ReconsiDer Tidbits

 

December 30, 2000
Another Prohibition, Another Failure
By GARY E. JOHNSON
SANTA FE, N.M. -- While many Americans followed the coverage of President
Clinton's symbolic gesture granting clemency to two federal drug offenders
last week, an important development in national drug policy received less
attention: Mr. Clinton became the first sitting president to question the
impact of our nation's war on drugs.

In a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Clinton said he supported
decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana and an end to the disparity
in sentencing for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine. He also
questioned the use of mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and
called for serious reconsideration of the federal imprisonment policies that
result in hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders winding up
behind bars for years.

I hope that governors, members of Congress and other elected officials will
take note of Mr. Clinton's comments. Americans want policies that save lives,
keep drugs out of the hands of children and humanely treat those suffering
from drug addiction. The drug war accomplishes none of that. Too many
Americans have lost faith in our approach to the war on drugs, as shown on
Election Day when voters in five states approved various ballot initiatives
that moderate harsh drug policies, including some measures that allow drug
treatment instead of prison for nonviolent offenders or approve the medical
use of marijuana when it is recommended by a doctor.

As governor of New Mexico, I have called repeatedly for a serious
reevaluation of our current drug strategies. I'm neither soft on crime nor
pro-drugs in any sense. Yet when I ask whether our costly, protracted war on
drugs has made the world safer for our children, I must answer no.

The federal anti-drug budget in 1980 was roughly $1 billion. By 2000, that
number had climbed to nearly $20 billion, with the states spending at least
that much. Yet according to the federal government's own research, drugs are
cheaper, purer and more readily available than ever before. As a nation we
now have nearly half a million people behind bars on drug charges, more than
the total prison population in all of Western Europe. And the burden of this
explosion in incarceration falls disproportionately on black and Latino
communities.

When we consider the social and public health costs, the illogic of our
distinction between legal and illegal drugs is staggering. Nearly 70 million
Americans have smoked marijuana, which remains the third-most popular
recreational drug in the country after tobacco and alcohol. Deaths
attributable to marijuana are very rare. In fact, deaths from all illegal
drugs combined, including cocaine and heroin, are fewer than 20,000 annually.
By contrast, more than 450,000 Americans die each year from tobacco or
alcohol use (not counting drunk-driving fatalities). Should we outlaw liquor
and cigarettes? Ask anyone who remembers our nation's disastrous experiment
with alcohol prohibition.

Perhaps the most pernicious aspect of the drug war, in fact, is the crime and
violence that drug prohibition generates. Without achieving anything like the
goal of a drug-free America, our policies have empowered a lethal black
market, complete with international armies of latter- day Al Capones. Their
warfare against each other and against law enforcement will not be stopped
until the public takes the regulation and control of their commodity away
from them.

In considering alternatives, we might look to Holland as a model. The Dutch,
who decriminalized marijuana in 1976 and treat drug addiction medically
rather than criminally, enjoy far lower rates of crime and drug use than we
do.

It is not outlandish to suggest that an alternative approach might lead to
less drug-related harm, less imprisonment and less crime in America as well.
Let me be very clear: We must never tolerate the violence resulting from the
use of drugs. But neither should we, nor do we have to, tolerate the needless
casualties of drug prohibition.

Here in New Mexico, I am looking for new ways to deal with drug- related
problems at the state level. We are working to redirect our resources into
drug education programs; into harm reduction programs like needle exchange
for injection drug users, which has been proven by numerous government
studies to reduce the spread of diseases like AIDS and hepatitis without
increasing drug use; and into treatment programs like methadone maintenance,
the treatment proven most effective for heroin addiction.

President Clinton's recent words on drug-policy reforms were a welcome first
step. His comments should be the start of a new national debate, and not
simply the last word of a departing administration.

Gary E. Johnson, a Republican, is the governor of New Mexico.