It's Time to Legalize Drugs

hoptis

hoptis

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The Washington Post

17 Aug 2009

It's Time to Legalize Drugs
By Peter Moskos and Stanford "Neill" Franklin
Monday, August 17, 2009

Undercover Baltimore police officer Dante Arthur was doing what he does well, arresting drug dealers, when he approached a group in January. What he didn't know was that one of suspects knew from a previous arrest that Arthur was police. Arthur was shot twice in the face. In the gunfight that ensued, Arthur's partner returned fire and shot one of the suspects, three of whom were later arrested.

In many ways, Dante Arthur was lucky. He lived. Nationwide, a police officer dies on duty nearly every other day. Too often a flag-draped casket is followed by miles of flashing red and blue lights. Even more officers are shot and wounded, too many fighting the war on drugs. The prohibition on drugs leads to unregulated, and often violent, public drug dealing. Perhaps counterintuitively, better police training and bigger guns are not the answer.

When it makes sense to deal drugs in public, a neighborhood becomes home to drug violence. For a low-level drug dealer, working the street means more money and fewer economic risks. If police come, and they will, some young kid will be left holding the bag while the dealer walks around the block. But if the dealer sells inside, one raid, by either police or robbers, can put him out of business for good. Only those virtually immune from arrests (much less imprisonment) -- college students, the wealthy and those who never buy or sell from strangers -- can deal indoors.

Six years ago one of us wrote a column on this page, "Victims of the War on Drugs." It discussed violence, poor community relations, overly aggressive policing and riots. It failed to mention one important harm: the drug war's clear and present danger toward men and women in blue.

Drug users generally aren't violent. Most simply want to be left alone to enjoy their high. It's the corner slinger who terrifies neighbors and invites rivals to attack. Public drug dealing creates an environment where disputes about money or respect are settled with guns.

In high-crime areas, police spend much of their time answering drug-related calls for service, clearing dealers off corners, responding to shootings and homicides, and making lots of drug-related arrests.

One of us (Franklin) was the commanding officer at the police academy when Arthur (as well as Moskos) graduated. We all learned similar lessons. Police officers are taught about the evils of the drug trade and given the knowledge and tools to inflict as much damage as possible upon the people who constitute the drug community. Policymakers tell us to fight this unwinnable war.

Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies -- and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men -- have we and other police officers begun to question the system.

Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo.

Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.

Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.

We simply urge the federal government to retreat. Let cities and states (and, while we're at it, other countries) decide their own drug policies. Many would continue prohibition, but some would try something new. California and its medical marijuana dispensaries provide a good working example, warts and all, that legalized drug distribution does not cause the sky to fall.

Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die.

Peter Moskos is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of "Cop in the Hood." Neill Franklin is a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Both served as Baltimore City police officers and are members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.
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Great article hoptis :). It's sad to read about that officer as no user would say he deserved that, but when dealers whose drug is money come into the picture they use violence to protect their profits. I also think what they said about pharmacies is very true and I never thought of it that way. The professional distribution from manufacturing to retail involves no crime because it's regulated. It's not the users that are violent it's the dealers and regulation would cut them out. I know I wouldn't mind my money going to the gov't/pharma company instead of a sleazy dealer, in fact I'd like it more that way for obvious reasons.
 
I love it! In addition to all of the ways that legalizing drugs would make all of our lives better, this is an underreported aspect of life that would improve - less cops injured or killed. They don't mention that we also would need less cops (by far).
Legalizing drugs is the obvious solution to the mess we have dug ourselves into.
Let's do it now!
The people's voices need to be heard!
 
One of the great opponents of drug prohibition is Joseph D McNamara, Ph.D. He is currently on the faculty of Stanford University. The best thing about this guy is not just that he was a cop for many years(35) who held this view but that he was openely vocal against the War on Drugs during his term of Chief of Police of a major US city (San Jose 1976-1991). In fact in the 80s he was one of the loudest voices calling for an end to the drug war, during the whole "just say no" crackbaby hysteria era when it was very politically incorrect to do so. According to a survey he published a majority (more than 50%)of chiefs of police in the US felt the War on Drugs was a complete failure. It should be noted that,"... During his tenure, San Jose (the third-largest city in California and the eleventh largest in the United States) became the safest city in the country, despite having the fewest police per capita." Daryl Gates, by contrast, Chief of Police in LA 1978-1992 who as a dedicated drug warrior who once stated that,"...infrequent or casual drug users "ought to be taken out and shot" because "we're in a war" and even casual drug use is "treason." saw violent crime increase in his city horrifically during his term culminating in riots in different US cities over the verdict of a trial involving a beating his officers instigated.
 
