War on Drugs: Apparently, we've got money to burn.
Last Thursday, the AP ran a ground-breaking piece of investigative journalism. It spelled out how U.S. taxpayers have financed a $1 trillion "War on Drugs" that, 40 years after its launch, has failed to meet any of its declared goals.
That's putting it mildly. While the favored "drug du jour" varies over time, overall illicit drug use in America, by and large, has remained steady at the same time arrests of drug users have skyrocketed. Drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available than ever. Meanwhile, the U.S. is suffering a crisis of mass incarceration fueled most significantly by the War on Drugs. The racially-skewed way in which the war is waged has devastated our communities of color, as described so well in recently-published books by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Butler and Michelle Alexander, former director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California. And while the U.S. continues to throw money at ineffective supply-side interdiction strategies, international cartels have set up shop in our own national parks, and Mexico bleeds.
Could it be that D.C. finally gets it? "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified." Those are the words of Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Apparently not. The rhetoric still sounds good, just like it did a year ago in Director Kerlikowske's first interview as the new "drug czar":
WSJ: One of the programs you support strongly is "Fight Crime: Invest in Kids." How would you take those crime-prevention efforts and use them at ONDCP?
GK: ... I would take that model, which I believe has been unbelievably successful and tell my colleagues they should advocate strongly for treatment and rehabilitation.
WSJ: Why do you see the drug problem as a public-health issue?
GK: ... I think we moved, not as much from an administrative standpoint but a collective-wisdom standpoint. We moved from 'it's a police problem' or 'a criminal justice problem' to 'it's a criminal justice, public health and social policy problem' to 'it's a public-health problem.' ...
Really? Why, then, does the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy released last week still allocate 64% of federal drug control dollars to "supply reduction" law enforcement strategies and only 36% to "demand reduction" strategies like treatment and prevention? Adding insult to injury, ONDCP altered its accounting methods in 2003 to omit the cost of warehousing drug offenders in federal prisons, counting only the costs of programs provided to the inmates. As explained by Peter Reuter, who founded the RAND Corporation's Drug Policy Research Center:
The major difference between the [pre- and post-2003] budgets is the exclusion of almost all costs associated with the incarceration of federal drug prisoners and the exclusion of most prosecutorial expenditures. These amounted to about $4.5 billion, according to estimates by John Carnevale, former ONDCP budget director. The only Bureau of Prison expenditures that are included in the new budget are those that try to lower drug abuse among prisoners. Thus, the Bureau appears, by function, only as a treatment agency.
The bitter irony is that the man who declared the War on Drugs in 1971 has proven to be the only President since who seems to have grasped that prisons are not treatment agencies. In his book The Fix: Under the Nixon Administration, America Had an Effective Drug Policy. WE SHOULD RESTORE IT. (Nixon Was Right), Michael Massing describes how Nixon established a national treatment program that worked. His initial goal was to end the D.C. crime wave attributed to heroin addicts, and his motivation was purely political: he wanted the nation's capitol cleaned up before his election. What got the job done? Spending money on demand reduction. Under Nixon, 67% of the national drug control budget was dedicated to demand reduction strategies like treatment and prevention, and only 33% percent to supply reduction, policing strategies.
It's almost as if Nixon understood that the people struggling with addiction are the real soldiers in the War on Drugs. Treating them like criminals hasn't produced results - and it's cruel. Cruel to them, cruel to their families, and cruel to the communities to which they return with an untreated addiction and a criminal record that limits their prospects. Maybe if we shifted resources from locking people up to less expensive and more effective strategies like public education, wraparound services for at-risk families, adequate mental health services, job training, and treatment on demand, we'd see a better return on our investment.
That’s an idea the ACLU of Washington is exploring in coalition with The Defender Association’s Racial Disparity Project. Called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, this “pre-booking diversion” program redirects low-level drug offenders from jail to services. A LEAD proposal in development for the Belltown and Skyway communities of Seattle and King County has policymakers at the table with community public safety leaders and advocates for drug law reform. The goal is not simply to improve individual outcomes in the lives of addicts but also to improve the public safety picture in the targeted communities – in a way that is less expensive and more effective than increasing incarceration rates and building more jails.
