Is the war on drugs a significant drain on our law enforcement resources?

Great Debates
1

Was sent this link in a recent Libertarian e-mail:
http://www.LibertyBill.net/
On it was a speech he had given:
http://www.LibertyBill.net/mastersspeach.html
In that speech he relates an anecdote concerning a visit to the Quantico, VA FBI training center. The punch line in his story was that the Child Abduction Serial Killer Unit (CASKU) consisted of a few harried, overworked and underequipped agents while the academy itself was being used to train new DEA officers.

I was wondering, laying aside the feasability of the war on drugs (which he attacks also) or any comparisons to the Prohibition and the rise of the Mafia, is the DEA actually benefitting at the detriment of all or part of the FBI?
Is the situation really as bad as he portrays it, where it seems as though the hunting of murders has become almost choked by the hunting of addicts?

This may not be a GD question, but given the subject matter (Libertarians+War on Drugs+government funding allocation), figured I’d better beat the rush. :slight_smile:

2

Not only a drain on law enforcement, but also the prison system. We need to end the war on drugs.

3

I just saw the movie Traffic last night.
I have been against the war on drugs for awhile now, but I thought the movie did a good job of illustrating the point.
The never even mention pot in the movie, they go straight for freebasing coke. They address the lack of treatment and the emphasis on enforcement.
A couple of good lines I remember from the movie were:

(sort of paraphrased, maybe:))
If we are waging a war on drugs, then our family members are the enemy, and I don’t know how you can wage war on your family.

…

Addicts treat themselves. One day they take to much, OD, and then there is one less addict.
They also went into the whole corruption angle and the Mexican-US relationship. I don’t know if the movie is a perfect picture of the situation, but I think it is one of the best and most honest looks we have been given in awhile.

4

I heard somewhere that the federal government spends $17 billion each year on the war on drugs.

5

that’s a cold statement.

I would hope that you never have to have the experience of seeing a loved one addicted.

FTR, there are in fact other alternatives - treatment often works (don’t throw Robert Downey Jr. in my face - look at Carrie Fisher for example, and many others who have recieved treatment and gone on).

6

Ok, re-read Freedom’s post and it seems that he was quoting the movie. However, he did cite it as a “good line”.

whatever. it’s still a cold statement.

7

Still not quite what I was looking for though. :slight_smile:
Are in CASKU and units like it suffering due to DEA encroachment on FBI resources?
Or if there was no DEA, would we still be underfunding these units?
Or are they not underfunded at all, and the anecdote is incorrect?

8

17 billion dollars? That’s chump change compared to our total budget, isn’t it? I would like to see how much dinero was outlined for law enforcement en todo however. If it is in that link I’ll have to admit I didn’t have time to read it yet, but I will get to it this evening.

I do, though, think its a drain on sensability. We outlawed something we couldn’t reasonably control, creating a black market and unbelieveable profit potential, which only makes it even harder to control than it was in the first place.

Wring, yeah, it is cold, but does that make it less true? There are alternatives, of course, but social darwinism does have its merits in ends if not necessarily the means. :wink:

9

Let’s see -without treatment, drug addicts probably will die of their disease, and that equals social darwinism to you. Without treatment, those with cancer will probably also die of their disease. is the same true of them?

Back to the OP (so I don’t hijack it any more). There are great quantities of money spent specifically on the “war on drugs”, enforcement, prosecution, prison space etc.

Does this mean that if it weren’t for the war on drugs, more money would be available for other programs, well, of course in some fashion.

It isn’t quite that easy, though. The thinking (not trying to justify it, just explain it) is that drug offenders cost all of us through specific other crime (many property offenses are committed to get the $$ for drugs for example -from what I recall from my correction center days, roughly 70% of my folks had a serious drug/alcohol problem that was directly related to the incident offense).

10

just a few thoughts.

We can definitely say that the Drug War has been successful in a few regards.

It has provided a rationale for imprisoning ** millions ** of people that society has deemed more or less disposible. Especially brown people–why else are sentencing laws for crack cocaine so much harsher than for powdered cocaine?

It has also provided a rationale (no matter how illogical) for the growth of a police state and for the limiting of our rights.

As far as addicts dying, I’m pretty sure that the amount of people dying from narcotics is relatively minimal. Counter to propaganda and perception, it’s entirely possible to use hard drugs for years (yes, even crack or heroin) safely and entirely in moderation. I would bet the amount of people who OD in one year on drugs doesn’t even equal the number of people who die in one day from cigarettes (anybody want to find a cite and prove me right? if that formula doesn’t hold true in America, it certainly does worldwide).

Simply put, the Drug War isn’t some good intention that has been poorly executed. It exists for very specific reasons, and all the negative consequences are just part of the deal.

11

Problems with your challenge: the number of people smoking does not equal the number of people using illicit drugs, so direct comparisions of numbers would not mean much of anything. Comparative rates would be a better thing to look at, but since folks in general are loathe to admit to governmental informational sources that they engage in illicit behavior, I suspect that we won’t be able to come up with the specifics.