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Not only are there economic interests for the U.S. ending its "War on Drugs," but I think equally important would be the health benefits to drug users. Just as the illegally produced liquor that was sold during the Prohibition of the 1920s was often toxic (supposedly traces of methanol caused blindness, but don't quote me on that one), by ending modern-day Prohibition we can save lives by ensuring people know exactly WHAT they're ingesting and its precise quality/quantity. Sure, some people already visit pill identifier sites to see what's in their "ecstasy" pills, some people can get decent quality cocaine or heroin, some people have access to 100% organic fungi-free marijuana, but most don't. Many people unknowingly ingest substances other than those they intended (such as the filth dealers cut their stash with) and/or mix drugs they shouldn't, and not only because their "shadily"-procured stash is most likely impure. The U.S. government's "JUST SAY NO" policy that puts weed in the same category (EVIL) as heroin and mescaline directly fosters within the public a general lack of knowledge and willingness to learn about drugs, which can lead to narrow-minded individuals taking too much of an illegal substance or embarking on dangerous drug cocktails that they are unaware of due to lack of education. Not to mention that according to the famous Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, our policies of interdiction (cops taking citizens' illegal drugs) along with our increasing concern for border security keeps the major drug cartels in business by keeping prices high and ensuring that only the BIG BOYS with fleets of airplanes to fly into the U.S. can afford to lose a shipment to the authorities every now and then and stay in business. Our ANCIENT policy on drugs is not only helping to destroy our own peoples' lives and freedom, but also those of every innocent Mexican citizen victimized by the savage Mexican Drug War that our policies have helped to create over the years.

***I found it particularly interesting that in July of this year, there were large protests in Gujarat (the only part of India where alcohol is outright banned) after hundreds died from drinking TOXIC BOOTLEGGED ALCOHOL, and many more were poisoned. Now they are making the entrepreneurs who sell illegal booze eligible for capital punishment, yep that's right, THE DEATH PENALTY, if any deaths result form the drinks they sell.

WOW so I got a little rant-y... sorry, I get a little enthused about innocent men being locked up in prison or executed because they exercised their natural right to ingest mind-altering substances (as has arguably been done since a group of our primate ancestors first left the jungles for the savannas and grasslands, incorporating various psychoactive fungi into their diet. Terrance McKenna hypothesized that in small doses these drugs like psilocybin conferred an adaptive advantage through enhanced visual acuity. He even postulated that it was their ability to produce synesthesia --the blending of the senses-- at larger doses which allowed us to develop the first primitive spoken language, which is the ability to form pictures in someone's mind through the use of vocal sounds). F***ing crazy, huh.

There goes the ranting again...anyways I guess I just meant to highlight the fact that economic benefit as a rationalization to end the current U.S. Prohibition of drugs, while it is desperately needed in our current economic situation, is merely the tip of the iceberg. If we made heroin illegal, for example the Mexican cartels probably wouldn't even exist to be fighting over OUR business in the first place.

And it's not just the U.S..... according to Wikipedia (reliable, i know), in 2007 much of the cannabis in the UK and France was contaminated or "cut" with ground-up glass, silica, and roadmarking materials which caused some people to have severe respiratory problems (coughing up blood), prompting the French government to warn people and start a hot-line for its marijuana users if they got bad symptoms!

You order a bad beer in India, and the government executes the barkeep. You toke some "weed a la GLASS" in France, and you call a government hot-line for support and probably receive extensive government healthcare for your bleeding lungs. Let's hope that in the imminent future, the policy of the good ol' U.S. of A. will tend toward the latter. Or we can just forget all the BS and legalize/regulate/etc and move into the more distant, but inevitable, future.
 
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