DRUGS & PUBLIC HEALTH
Click here for a Spanish translation
Government regulations often protect public health. For instance, certain laws help ensure that the food we buy in grocery stores is produced and stored in sanitary conditions, reducing illness and death caused by food poisoning.
But federal and state drug laws do not protect our health. Instead, they spread disease, and send hundreds of thousands of non-violent citizens to prison, where drugs are often available and drug use continues.
THE HARMS OUR POLICIES CAUSE
Making drugs illegal drives users away from doctors. A pregnant cocaine addict will not get prenatal health care; she’s afraid the doctor will turn her over to the police. Her baby is born at a low birth weight. She stays addicted, and neglects the child. Thus prohibition HARMS both MOTHER and CHILD.
In the early 1980s, the Drug War escalated. Since then, rates of emergency room visits and deaths related to drug use have risen, AIDS is rising among people who inject drugs, and spreading to people who don’t use drugs. Then there is the VIOLENCE. Dealers shoot each other to gain more turf, or kill people who owe them money, or might testify against them. Innocent children and citizens are often victims of this violence.
AT WHAT COST?
The government claims that drug use costs Americans $110 billion a year. But 97% of this figure is the cost of law enforcement, prisons, wages lost while in prison, forced drug treatment, hospitalization, and health care for drug-related illnesses. Only a tiny fraction of the cost results from drug use.
WHAT ABOUT FORCED TREATMENT?
Many police, judges, and lawyers think that we should force drug users into treatment, rather than prison. But under forced treatment, people must be arrested and convicted of a drug crime and confess to being addicts to avoid prison, whether or not they are addicted. They acquire criminal records, which prevent them from getting good jobs, or college loans, and cost them their right to vote. Studies show that treatment is seven times MORE EFFECTIVE than incarceration in reducing substance abuse, but there are not enough beds to meet the voluntary demand. Meanwhile, violent offenders are receiving early release from prison to make room for non-violent drug offenders.
WHAT ARE THE POLICIES’ BENEFITS?
Our Drug War policies create NO public health benefits. In fact, they create no benefits of any kind. They keep addicts from doctors, spread disease, overcrowd prisons, destroy futures, and create a hugely profitable, violent black market in which criminals thrive, we suffer, and drug use continues.
In addition, the tens of billions of dollars that the government spends annually to fund the Drug War means there is less money for education and social service budgets.
WHAT POLICIES WOULD BE BETTER ?
We could regulate drug sales just as we regulate alcohol and tobacco. As in Holland and Switzerland, heroin addicts could register with doctors and take their drugs in clinics, using clean needles, in safe environments, under managed care. Under these conditions, many heroin users hold jobs. These policies would help drug users and society — not harm them.
CONCLUSIONS
From a public health perspective, our drug policies are a disaster. We must legalize drugs and create a sane, effective, and compassionate drug policy that will reduce harm. To save lives and reduce drug-related suffering, we must end the Drug War.
Applying Occam’s Razor to Prison Overcrowding
America imprisons a larger percentage of its population than any other country on earth. While we only have one fifth of the world’s people we have one quarter of the world’s prisoners. So what can we do about the ever-increasing problems resulting from our sentencing policies?
How did we get into this mess? Well there are several choices here. It no doubt is partially attributable to the strict Calvinist morality that is so much a part of American culture. Another, more directly attributable factor are the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. The United States is paying a heavy price for the mandatory sentencing laws that swept the country 30 years ago as politicians from each major party sought to look tougher on crime and drugs than the other.
The result has been a tenfold increase in the nation’s prison population - at a cost that exceeds $60 billion a year - the states have often been forced to choose between building new prisons or new schools. Terrible as that is perhaps the worst result has been the creation of a growing felon caste, now more than 16 million strong, of felons and ex-felons, who, long after serving their time for their crimes, are likely to return to prison due to policies that make it impossible for them to find jobs, housing or education.
Researchers have regularly shown that inmates who earn college degrees tend to find jobs and stay out of jail once released but In it’s zeal to appear tough congress has ennacted laws that bar inmates from receiving Pell grants and that bar some students with drug convictions from getting other financial support. Getting their direction from congress many states have cut or eliminated college programs in prisons.
In another manifestation of our lawmaker’s habit of opting for brawn over brains to curry favor with the electorate a law was passed creating a lifetime ban on providing temporary welfare benefits to people with felony drug convictions. Another cut tax credit and bonding programs that encourage employers to hire people with criminal records. Still another banned entire families from living in government subsidized housing if a single member was convicted of a drug crime. Automatic suspension of drivers licenses for those convicted of drug-related crimes is common today as well. Well what exactly is person to do if they can’t get help to go back to school, get welfare, get a place to live, or get a job? You guessed it… turn back to crime and, usually, back to prison.
