Drug WarRant

One of the major failures of public policy has been the inability to consider or craft drug policy that actually narrowly targets real problems.

Those who research policy have often pointed out a couple of verifiable facts of drug use and abuse: the vast majority of drugs are consumed by a tiny minority of individuals, and only a tiny minority of individuals are problematic drug users.

Mark Kleiman has noted that only a small minority of drug users (about 3 million) account for about 80 percent of hard drug use. This basic notion is true regardless of the drug (yes, including alcohol).

Numbers are pretty slippery things in drug policy. I’ve heard figures used regarding 1.3% of the population being addicted to drugs throughout various times in history, and I’ve heard number that are higher. Additionally, each individual drug has its own rate of dependency. Public policy also has an impact on problematic use of drugs (in some cases, prohibition increases the likelihood that abuse will occur due to lack of safety and purity standards).

Finally, it’s often difficult to define “problematic” use; national debates rage over the definition of “addiction,” for example.

Whatever the actual percentage, it’s clear that it’s a small minority overall, so for this article, I’ve arbitrarily chosen “seven-percent” for my own literary enjoyment. Use whatever number is comfortable for you.

Let’s take a moment to look at the players. First, we’ll eliminate the sado-moralists (the rabid true-believers like John Walters who care less about the actual cost to society than the enjoyment of punishing those who do things they don’t like) and the profiteers (those who care less about actual cost to society than the money or power they can get from prohibition).

The stated goal of most who advocate some kind of continuance of prohibition (either in its current state, or some “kindler, gentler” or “swifter, surer” version) is to help drug abusers and society from the ravages of drug abuse. Sounds good.

So, assuming that society has the right to impose some kind of coercive judgement or assistance onto those who abuse drugs — for their good and for the good of society (a point that is certainly not in universal agreement) — how should this occur? That is the central question of public drug policy.

One of the huge problems, of course, is that coercive drug policy has tried to deal with the perceived problem of the 7% by imposing itself on the 100%.

This is at best inefficient. It is at its core wrong. And it is usually counter-productive.

• Inefficient: Our police and courts spend way too much time dealing with the 93%, and our drug testing regimes make no distinction between the weekend pot smoker and the alcohol abuser (and, in fact, may even reward the latter).
• Wrong: Anytime you target and demonize an entire class of people for the misdeeds or problems of a subset of that group, you are crossing a serious moral line. It’s discrimination, and also a matter of fairness.
• Counter-productive: The 100% approach to coercive drug policy results in bizarre governmental actions like setting national goals of reducing the numbers of people using drugs. By definition, this can be accomplished most readily by targeting the 93% rather than the 7%.

Any policy that indiscriminately targets a majority of innocent people (from the standpoint of the core purpose of the policy) in order to reach a small minority is bad policy. Period.

Is it hard to craft a policy that only targets the problems? Well, boo-hoo, don’t complain to us about your inadequacies as a policy maker. Start looking for solutions. And to begin with, that probably means looking at targeted regulations within some kind of legalized system.

Recently, Mark A.R. Kleiman and his cohorts talked in the Wall Street Journal about the third choice they promoted, advocating an option other than “the ‘drug war’ and proposals for wholesale drug legalization.” And yet the solutions they discussed had nothing to do with the 93%.

Drug czar Kerlikowske, loving Kleiman’s way out of a “third choice,” jumped all over that and has been heavily pushing this notion of some kind of mythical policy-land where he can disavow the problems of prohibition that he continues to cause and ignore the legitimate facts related to legalization (as he must by law), through semantic games and talk about treatment instead of incarceration.

And again, nothing they do addresses the 93%.

I tweeted a question to Gil and his communications director Raphael LeMaitre:

If you’re moving toward treatment instead of incarceration, what will you do about drug users who need neither?

No response.

Transform Drug Policy also asked the ONDCP (without response, so far) about this important paper by Alex Stevens: The ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment of people who use drugs

This takes it a step further and questions the validity of the “third way” at all, particularly when that involves coercion.

Stevens uses three categories of individuals to explore the ethics and effectiveness of coercion:

• Non-problemmatic drug users (self-explanatory)
• Dependent drug users (meet diagnostic criteria)
• Drug dependent offenders (drug dependent users who have committed other crimes)

The whole thing is worth reading. The conclusion:

This article has argued that it is very unlikely that compulsory treatment can be considered ethical for any category of person who uses drugs, outside of the ‘exceptional, crisis’ situations allowed for under the UN Office on Drugs and Crime/World Health Organization review.