Or, we could waste another 40 years, another $1 trillion, and another couple of generations. Your call.
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I'm no economic genius but
I'm no economic genius but wouldn't another 40 years be a lot more than $1 trillion? Not just due to inflation, but due to the fact we have to borrow it with interest.
Great going picking Drupal to host your website!
http://ChristiansAgainstProhibition.org
Lets not forget Jimmy Carter
The really sad part, Nixon, the man who declared the War on Drugs in 1971 as proven to be the only President since who seems to have grasped that prisons are not treatment agencies.
I would think Jimmy Carter realized this as well.
Great article nonetheless.
WAR ON DRUGS
WE NEED TO START A WAR ON POLITICIANS ,DONT NEED THEIR BS ANYMORE. ALL THEY DO IS WASTE OUR HARD EARN MONEY ON A WAR ON DRUGS CMON TIME FOR A WAR ON POLITICIANS AND WETBACKS! WE NEED TO RECALL THESE PEOPLE AND HANGEM HIGH LIKE SADDAM
Nonsense about Nixon
The Nixon Administration wrote the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Michael Sonnenreich was a principle drafter of this and co-wrote something about the legislative background published in a volume of the technical papers for the Second Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse (Drug Abuse In America: Problem In Perspective).
Nixon was far more concerned about his and the public's fear of a flood of herion addicted GIs returning from Vietnam and becoming combat experienced junkies desperately needing to raise the money to feed their habits at American Prohibition prices than he was concerned about crime in DC. He was also concerned about getting the support of some powerful Senators who strongly wanted a treatment component of federal drug law. The Executive Branch was able to draft the legislation and have some friendly Senators introduce it but after that the bill's fate was largely in the hands of the Legislative Branch.
Nixon saw federal drug laws as a way for a federal politician to appeal to "law and order" votes. As the Watergate Tapes document he also saw them as a way to harass and arrest political opponents, anti-war protesters, hippies and other undesireables.
Nixon created the DEA by Executive Order at a time when the BNDD was apparently making a genuine attempt to get rid of corrupt agents from predecessor agencies and the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse in it's Second Report was recommending creation of a temporary Single Agency with staff drawn from other agencies they would return to after a 5 year Sunset Clause eliminated the Single Agency. This recommendation was intended to reduce the danger of institutionalizing the growing drug abuse-industrial complex and a federal agency dependent on drug prohibition for its existence and ability to expand its budget and power. The Commission also recommended creation of an Independent Commission to study what worked and what didn't work during the final year of the proposed Single Agency.
Things have gotten much worse since Nixon. That's very different than Nixon being right or having an effective drug policy (whatever that is supposed to mean in this context).
Drug use, per se, is neither a "police problem" or a "health problem". It is an exercise of personal choice. The ACLU generally understands religious activity, per se, is not a "police problem" or a "health problem" but a personal choice. Both matters have aspects that can genuinely be police or health problems but neither is inherently either of these problems and the ACLU needs to understand this.
The War On Drugs (aka Creed of Substance Abuse) has paved the way for many of the major issues the ACLU has been addressing in the past decade. Please recognize the connection. The ACLU is in my will because of the important work it does but it certainly isn't in my will because of it's lily-livered over-all position on drugs and civil liberties. The ACLU-WA's flawed analysis of Sensible Washington's Initiative 1068 and possibly malicious public announcement of non-support has been another slap in the face that has caused to consider whether ACLU should be in my will or that money should go elsewhere. It's still in my will but this talk of Nixon being right and having an effective drug policy is raising doubts again and the quoted sentences below are likely to be the tipping point.