The only real way to reduce the inmate population - and the felon class - is to ensure that imprisonment is a method of last resort. Certainly there are those consistenently violent individuals who need to be contained for the protection of society. They comprise a relatively small percentage of today’s prison population. As for the rest, there are many alternatives to prison that would not comprimise the public safety. We need to abandon the mandatory sentencing laws, the drug laws, the housing laws, the educational funding laws, and the other counterproductive policies that have filled prisons to bursting with nonviolent offenders who are doomed to remain trapped at the very margins of society.
So “What does Occam’s Razor have to do with America’s prison population and what the hell is Occam’s Razor? you may ask. Occam’s razor is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham. The principle states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible. In other words: cut to the quick… eliminate everything peripheral and focus on the heart of the matter. How do we reduce prison population? Reduce the number of people we put in prison.
Election 2008
Click here for Spanish translation
It’s time to elect a new President of the United States of America.
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that many of the problems facing America today are rooted in our misguided drug policy. When it is election time, I like to consider where the candidates are on drug policy. In my experience, the candidate who tells you that if elected he or she will increase police in your neighborhood, get new harsher drug laws passed, increase federal enforcement to work with state and local law enforcement, and other similar plans, is telling you that he intends to keep doing what government has done for the last 40 years with no success. That is not a candidate who will be able to make our children and our neighborhoods safer. On the contrary, these policies increase crime.
If you get the opportunity to attend a public meeting with a candidate, go. Tell them of your concerns about drugs and crime, your neighborhood, your schools, and your children. Speak up! Tell them you are tired of hearing the same promises and seeing no results. Tell them the ideas they support have failed to do anything about the drug and crime problems. Many of them understand this and will agree in private but are afraid the voters will think they are soft on crime if they say so in public. They need to hear from the people.
In a state like New York, which usually votes consistently with the Democratic Party, it is pretty certain that the Democrats will win. Democratic candidate Barak Obama will carry New York–the only question is by how much. But how is Obama on the drug war issue? Certainly, he talks a good talk, but when it comes to action, he votes consistently with the popular drug-war mongers. The only exception is a bill to eliminate the crack-cocaine sentencing discrepancy, which could have more to do with his race and economic policies than with the drug war. Indeed, he hasn’t shown he is ready to even discuss ending the war on drugs, or even ending the prohibition of marijuana-the very prohibition causing so many problems both here in the US as well as Mexico. His running mate, Joe Biden, is one of the foremost architects of the last 30 years of the drug war, voting in favor of Plan Colombia (the Andean Initiative), Plan Afghanistan, stronger asset forfeiture laws, and the Patriot Act. He is even opposed to the medicinal use of marijuana.
Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin are predictably as pro-drug war as one might expect. McCain has voted with Biden on various drug policy legislation. McCain supports increased penalties, increased mandatory minimums, and even supports the death penalty for convicted international drug traffickers. In other words… expect more of the same.
It’s interesting that both Obama and Palin have admitted using illegal drugs in the past. Apparently neither feels this should disqualify them from holding the highest office in the land. What if they had been arrested when they used those drugs? They would now have drug convictions on their records. Could they have gotten where they are today with a criminal record? I think not.
Then there are the third party candidates. They don’t have much of a chance to win a national election, but they are worth discussing because of their lack of special interest influence, and they are quite capable of winning local and state level elections.
Libertarian candidates Bob Barr and Wayne Allyn Root support re-orienting federal law enforcement currently focused on marijuana, and are prepared to explore options to the current drug war system.
Green Party candidates Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente support the legalization of medical marijuana and needle exchange and an end to the war on drugs.
Certainly, there are issues more pressing than the war on drugs in your lives. You are probably concerned about immigration, the economy, health care, and education. They all tie in to the war on drugs somewhere and it is important to look at the whole picture. We encourage our readers to search the Internet for information on the candidates, and whenever possible, engage the candidates to help find practical solutions. Don’t let them dodge this critical issue because they are afraid to say what needs to be said.
You don’t use illegal drugs; Why should you care about drug policy?
Why should a law-abiding, non illegal drug using citizen care about drug policy?
Nationally, an arrest is made in about 64% of murders each year, an arrest is made in about 44% of rapes each year, and only about 13% of burglaries result in an arrest.
On the other hand at least 97% of reported or witnessed drug crimes result in an arrest. Of course all those arrests for drug offenses make for impressive-looking statistics. That looks good for law enforcement.
Here’s why the public should be concerned… A lot of people don’t realize this but the majority of violent/property crimes are solved by the responding patrol officer. If the officer gets there fast, chances are good the case will be solved. Of course, if the officers are busy arresting some teenager with a few grams of marijuana in his pocket they are far less likely to respond to your burglary call in a timely fashion. Many peer-reviewed studies by noted economists have shown rather dramatic increases in robbery, burglary, and other crimes in direct proportion to increased anti-drug activity by police. What are you more concerned about, the guy getting high on some illegal drug or the guy who broke into your house, raped you, or murdered a loved one?