Also, while the number of specific death due to drug overdose may be relatively small, there’s other risks - Cirrhosis/chronic liver disease, accidents, homicides, suicides etc, that may be linked/attributed to drug behaviors.

you do have good points re: the demonization of specific forms of drugs (crack vs. powdered cocaine) tho’.

12

That line was not presented in a positive light in the movie. It was meant as a stark look at the attitudes of our governments(US/Mexico) towards it’s their own citizens. The movie made a subtle but strong point that there were very few treatment programs available because our government prefers arresting people to treating them.
I am against the drug war. I think it is a sick perversion and collision of corporate interests. (drug industry and prison idustry) I think it is racist, and I think it is a main reason for continued racism in this country. I think it is eroding many of the civil liberties we all are supposed to have.

I think people should have the freedom to make whatever decisions they want about themselves. However, I am a very sympathetic person and have a lot of sorrow for those who get lost in drugs. The point of the movie was that we need to help them, not fight them.
Just see the friggin movie…it was great:)

(so was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon BTW…)

13

Now, I don’t want to overstate the case but…

The War on Drugs is an idiotic, misguided, blitheringly wasteful, insanely conceived, moronic…

In essence, the WOD is a program that cracks down on people for practicing medicine without a license on themselves. Why do people take drugs? To feel better. Who needs to feel better? People who feel bad. Why do they feel bad? We’re just beginning to find out.

Most people who try drugs do not become addicted, because a specific drug may not have the specific needful effect. Its rather like shopping.

(As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t get there behind a bong and a six pack, don’t go…but this isn’t about me, or probably about you. It’s about them)

Take a for instance: alcoholism. It is one of the cliches of the twelve step recovery culture that an alcoholic will almost always remember the first time they got drunk, they really liked it, wow, wonderful stuff, etc. Same is true of cocaine addicts and opiate addicts: the chemical that most attracts them is the chemical that most closely matches what is missing in the first place. And when they find that chemical, the sensation, the experience is very similar to a religious awakening: ecstasy, Eureka! I have found what was missing!

Now, if you have money or insurance, you can toddle off to Doctor Dope, and he will addict you to any number of perfectly legal substances, and you will feel better. Now, I hasten to point out, nothing wrong with that. If it hurts, it hurts.

I have seen what ravages depression (by which I mean the medical condition, not the passing mood) can have on a person and their loved ones. Whatever ill effects might result from “addiction” to mood-elevators is a puny price to pay. And, for the most part, depression will go away if you can just keep the patient alive and hopeful long enough. With drugs, these people can live and recover. With a stern lecture to pull themselves together, they die. Miserably.

And if you dont have doctor/insurance? Self-medication, amatuer psychopharmacology is all you got.

Take away the black market expense of drugs, and they are simply another crutch. Some folks need them, most don’t. We stress that one cannot judge another without walking a mile in his shoes. How much harder to live for a day in his mind? How dare we judge what it takes to make another person less miserable, and to decide that they don’t deserve it, that we will not permit them to experiment in order to find the crutch they need.

Of course we prefer if they didn’t need it. By what heartless arrogance to we deny it to them if they do need it?

14

But if drugs were cheap and legal (say 1/100th their current cost) crime would drop proportionately.
Of course, people resorting to crime to support a drug habit, or who engage in a criminal offense (like driving while drunk ) while under the influence of a drug should still be punished for it.
I note that drug/alcohol were lumped together. Odd that the effects of a legal drug are used to justify the drug war.

15

I’d never heard of selling conficated property before the War on Drugs.

Actually there are a lot of things I haven’t heard of.

Does anyone know what the dollar amount of selling confiscated drug related items is?

Is it only drug confiscated items that can be sold?

16

Actually, I was merely trying to outline some of the basis for the WOD. the lumping of drugs +alcohol was my own recollection of the demographics of folks I had worked with.

My feelings on the subject are not quite linear. I see the inequities in the WOD. But I also see the horrible effects of drug addiction on individuals and the people that care for them, so I fear that there would be more people addicted (some folks stay away from stuff just 'cause it’s illegal). Didn’t want you to think that all I had posted was from the General of the WOD perspective.

17

Let me give you a dollar figure, so you guys have a point to debate from.

The above is from the Government Accounting Office. I had a spot of trouble with their PDF’s so I can’t, at the moment, retrieve any more info from them. However, here’s an appropriations summary sheet from the DEA itself ( http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/stats/lawstats.htm )that seems to confirm the numbers above. What must be kept in mind though, is that these dollar values are for the DEA only. The Coast Guard, the mainstream military, and even the INS and customs agents, as well as local many authorities, all spend additional monies to curtail drug trafficking in the U.S. The $15 billion is just a starting number. I have no idea how you’d determine the actual amount spent.

18

Whoops! The DEA link above shows only DEA appropiations at about 1.5 billion. This link, has a table showing total federal spending at about $17.8 billion for fiscal 2000. Again, though, I do not know if any of the other agencies I listed above are included in this $17.8 billion.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/agency/staffing.htm

19

Does that include the billion we gave Columbia?

20

i just have to ask, does anybody really believe that money is being using to stop the drug trade? i know most people just don’t care, but do people really imagine that American-funded attack helicopters are blowing up coca factories in the jungle?

i can’t imagine even the most cynical conservative buying that line…