"That’s an idea the ACLU of Washington is exploring in coalition with The Defender Association’s Racial Disparity Project. Called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, this 'pre-booking diversion' program redirects low-level drug offenders from jail to services. A LEAD proposal in development for the Belltown and Skyway communities of Seattle and King County has policymakers at the table with community public safety leaders and advocates for drug law reform." This is something I was unaware until seeing the ACLU-WA page today. From jail to services. How long until from services to chattel slavery? I think I see a vacancy in my will opening up for StopTheDrugWar.org (DRCNet).
Nonsense About Nixon post script
In Nonsense About Nixon, "From jail to services. How long until from services to chattel slavery?" did not make my point accurately since chattel slaves require feeding, housing and other maintenance expenses while this "pre-booking diversion program" is apparently intended to reduce those sort of incarceration expenses and introduce a very selective form of civilian conscription without the maintenance expenses of incarceration.
In the same year the CSA was enacted Gene Wolfe's SF short story "How the Whip Came Back" was published. In "How the Whip Came Back" nations are struggling to support the cost of an increasing prison population as the US and its states have been since the 1970s. Every prisoner increases the financial cost to government and taxpayers. In real life as in the story this is money the government(s) don't want to spend on the cost of incarceration. In Wolfe's story a proposal comes up at a world assembly to reinstitute slavery as a "lease" system using prisoners as the slaves. Governments and other political/social leaders love the idea. The author addresses moral issues related to crime becoming a profit source for governments instead of a financial burden and explicitly makes the point that this will continually encourage criminalization of more actions to raise revenue.
ACLU-WA should rethink its postion on "pre-booking diversion". If it is determined to say something favorable about Nixon and involuntary servitude, why not pick the change in Selective Service System induction procedure to a nation-wide lottery system which reduced some of the inequities of the draft.
Sensible Washington's initiative 1068 may not be perfect but it does nothing to encourage the state to continue and expand its present dreadful drug policy, repeals some unjust marijuana related penalties and has no effect on a multitute of regualtions scattered throughout the RCW which are mostly general laws that don't single out marijuana or its use by name but include it in relevant matters. Neither does it affect county or municipal ordinances such as business zoning, prohibition of public intoxication, designation of parks as "smoke-free areas" and so on. In my opinion I-1068's "lack of regulation" defects are lack of sufficient provision against legislative sabotage.
I urge ACLU-WA to reconsider its positions on both "pre-booking diversion" and I-1068. I wouldn't expect a turnabout of open support for I-1068 if it qualifies for the ballot but more thoughtful consideration of similar future initiatives and public statements about them would be a move in the right direction. I note Ira Glasser had deep concerns about California's Proposition 36 which was a cost saving program to divert drug offenders to coerced "treatment" (a US variation of Maoist "re-education camps" in my opinion). Part of his concern was that reducing the cost of persecution helped perpetuate persecution. Whatever one's opinion of drug courts there is no denying they have become a significant part of the drug abuse-industrial complex.
A rapid rejection of complicity in this Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion "pre-booking diversion" of people into involuntary servitude should be made. The Selective Service System was also a diversion program and supporters of military conscription can make a better case for it than can be made for what amounts to a for-profit civilian conscription of unpopular minorities which I expect will also result in some reduction of employment opportunities for the general population.
The ACLU's reason for existence is to protect the civil liberties of all people and it has done very much to accomplish this over the last 90 years. Don't betray this principle.
1068
I am disappointed that you failed to give 1068 even a modicum of support, and will no longer be financially supporting the local ACLU. I'll reconsider stopping my ACLU donations after the 2012 election.
The War
The next 10 years are going to be critical as far as the war on drugs
, with media exposer of the war and the consequences public knowledge, and help being more readily available.we do have a choice.
http://www.stopoxy.com
is this a peer reviwed? can
is this a peer reviwed? can anyone tell me? thanks.
The War On Drugs
Indeed there seems to be so much money pouring into the "War On Drugs" with so little return. Two things come to mind though - suppose the antidrug law enforcement ended today, what would happen? I think many people are afraid of the consequences which brings up to this next point: how can we set up a framework for managing drugs socially and economically that provides an attractive narrative and is acceptable to the majority of Americans?
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Jason @ annuity factor
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