With all the attention being paid to the victims of the violence that inevitably surrounds the illegal drug business, society tends to forget the other victims of the so-called War on Drugs. It’s not just the victims of traditional crimes such as burglary, rape and robbery who can’t get justice because the police are occupied with drug cases, it’s also those people and businesses who can’t get into court to have their cases heard due to the overcrowding resulting from the massive numbers of drug arrests; property owners who can’t sell their property for a profit because of crime in the neighborhood; merchants loosing money because the police no longer have time to investigate or prosecute bad-check cases; family members who suffer due to the prior felony-drug conviction of a potential breadwinner to secure employment, college loans, or public housing; battered spouses whose mates are not sent to jail because there’s only room there for drug users; physicians who cannot treat their patients with the medicines they would prefer because of fear of prosecution; the sick and dying who endure unnecessary pain and suffering; children whose parents are taken from them; the police who have given up the traditional methods of investigating and detecting crime because they have found it easier to simply use informants to make drug arrests; prosecutors and defense attorneys who have turned the courts into markets selling plea-bargains; and the judges who sit by and let this happen.
Add to that the tremendous costs of enforcing the drug laws (for example; it costs $46,000. to lock someone up in the local jail in Syracuse, NY for a year, and that doesn’t include the cost of the investigation, arrest, court time, etc.). Then consider that after forty years of fighting the war on drugs, drugs are more plentiful, more potent, and less expensive than ever, and you see why we all need to care about drug policy.
What’s going on in Brazil & Argentina?
Click here for Spanish translation
In the past few months courts in both Argentina and Brazil have dismissed drug charges against people possessing small quantities of drugs for their personal use.
A Brazilian appeals court in São Paulo declared that possession of drugs for personal use is not a criminal offense. Several lower courts had previously ruled in the same way, but the ruling from the São Paulo Justice Court’s 6th Criminal Chamber marked the first time an appeals court there had found Brazil’s drug law unconstitutional as it pertains to simple drug possession.
Ronaldo Lopes, was arrested with 7.7 grams of cocaine in three separate bags on the night before Carnival began in 2007. Lopes acknowledged that the drugs were his and said they were for his personal use. Lopes was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison as a drug trafficker. But the appeals court judges threw out the trafficking charge since it was based on an anonymous complaint and then threw out the possession charge, saying it was unconstitutional.
Judge José Henrique Rodrigues Torres said the law criminalizing drug possession for personal use was invalid because it violated the constitutional principles of harm (there is no harm to third parties), privacy (it is a personal choice), and equality (possessing alcohol is not a crime). “One cannot admit any state intervention, mainly repressive and of penal character, in the realm of personal choice, especially when it comes to legislating morality,” he said.
Two years ago Brazil changed it’s drug laws to “depenalize” — but not decriminalize — drug possession for personal use. Under that law, drug possession is still a criminal offense, but penalties are limited to fines, fees, education, and community service. That was a step in the right direction but the ruling in the Lopes case goes a step further.
Retired Brazilian Judge Maria Lúcia Karam, told me “I don’t think we can expect Brazil’s political leaders will legalize possession for personal use. But I really expect that if the case arrives to Brazil’s Supreme Court, we may have the majority of its justices confirming the declaration of unconstitutionality of the federal law that criminalizes it.”
“(It) is a remarkable moment in Brazil’s judicial history,” she said. “This is a decision of great significance. This is the first time a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that a law that criminalizes drug possession for personal use contradicts the Constitution and the international declarations of human rights. This is the first time that a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that drug possession for personal use is a behavior that matters only to the individual, to his or her privacy, and to his or her personal choices. This is the first time that a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that the state is not authorized to interfere within this sphere of privacy. This is the first time that a Brazilian appeals court has clearly stated that the individual shall be free to be and to do whatever he or she wants, while behaving in such a way that does not affect any rights of others.
In Argentina a federal court has decriminalized the personal consumption of drugs in that country. According to the court’s ruling, punishing drug users only “creates an avalanche of cases targeting consumers without climbing up in the ladder of drug trafficking.”
The decision applied to the case of two young people stopped by the Police for possession of marijuana and tablets of ecstasy when they went to a celebration of electronic music in Buenos Aires, in May of 2007.
Although the question must be resolved in the Supreme Court of Justice, the decision of the court of Buenos Aires is in line with the policy of the Government of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in favor of reforming the laws to legalize drug consumption.
Last month at a UN meeting in Vienna, Argentina’s Minister of Justice, Aníbal Fernández, said that the policy of punishing drug consumers was a “total failure.”
This is the first time in 30 years that Argentina has taken such a strong stand against the United States on the issue of drug policy.
Two of the largest and most powerful countries in South America seem to be moving away from the failed policy of drug prohibition toward a more sensible one of legalization, regulation, and control. Bravo!
