic rifles and innocents are dying in the streets. The state department has put out a warning about an area that I have visited and loved for decades. Living here all my life I am heart broken over what has happened to our beautiful border with Mexico. Immigrant problems can be solved with proper job fairs and documents. The drug war on the border will be stopped only with legalization. As to the dangers of drug use, as a nurse I say regulating and taxing the drugs will do more to decrease adverse effects than keeping drugs in the dark and criminalized. All substances ingested can do harm from alcohol to prescription drugs and we will never be a perfect society but hiding the problem under a rug is not the answer.
Legalizing drugs doesn’t make sense for reasons that all the legalizers can’t seem to grasp. For the most part, they LOVE to point to alcohol prohibition, but NEVER look at the MANY parallels to narcotics that do not support their position. I’m not saying the war on drugs is working well, but here is why you don’t want to try the “legalize it” route.
1. Argument: legalizing drugs will take the profit out of it, the associated crime will go away. Yeah right – like the dealers and makers are going to get a real job once it’s legalized. They’ll hit a liquor store – or your house for money, or get involved in some other nefarious activity that will be next on the “legalize it” list. What happened to those running booze in the 20’s after prohibition was lifted? They just dug deeper into other crimes. Any improvements to organized crime (I think it is better now than in the “good ol days”) came from busting the crime rings – not legalizing everything to “take the profit out of it”. You like to look at alcohol comparisons – then start looking at the whole experience with it.
2. Comparing alcohol to hard drugs is dangerously stupid. Approximately 10% of the population is genetically predisposed to becoming addicted to alcohol. Everyone is predisposed to becoming addicted to narcotics. It’s comparing a water pistol to a handgun. Besides – dig into your history just a bit more instead of being selective again. Narcotics were legal in the US at the turn of the century (cocaine in the coke as an example) and the results were disastrous. Addiction was rampant. Look it up. What about other countries that have allowed hard drugs? I don’t think it is a smashing success.
3. Arguments about addicts feeling free from a stigma for treatment are baseless and ridiculous. Where is the study or even the logic to support this? Alcohol is legal and there is still a “stigma” with being an alcoholic. Alcoholics notoriously resist treatment – and booze is legal.
4. Addressing concerns about increased addiction with a reassurance like “not necessarily” doesn’t cut it - talk about glossing over a major concern. Where is the information on this? Has alcohol addiction improved over the years since prohibition was lifted? Again – alcohol is kids stuff compared to narcotics too.
5. The toll on society from legal drugs (family destruction – now this is my turn to make a free assertion) will outweigh the cost for fighting drugs and the associated crime. I’m all for getting somebody treatment instead of jail at first, but it cannot become a joke system. And we can’t embrace “treatment” and at the same time make changes that will create more addicts.
6. How do you know that there still won’t be drugs illegally made and sold – a black market to get around the government’s involvement, taxes and such? I think we have this with (yes, let’s again look at the alcohol parallel). We have “moonshiners” making dangerous stuff while it is legal. Cigarettes – you name it. Knock off products……there will still be an illegal black market that will be crime ridden and trouble – especially for something that is addicting.
The theme is pretty simple – look at alcohol and honestly assess its history and situation and none of the legalize arguments make much sense at all. All the parallels actually indicate it is a very bad idea. It’s a simple sounding seductive one, but wrong so many ways it’s not funny.
I’m all for the legalization and regulations of the drugs in question. Not just marajuana, but the majority of the illicit drugs.
Why?
Fairly simple: Money.
As of now, the cost of the drugs on the street is absurdly high. This is due to two reasons:
1) The dealers and Producers can charge that much
2) The game is high loss, so the profits have to be just as high to guarantee income, despite the losses suffered.
Most drugs are actually not difficult to produce, Marajuana is no harder to produce than tobacco, and in fact, is easier, as the plants can be heartier.
By legalizing it, you’re going to:
1) No risk production and shipment.
2) Standardize pricing for a product, leveling the field, and cutting heavily into the profits of the cartels.
3) Taxes and Sales in the US go to legitimate companies.
4) Useless money spent on enforcing laws regarding these can be funneled elsewhere.
Where’s the downside?
“war on drugs has helped turn the United States into the country with the world’s largest prison population”
Wrong, people are choosing to break the law and use illegal drugs, hence they add to the prison population. The law is pretty clear, use certain drugs and you go to jail. The laws and the ‘war on drugs’ has nothing to do with people choosing to use drugs and break to law. Look at Japan and the Middle East, they have some of the harshest drug laws in the world, yet Japan for one has one of the lowest criminal populations in the world as well.
