- 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 “We repealed prohibition once and we can do it again,” one of the group’s co-founders, Terry Nelson, told a Washington news conference on December 2.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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With the Swiss accepting a heroin maintenance program and several other European countries doing research along that vein(no pun intended)the North American continent stands virtually alone in it’s vigorous pursuit of a Utopian drug free world.Reality keeps getting in the way and so much money and even more lives will be lost before the moralistic and otherwise baseless prohibition of drugs is put to rest.Money is being made on both sides of the issue to the point where there are such powerful forces aligned against any altering of the status quot with only the taxpayer the loser.I’ve been using the Einstein quote for years as it so perfectly sums up the opposition to drug reform.
Excellent, excellent piece! Prohibition V2.0 is on its way out, whether it’s apparent or not. It’s a matter of the laws of economics. With our economy tanking, we CAN’T AFFORD to keep our counterproductive drug laws in effect forever. We can’t afford to continually imprison more people than ANY OTHER NATION ON EARTH!
As much as some people would like to keep the War on (some) Drugs going, and as much as I’m sure some would indeed pay any price to imprison people for what they see as “moral offenses,” it just CAN’T work!
Violent crime is violent crime, and drug addiction is a medical problem. The War on (some) Drugs is turning the US into a police state! I truly believe Americans are smarter than this - didn’t we learn ANYTHING from the first utter failure that was Prohibition?
Aren’t we done with that hoary old segment of society that refuses to acknowledge reality. Heck, I’m over 50, never been arrested, work full time (and am NOT in debt), yet I long for the day when it’s lawful that I could alternate alcohol with marijuana (to reduce the wear on my aging body and enhance the effect on my mind (so as to be better prepared to tolerate Congress).
I’m NOT joking! Religious folks, very older people..STEP ASIDE! I’m tired of you in my way.
The Washington DC Transit Police are pushing for random bag checks in the system. Tonight the chief said that if in searching for bombs, they found drugs, of course they’d arrest the holder. At any given time in the metro area, the number of bomb carriers is about zero, but the number of drug users is in the thousands. Guess who will actually be caught?
Three Points:
1. Of the 11.2% of Americans who believe the ‘War on Drugs’ is working, how many are directly or indirectly employed by the ‘War on Drugs’: law enforcement (local, state and federal); bureaucratic propagandists (like the cannabis warriors at the U.N. & the DEA/ONDCP); unqualified drug “counselors”; probation officers; judges; DRUG DEALERS OF ALL TYPES; rehabs and all the people they employ; DARE officers; urine/hair-testing companies; people who build/design/run prisons (architect/engineer firms; mega-contractors; wardens; prison administration; prison guards; etc…)?
2. According to another insightful Zogby Poll, 99-Percent of respondents said they WOULD NOT USE HARD DRUGS SUCH AS HEROIN AND COCAINE, IF THEY WERE LEGALIZED. It appears the chicken little scenario is more contrived fear-mongering.
3. Link to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP): http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
Mark ponders: Legalize all drugs? Even dangerous ones? Maybe, I dont know.
TO WHICH I reply in friendly fashion: In the United States of America in the year 2008, literally 99.99% of drugs are in fact LEGAL. Each are subject to one or more levels of federal, state and/or local regulation to protect both consumers and dealers.
Only a very short list of less than a dozen in-demand drugs have been deemed as worthy of diverting billions in US taxpayer dollars and valuable criminal justice resources into the futile and absurd effort to curtail their use.
Thanks for the astute denouncement of the utterly fruitless and counterproductive policy of 21st century Prohibition.
Readers with a sincere interest in helping increase mainstream media coverage of legitimate reform efforts are welcome to contact me at The Media Awareness Project website http://www.mapinc.org/resource
Let me start by saying im 30 years old and have NEVER even tried smoking pot. Not once. I have never smoked a ciggarette. Its not something i think i would enjoy. That being said i totally agree with whats been said here. The town im from has a serious issue with harrassing the hard working money earning people who try their very level best to just get by and earn an honest living. All the while theres an entire popultation of people who are trafficing and selling to kids among other things. They do not work simply because they dont have to. The governement gives them everything they need why should they work. All of their bills are paid their food is paid for and to top it all off they make a killing off of the hard working guy whos taxes pay his rent. Then on saturday night when the hard working guy decides he wants to smoke a joint he gets arrested and spend the weekend in jail. Monday morning the drug dealer gets out on a pr bond(no money just his word that he will not run) while the hard working guy gets a $1000 fine 2 years probation plus drug abuse classes that he has to foot the bill for at $50 a pop and thats just the first offense. GOD help him if he gets caught again. And why….because he will get up everyday and work the overtime to pay the fines and court costs. I heard a judge tell a drug dealer one day that there was no sense in fining him since he knew he wouldnt pay it.What kind of sense does this make??? I dont know but it sounds a little bit lopsided to me.