It has been argued that quasi-compulsory treatment may be considered ethical (under some specific conditions) for drug dependent offenders who have committed criminal offences for whom the usual penal sanction would be more restrictive of liberty than the forms of treatment that they are offered as a constrained, quasi-compulsory choice. It has briefly reviewed research that suggests that QCT may be as effective as treatment that is entered into voluntarily. This may help individuals to reduce their drug use and offending and to improve their health, but it is unlikely to have large effects on population levels of drug use and crime.

So, there may be limited classes out there who could benefit from a program like HOPE, for example, such as Steven’s third category of drug dependent offenders, where their drug dependency is a factor in lawbreaking (other than drug laws).

But such a solution doesn’t address the real problems of prohibition, which negatively affects huge portions of the population.

And, just to be clear, it is a complete cop-out to put the blame on the user. If you were crafting a public policy that imposed sexual abstinence in order to avoid the societal damage of STD’s and unwanted pregnancies, you would be rightly ridiculed and the law ignored as a bad law. The same is true in drug policy.

It is also a cop-out to say that non-problematic users aren’t generally being sent to prison. That wouldn’t be a sufficient answer for any other discriminated group, so why should it be for this one?

If you’re so damn sure that government intervention is necessary to save society from the scourge of drug abusers, then find a policy that addresses it — don’t go after everyone.

You come up with and promote something that is fair and we’ll stop accusing you of intellectual dishonesty. Until then, most drug policy makers and advisors in the U.S. come off like a bunch of hacks with agendas to push who have nothing really to offer dealing with the big picture. The drug policy reform community (the real ones) have already come up with a policy that is fair and addresses the problem of drug abuse — it’s called “regulated legalization with treatment on demand.”

Try it on for size.

…

And remember, this issue of fairness is only one of the destructive aspects of prohibition.

Mike Riggs nails it with his description of the love-fest given to the Obama drug war by the Center for American Progress today: How the Obama Administration Plans to Convince Progressives That it Ended the War on Drugs

Step 1: Say that the drug war is over.

Step 2: Convince the largest and most powerful progressive think tank in America to agree with you, invite you to their headquarters, praise you for having “transformed” drug policy in the United States, and pitch you softball questions.

Step 3: Repeat step 1.

Based on an excellent question asked by Scott Morgan and ignored by Kerlikowske, Riggs hits a very important point that I’ve been wanting to talk about (and will soon at some length) …

Here’s the thing: The words “compulsory treatment” may not appear anywhere in the 2012 Drug Control Strategy report, but it’s nevertheless an inherent aspect of Obama’s supposed shift to a public health approach. Every single alternative to incarceration proposed by the Obama administration–from drug courts to prison rehab programs to family doctor-catalyzed interventions–features some form of compulsory addiction treatment. This is the tradeoff Americans will soon be forced to make: Government-mandated counseling instead of jail time.

That Kerlikowske whiffed on this question is incredible. It means that although the Obama administration thinks compulsory treatment is better than jail time, it’s afraid to come out and say that. Let me repeat that: The Obama administration is unwilling to talk publicly about the central plank of its drug policy platform.

Here’s a 1-2 combination that I could really support.

OK, LP… Make this happen.

Yes, it’s our old friend John P. Walters with Legalized Drugs: Dumber Than You May Think

Are the calls for legalization merely superficial​—​silly background noise in the context of more fundamental problems? Does this talk make any difference? Well, suppose someone you know said, “Crack and heroin and meth are great, and I am going to give them to my brothers and sisters, my children and my grandchildren.” If you find that statement absurd, irresponsible, or obscene, then at some level you appreciate that drugs cannot be accepted in civilized society. Those who talk of legalization do not speak about giving drugs to their families, of course; they seem to expect drugs to victimize someone else’s family.

Irresponsible talk of legalization weakens public resolve against use and addiction. It attacks the moral clarity that supports responsible behavior and the strength of key institutions. Talk of legalization today has a real cost to our families and families in other places. The best remedy would be some thoughtful reflection on the drug problem and what we say about it.