Wishful thinking, using the economic argument won’t work and using the rational adult argument is even more ridiculous. The main reason these drugs will never be legalized is for the simple reason that they can be grown in your back yard…maybe not your average cocoa operation but nor far away in some remote area of south america. The same as boot legging liquor has never gone away and is still a very profitable business. Have you noticed that the drug companies are not campaigning for legalization? Because they can’t make money from the vast majority of “natural” drugs. Duh! Asking the feds to legalize these “classes” of drugs simply won’t happen. As someone who has abused them in various forms for many years since adolescence that now understands the reasons why? I have been sober for several years now and would not recommend using any grug legal or not…they are all recreational, except for treatment specific ailments related to a medical condition. They are all used for escape and delusion. People need to learn how to cope without the insanity of any of this stuff. Americans need too accept reality and life on lifes terms and stop with this ridiculous argument of legalization…..I guess frying yourself will still be perilous to your freedom as well as your development into adulthood. Tough medicine but true.
The US government should be very careful about simply “legalizing” marijuana or other drugs. The favored approach is to REGULATE marijuana production and sale. That takes the control away from gangs and street dealers and puts it in the hands of our government.
Prohibition has failed. We all agree on that.
Legalize marijuana? Are you out of your mind? My brother lives in San Francisco (America’s Amsterdam) and grows pot for a living. If it is legalized, everyone will get into the business, thus driving the prices down. My brother will go out of business and then have to come live with me. For my sake, just say NO, NO, NO.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that Amsterdam has so much trouble and leave it at that. Pressures from the United States make it difficult for any country to go against the grain. Without an industry to support the laws there, how can anyone expect anything to change.
The medical cost would be 100 times more than what you could collect on taxes. A premature birth cost around $600,000 not to mention downs, adhd, and every thing else drug use causes on the children of users…..THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN NOT YOUR POCKETS…
How about making all drugs legal and then, to not condone the use, put half of that estimated $76.8 billion into rehabilitation programs the rest into something else (not schools, maybe the Federal deficit)?
I am glad that everyone is ignoring Jan C. It is this kind of illogical thought process that just give me the willies.
I am also glad that the vast majority of the commentary here is in favor of legalizing MJ.
As for the one comment on not using the Netherlands as an example…You are absolutely correct. the Netherlands made a fatal mistake. They left the laws on the books and just pretended to ignore them. This still made the Cafe shoppe suppliers criminals and as criminals move in so does all that side criminal activity.
Don’t make the mistake the Netherlands made. LEGALIZE Marijuana. Remove the criminal element from the entire future industry.
Dear Sir:
Thank you for this overdue article. It gives us medical
marijuana users hope when we see articles of this nature
on a site like reuters.
Just a quick thanks for your succinct and relevant article, “Einstein, insanity and the war on drugs.” Very much appreciated. My father was in law enforcement for 26 years in Dade County (Miami, Florida), and until his post-retirement death in 1980, repeated the same points you made in your article to anyone who would listen. We’ve made no progress since then, which is especially frustrating because almost everyone I talk with, including law enforcement officers, feels the same way you do (and my father did). I wonder why no one in federal and state government is listening — or doing the social arithmetic? It’s a no-brainer.
Susan
Alachua, FL
USA
If criminal enterprises are willing to risk life and limb to sell drugs illegally, what makes anyone think they won’t risk life and limb to avoid paying taxes on drugs and continue to sell them illegally?
OK…Go after the cartels and gangs militarily. Treat all of the drugs differently, according to the individual public danger. Internally, marijuana should have the same status as alcohol, but legalize narcotics in a more controlled fashion. License opiate users to receive the drugs at low cost from government stores provided they are employed in a public service job, like street cleaning, nursing home aides, industrial tank cleaning, beach cleanup, road maintenance, ditch digging, etc. Just don’t let them drive or operate machinery. They can be the broom, mop and shovel operators for the new era. If they can support themselves with honest work and get the dope cheap, maybe they’ll stop being such a nusiance. They would end up being a sort of voluntary underclass, or doper-caste. Keep the coke and meth illegal. They cause too many behavioral problems to be permitted. Close down the private prisons, and give all political prisoners legal trials. There. All fixed.
Why can’t we have Fairtrade drugs. Wouldn’t this solve many problems simultaneously. New prosperity for Afghanistan and Columbia and Africa!
Many like to site Amsterdam as a good example of regulating and taxing soft drugs as an alternative to criminalizing.
Unfortunately, the results have been strikingly similar to our war on drugs. Criminal activity controls the trade. Organized gangs are profiting from the trade and are more than willing to use violence to protect their turf.
Perhaps someone should dust off a copy of “Consumer’s Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs.” Something to ask the politicians: as an aging constituent what would you prefer? An opium pill that works, costs .15 cents a tab and comes with few side effects or some pharmaceutical concoction that may work, costs $15 a tab and comes with a retinue of side effects. Could kickstart the Afghan economy to boot.
Politics is about attaining and maintaining office, not the application of logic, or Occam’s Razor, or the good of “the public”, nation or world. As long as imbeciles are permitted to vote, a great portion of US policies will continue to be imbecilic… and tend toward producing more imbeciles, if I’m applying the aforementioned Razor properly.