Excellent tour d’horizon on the War on Drugs. The fact that the former Land of the Free continues to push this war both at home and abroad shows that politicians continue to ignore logic, common sense, and compassion, and dance to Big Pharma’s siren song, much as they have been doing since the 1930s.
Legalisation and control will come, but only when casual tokers come out of the closet and demand it.
It is past time to dismantle the Prison/Industrial/Enforcement machine that benefits from this War on Humanity.
I’ve been following drug law reform for over 10 years now, and I am thrilled about the complete shift in the conversations about this horrible policy. People are beginning to learn what’s happening here, and I’m looking forward to the day when we get honest education about these harshly prohibited substances. Once people see how much is being wasted to fight drugs that are, for the most part, safer than alcohol, these laws will be as gone as the ones that demanded Blacks to drink from separate fountains. Imagine: No more drug dealers. It CAN happen, because drug dealers rely on drug prohibition.
The “war on drugs” is a crime against humanity dressed to look like Superman. The only reason it continues is because people are not speaking out about it enough. If you don’t like a program - ANY program, let your congress person know so that discussion and change will begin soon. That is a very real freedom so enjoy it!
Go HR 5842 - Reschedule that cannabis now!
I was busted last month in New Jersey. I stopped at a rest area on the Turnpike to take a leak and was ambushed by the police who got lucky and found a bag of weed. I am scheduled for court next week. It has cost me $2,000.00 in lawyer fees and I face 6 months in jail and $800.00 in fines. Plus the $300.00 bag of weed that will NOT show up in court as evidence. My lawyer says their excuse is that it goes to the lab for testing, but in reality the cops either keep the weed for themselves (hypocrites and theives) or resell it on the street (criminals).
Had I been busted just 10 miles further north in New York City, I would not have been cuffed, thrown into a jail cell and shackled to a pipe for 3 hours, finger printed and photographed. No, I would have been given a “traffic ticket” and a subsequent fine of $100.00. A 30 minute finagle at worst.
But even that is not acceptable. After 3 visits to Amsterdam, I know that they have it right. We should be following their EXACT example. Sell it in coffeeshops and limit sales to 5 grams per visit. Supply the best weed and hash in the world with no legal ramifications. Accurate counts are guaranteed. 100,000 jobs would be created overnight. Over $500 million a year would be injected into our recessed economy. Millions more would be saved on law enforcement and incarceration.
So why is pot still illegal??
It always boils down to the dollars. Law enforcement is raking in huge profits by arresting unthreatening people like me and collecting huge fines while getting free weed to smoke themselves. At the same time the “legal” drug industry profits even more because of alcohol and tobacco abuse as well as prescription drugs.
Having been through the system has made me VERY ANGRY and now I am doing something about it. I am now politically active in the efforts to legalise marijuana. I hope all of you will join me in contacting your legislators. tell them that the only matter of importance to you is the legalisation of marijuana and that if they do not support our position, you will vote for the other candidate. If the other candidate also refuses, then tell them both you just won’t vote and then BACK UP YOUR POSITION AT THE POLLS!!!!
Mike, The U.S.A. coerced the world into creating the U.N. drug laws. The USA can just as easily coerce the world to end or modify the UN drug laws. Most of the world only obeys the UN drug laws to any extent just because the US continues to coerce them by means of economic threats. The US is the problem.
Frank, ALCOHOL IS the most commonly used and abused drug in the United States. http://www.bookrags.com/research/product ivity-effects-of-alcohol-on-edaa-02/ It’s obvious you don’t know what you’re talking about when you compare alcohol to higher addictive drugs. Alcohol and tobacco are the most common, most deadly, debilitating and addictive drugs. Bar none. The U.S. Govt says Alcohol kills 150,000+ Americans yearly. Tobacco kills 450,000+ Americans yearly. All illegal drugs combined kill about 25,000 Americans yearly. Cannabis kill no one, ever. You say, “even if it were legal, we would hire no drug users”. Wrong, you certainly do employ drug users and the drugs they use are legal. Those drugs are alcohol and tobacco and they cause more of the problem you describe than all other drugs combined. If, as you say, 1/2 of your work force was on drugs and you’re blaming all these problem on drugs you’re wrong again. What you had was irresponsible hiring practices and you hired irresponsible people. Would you claim that any who has a couple of beers and some marlboros after the work day is over is abusing drugs? No. The average cannabis user is a resposible, successful person. They don’t abuse cannabis either. But, the drug users we do see are the irresponsible ones. Like skid row bums. Do skid row bums reflect the majority of alcohol users. No. The reality of the world we all live in is that almost all adults use some kind of drug. Even if it’s just caffeine. Yes, even caffieine kills 2000 Americans yearly (NIDA) and adversely effects people with heart of circulatory problems. Unfortunately, frank has blamed bad business practices and the worlds problems on drugs. But, drug prohibition itself does more harm to society than drug use does. That’s why our #2 most destructive drug (alcohol) is no longer prohibited. But, is sold to adults by licensed outlets. Oh yeah, why would you hire people locked into emotional childhood in the first place?