I kind of miss the old coot.

Robert Sharpe has a good letter in the Dallas News in response to Kevin Sabet.

Don’t be fooled by Sabet’s vision of a kinder, gentler drug war.

The vast majority of illicit drug users are marijuana smokers, many of whom have turned their lives around by putting down the bottle and picking up the marijuana pipe.

These former alcoholics no longer wake up with debilitating hangovers. They are no longer at risk of drinking themselves to death. Because they have chosen a safer alternative to alcohol, they now lead productive lives.

Yes, some have substance abuse problems stemming from traumatic life experiences. The last thing they need is Big Brother testing their bodily fluids and threatening jail time. Forcing pot smokers to relapse into alcoholism is not a good use of tax dollars.

The drug war is a cultural inquisition, not a public health campaign.

Interesting point.

Thank you Jimmy Kimmel! Jimmy Kimmel Addresses Marijuana Legalization At White House Correspondents’ Dinner 2012

“I would like everyone in this room to raise your hand if you’ve never smoked pot,” Kimmel said.

Few hands went up.

Noting the crowd’s reaction, Kimmel addressed President Barack Obama directly.

“Marijuana is something that real people care about,” Kimmel said.

New York Times editorial: The Human Cost of Zero Tolerance

New York City’s overly zealous marijuana arrests, coupled with the unreliability and porousness of record-keeping, damage the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. The Legislature needs to fix this. It must drop the public-display distinction for marijuana, which invites far too many abuses. It should also press law enforcement officials and the court system to make sure that criminal records are more accurate to start with and that people who are victimized by errors have a plausible way of getting them corrected.

Employers and government agencies also have a responsibility here. They must not rush to their own judgment about minor offenders.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg needs to recognize that zero-tolerance policing is not the panacea his Police Department seems to think it is. The police need to spend more time tracking down serious crime and less on minor offenses. There is nothing minor about a record that can follow people for the rest of their lives.

Who Still Supports the Drug War? by Republican Precinct Committeeman Chris Ladd.

You won’t find a single major political figure willing to discuss a serious, well-considered plan to advance beyond absolute federal prohibition. At the same time, you have to look long and hard to find anyone who genuinely thinks prohibition is a good idea.

In the absence of a real plan to evaluate the public is left in the lurch. Prohibition is feeding monsters. […]

The cost of our inertia is growing. Our fears of broader marijuana use under looser regulation should be tempered by the escalating damage from our current policy. It’s time to find a sensible alternative to prohibition.

An ominous-sounding tweet from CBS and NIDA:

#60Minutes TONIGHT: Dr. Nora Volkow says the effect of drugs on the brain impacts our ability to have free will. http://cbsn.ws/IhLmyd
Retweeted by NIDAnews

That’s the kind of talk that leads to the government saying “Since, by our definition, you no longer have free will, we are free to impose ours on you.”

No thanks.

I’ll take my chances on maintaining my free will against the lure of drugs and McDonald’s arches versus losing my free will to the likes of Nora Volkow.

Houston

The METRO counter-terrorism exercise didn’t round up any terrorists. Instead, 81 officers arrested 14 people, predominantly alleged prostitutes and dope smokers. More problematic for METRO is that it seemed to anger and confuse some of the agency’s riders who weren’t eager to have their bags searched.

The good news? People are starting to really get pissed off.

Californians — it’s time to retire Feinstein. Seriously, vote for anybody but Feinstein. She’s got too much party clout and she’s a dinosaur. She’s probably also extraordinarily corrupt.

Her column today on The Hill is one of the worst things I’ve read in recent days. She actually channels the ghost of Nancy Reagan’s failed drug war slogan.

First, we should once again make anti-drug campaigns a priority. In the early 1980s, former first lady Nancy Reagan coined the now-famous slogan “Just say no” as part of her national anti-drug campaign.

Although her strategy was criticized, she was able to use the White House as a national platform to address these issues.

Next, Congress should refund the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s youth media campaign — the only national media campaign dedicated to reducing youth drug use. Funding for this program was eliminated last year in spite of the fact that 85 percent of teens are aware of the advertising campaign.

This campaign should be provided with the funding it deserves and expanded to make the connection between U.S. drug use and violence in Mexico.