What Are the Alternatives to the Current System?
“Now why is it that we have this big market? It is because we have created a situation where the price you can get for drugs far exceeds its cost. So these people have money coming out of their ears. And we are financing a gigantic criminal network. And then we have to put in place a gigantic law enforcement network to contest with it. So I ask, is there some way, we can figure out, in which through some controlled and careful manner we make drugs … We get to the people who are taking drugs and we try to treat them. We have to make drugs available to them in many cases I am sure. But basically to beat the criminals by taking away their market. Now I don’t know whether that can be done or not, but I think we ought to be working on that.”fmr. U.S. Secretary of State, George Schultz, MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour
Monday, 8 January 1990
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It is becoming clear to an ever increasing number of people that our current drug policies are not working. They fill our prisons, clog our courts, break up our families, propagate violence, generally cause far more harm than good. After almost a century of fighting a war on drugs with prohibitionist policies there are more drugs available than ever on our streets.
ReconsiDer is often asked “What is the solution? What kind of drug policy should we have in America?” ReconsiDer’s mission is to promote discussion of alternatives to current policy and in the course of fulfilling that mission we have heard many ideas. We’d like to present some of them here to familiarize you with the kinds of ideas that have been proposed and help you formulate your own ideas on this issue.
Because of the strong ties between the US and Europe one of the most common ideas is for the US to adopt a so-called “Harm Reduction” approach to solve our drug problems. This is the model that European countries are increasingly turning to in an effort to reduce the harm that illegal drug use causes their society. It accepts the fact that a certain segment of the population will use illegal drugs and tries to reduce the harm, both to the user and to the rest of society, caused by that use. Typically such a harm reduction policy include such measures as decriminalizing personal possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia and establishing voluntary treatment programs for addicts.
In some cases (Switzerland, for example) a harm reduction policy includes actually providing drugs for some users in order to bring them in to the health-care umbrella, keeping them in touch with doctors and social service agencies, in an effort to re-integrate these addicts with society. These programs have met with considerable success in Europe and more and more countries are turning to them to avoid the problems associated with Prohibition.
A different alternative to outright prohibition, and one that is a part of many of the European “harm-reduction” policies, is often referred to as medicalization, puts control over drugs in the hands of physicians, with little or no oversight from law enforcement. Most Americans are under the impression that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulates what drugs a doctor may prescribe but actually this is controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In other words, policemen tell the doctors what drugs they think are beneficial and which they think are harmful! Under current U.S. policy doctors can prescribe most opiates, cocaine, and most amphetamines and depressants under certain conditions. But their ability to prescribe is strictly limited, and drugs such as heroin, marijuana, and LSD cannot legally be prescribed under any circumstance. And, even when doctors can legally prescribe some controlled substances, they avoid doing so because of the triplicate prescription forms and the stringent oversight by the DEA and the very real possibility of losing their license to prescribe any drugs if the DEA finds fault with their decisions. Under a more liberal, medical approach, which exists to some degree in Europe, doctors would face minimal legal restraint on their prescribing of controlled substances. If they find it advisable they might be allowed to “maintain” addicts, meaning to prescribe continued supplies of opiates as the “treatment” for addiction.
An important component of harm-reduction policies is decriminalization. This means simply that the personal possession of a currently illegal drug would no longer be a crime. Usually importation (smuggling), manufacture, and sale of significant quantities of a decriminalized drug remain illegal. This takes some of the pressure from law enforcement to arrest users, allowing users to live more normal lives. It also allows police to focus on those higher in the drug trade. Unfortunately decriminalization does not address drug quality or purity (a frequent cause of overdose deaths), nor does it allow for a regulated distribution system that would separate the recreational user of the so-called “soft drugs” from the dealer of harder drugs.
Another idea that has great appeal in America is the simple sounding idea of Legalization. This is often misinterpreted to mean some sort of free-for-all drug marketplace where 5 year olds could help themselves to crack from handy barrels placed on street corners. Actually I have never heard anyone who claimed to be in favor of drug legalization advocate such a system. What goes hand-in-hand with the word “legalization” is “regulation”. You can’t regulate that which is illegal so first you must legalize , then regulate. If you think about it, everything around you is regulated… the water you drink, the mattress you sleep on, the clothes you wear, even the air you breathe. Everything, that is, except for these potentially extremely dangerous drugs we “prohibit”. Exactly how we would regulate these currently illegal drugs is a complicated subject for discussion. Perhaps we should regulate the sale of the currently illegal drugs as we regulate the sale of alcohol? Would this include all drugs? Just marijuana? What would the age restrictions be? Quantity restrictions? Would users require some sort of license to use?
Legalization would present another big and difficult decision. Having wrested control of the drug market from organized crime, do we turn that market over to government or the free market? Then more questions arise. Do we permit advertising ? Private sale or production? At what age would people be able to purchase these drugs?
We currently regulate alcohol to insure its purity. We regulate it to try to keep it out of the hands of children. We regulate its points of distribution and hours of sale, and we tax it. Do we still have an alcohol problem ? You bet. Can kids obtain alcohol ? Absolutely. Is there a large market in every community in the country making huge profits selling alcohol to minors? No. Are beer salesmen spraying bullets at each other to settle arguments over shelf space in the supermarket ? No. The primary goal of legalization proponents is to eliminate the crime surrounding illegal drug markets.
There are many other ideas with some merit that have come up over the years. One of our members advocated a system under which only the drug in its natural form would be permitted. You would be allowed to chew cocoa leaves but not to refine them into cocaine. You could smoke opium but not shoot heroin. This is based on the premise that natural products are less addictive and less harmful to your health than refined ones.
An interesting idea was suggested to me recently by a veteran law-enforcement officer who spent his career doing undercover narcotics work. He feels the government should buy massive quantities of all the currently illegal drugs and simply give them away. No forms to fill out, no limit on quantity, no ID required, just come in and help yourself. This would, he says, put the drug dealers out of business overnight (who is going to pay for something they can get down the street for free?) and, by getting law enforcement out of the prohibition business, free up vast resources to treat addicts, educate people about drug use, and help with many of our social problems.
This article only touches on alternative ideas to prohibition. It is not meant to cover all the ideas and all the arguments , pro and con, for each one. There are many books written on the subject that go into considerable detail making the case for the particular policy they espouse. We just wanted to give you some idea of the options available to those who understand the need to ReconsiDer our drug policy.