What a great article - the author absolutely nailed it! LEAP being on the scene is a sign of the times, a sign that the people are far, far ahead of the vast majority of politicians on this issue. We can fix that if enough of us contact our legislators and LEAP makes that very easy; just go to http://www.wecandoitagain.com
Articles like this give me hope for America. someday people will realize the sheer insanity of institutions like the D.E.A. and the peoples voice will be heard. let the truth ring out!
Legalizing marijuana is a much bigger step than just taking it off of the lawbooks.
The US signed onto the UN conventions for drug control. These UN conventions are international treaties.
As an international treaty, it is very special in the eyes of the US Constitution. Article 6 clearly, unambiguously, makes ratified international treaties as part of the US Constitution… “law of the land”, if you read it.
Now, keeping this in mind, the only way to legalize marijuana is to leave the treaty, leave the UN, or amend the constitution. None of these are likely going to happen, especially anytime soon.
We can have decriminalization, but according to the treaty, penalties ARE required.
Has anyone ever compared the death rate of “illegal” and prescription drugs compared to that of the legal drugs… nicotine and tobacco. I bet it would be very eye opening.
Anectdotal stories like Frank’s don’t carry much weight with me. It is just “hearsay” and could be from one of many other reasons. The American workforce, on whole, does not seem very reliable, now-a-days!
But, I could be wrong! When I ran a business, I treated my people right, chose my workforce form more reliable individuals, and had zero trouble with them.
We’ve had a war on poverty, drugs, and terror. We have managed to lose all three. Now that we know one can’t win a war against a noun, maybe we should consider directing our resources and energies into some more fruitful enterprises.
Regarding the insanity observation by Einstein, if memory serves I believe there have been more than 10 recessions since World War I. Most of them subsequent to the easing of investment regulatory measures. Karl Marx aptly observed unfettered capitalism’s propensity for moving through boom to bust cycles repeatedly. Yet we undo common sense regulation that were established to prevent poor business practices from becoming place again.
Legalize all drugs? Even dangerous ones? Maybe, I dont know. But I know we should legalize pot.
It is not dangerous. The test for whether a drug is dangerous is if you find yourself with a big pile of it (ie many doses) can you die by making a mistake.
If you compare the risk in having available to you for example; two ounces of grass, a 40 of vodka or several grams of coke (or H, or rock, meth or any number of prescription drugs etc), the hard drugs will kill you that very night if you make a dosage mistake and do too much.
The booze you will just vomit. The natural digestive escape valve. Very rare to die directly from alcohol consumption. You have to make a real effort. Efforts at mass pot smoking usually result in getting disracted.
Probably hard to die from coca leaf chewing or opium smoking. The ancient ways of getting buzz, things growing in your back yard or brewing in a jar have incorporated themselves into human society through time fairly safely.
Its when the men in the white lab coats turn it into white powder then it becomes dangerous.
I wish people would make that distinction.
It kills me I have to submit a bodily fluid or have my hair cut just to work in this country. Can you imagine our grandparents reaction if someone told them “We’d really like you to work here. Please pee in our cup?”.
Give me a break!
Only 11.2% of Americans believe the ‘War on Drugs’ is working (Sept 2008 Zogby Poll). But, asking Americans to legalize hard core drugs like meth, heroin or cocaine may be asking too much. On the other hand, 280,000+ people have responded to the TIME Poll, in which 87.3% favor the legalization of marijuana/cannabis. Many highly lauded studies have proven that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco and these drugs are legally sold to adults. Many other highly regarded studies call for a regulated market for cannabis sales, just like we have for alcohol and tobacco. Like these studies, most Americans have rightly concluded that cannabis prohibition itself is far more harmful to our society than cannabis use is. How does prohibtion keep our teens from getting hold of cannabis? It doesn’t. Our teens say they can easily get cannabis within one hour. They say it’s easier for them to get cannabis than alcohol or tobacco. Because, drug dealers will sell cannabis to anyone, regardless of age. While licensed merchants are compliant for age restrictions 90% of the time. A regulated market will remove the profit motive for criminals to sell cannabis. Only this will keep them from trafficking in cannabis. Americans know it’s time to leave behind the magical thinking that cannabis will one day be controlled by prohibition. Our government has abdicated from it’s responsibility to regulate cannabis and by default drug cartels have taken over it’s control. Cannabis use is commonplace, widespread and nothing is going to make it go away. The only question is who’s going to control it? we the people, or gangsters who don’t pay taxes and get more wealthy, corruptive and powerful everyday that prohibition remains in effect?