Here’s a link to (and a quote from) an article by Neal Peirce published 11/04 in the Houston Chronicle.
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1104-07.htm Can’t Win War on Terror Fighting a War on Drugs
“If we expect to win the war on terrorism, we have to call off the war on drugs. There are three reasons: (1) We can’t afford both. (2) The drug war feeds terrorist networks and diverts law enforcement from focusing on immense new perils. (3) The drug war was failing anyway. If we want to reduce drug dependency and the crime associated with it, then intensive treatment programs will be far more effective. Sadly, official Washington isn’t admitting any of these truths”
End the war on drugs and you’ll solve a massive number of problems that our society suffers from at the moment. (a lot of Crime, for one)
The main reason why the war on drugs is still happening is because the various mafia’s that profit from the criminalisation of drugs are keeping it that way.
I think that’s an oversimplification. A lot of violent crime occurs because of drugs. Ending the war on drugs might reduce drug-motivated theft, but drug-induced violent crime will probably increase.
It seems like common sense to propose that providing treatment could be more effective than criminalization in actually reducing drug use. Unfortunately, our current Attorney General, John Ashcroft, is against any public (or at least Federal) spending for drug treatment, on the principle that it would be like rewarding people for wicked behavior. I kid you not.
That’s not a bad comparison, december, but the Drug War is diverting a large amount of experienced manpower and money toward drug interdiction.
If the U.S. needs to step up its internal security fast, the place to find the dedicated law-enforcement professionals to do it are already in place, but right now they’re going after drugs.
If the U.S. needs to step up its internal security fast, the dedicated law-enforcement professionals to do it are already in place, but right now they’re going after drugs.
Common sense is a good starting point, but decisions are better made through experimentation and observation of results.
As an alternative theory, note that drug treatment is a difficult and expensive process. It must be done one user at a time. Many users don’t want treatment. Others need to repeat the treatment several times before it finally works. Still others never succeed in getting off drugs, despite treatment.
OTOH, criminalization applies to all of society. The threat of being punished deters all of us, at least to some degree.
I don’t claim that my argument proves that criminalization iw more effective than treatment. It only shows that theory can point in any direction, so a policy decision should be based on actual results.
Actually, do you have any cites to this? I’d bet that very little violent crime happens directly because people are currently under the influence of drugs…except for alcohol. Most recreational drugs I can think of, except for maybe methamphetamine, aren’t known to make users violent; the sheer number of alcohol-related incidents of violence as compared to those involving other drugs is staggering. I can think of some scenarios involving heroin addicts, but these are almost all based on crimes perpetrated to support an addiction, not due to being high.
Yes, drug-induced violent crime may increase, but probably not signifigantly. I may be completely wrong here, and I don’t have any stats here either (me the hypocrite), so feel free to prove me incorrect.
You’re missing the point. Some violent crime may occur for the reason that you cited; however, violent crime also occurs as a result of being under the influence of certain drugs. For this reason, it is overly simplistic to conclude that legalizing drugs will reduce the incidence of crime in general, or violent crime in particular.
JThunder,
I read your cites. Well, I read all of the first one, and skimmed the second two. I found them to be full of unsupported statements, circular reasoning, and irrelevancies. More than I wish to adress at this time, but a few examples from the first cite:
Sorry, not following that “logic”. Obviously, legalizing drugs would have the potential to create more addicts, but it certainly does not follow that “that they will equal current numbers of cigarette smokers and alcoholics.”
Oh, and BTW, marijuana is not addictive.
This is supposition. Any evidence to support it?
WTF??? Legalizing drugs would create a black market situation wherein crime would flourish? It boggles the mind (well, my mind anyway) that someone could take such an obviously specious, circular argument seriously.
But anyway, I don’t want to get involved in a lenghty drug legalization debate now, as I was just in one not too long ago. All this was adressed here.
I’m not sure if I follow how the drug war feeds terrorism. If I were render a guess I would say that it is because the drug war creates pressures that only allow well organized groups to profit from it, and these groups often have a terrorist agenda. I can’t imagine that as having been the meaning of the OPers point.
Could somebody explain their take on point 2 for me?
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone more opposed to the “War on Drugs” than I, but I don’t think the OP’s argument holds water. The third point applies to the drug war in any circumstance, but the first two. . .
Sure we can. Eliminating the one would certainly make affording the other one easier, but our GDP – as well as the annual budget for the U.S. government – is huge. There are thousands of ways to cut costs and raise extra revenue should the need arise; ending the drug war isn’t the only solution.
Even if we were to end the drug war here, we would be left with thriving black markets in most other countries. It would probably cut back on income for terrorists/drug producers, but it would hardly put them out of business.
As for manpower, I’m pretty sure we’ve got our priorities straight. Should it be necessary to do so, I doubt we’d have much trouble diverting said manpower from drugs to terrorism. There’s no reason, from the drug warriors’ perspective, to divert 100% of drug-war manpower to other ares before we know for sure what the need will be.
I would consider all of the following to be worthy of debate:
Is conducting the war on drugs using up so much law enforcement manpower and resources that there aren’t enough manpower and resoures available for the war on terrorism?
Is conducting the war on drugs distracting law enforcement personnel from other needs, such as a war on terrorism? That is, are said personnel so caught up in a drug warrior mentality that they view all other law enforcement jobs as less important, including this new war on terrorism?
Is conducting the war on drugs actually helping the terrorists? It’s the war on drugs that makes drugs so very, very profitable. If it’s true that drug profits are financing terrorists, then wouldn’t decriminalizing drugs reduce the flow of money into the terrorist’s hands?
Should we end the war on drugs? Decriminalize drug use? Handle drugs the way we handle alcohol and tobacco? That is, sale, possesion, and use are legal for adults only, and the products are taxed at about the same level as are alcohol and tobacco; tax revenues going to fund treatment programs.
IMO, decriminalization would not only free up resources and personnel for a war on terrorism, it would also enable us to deal much more effectively with ordinary violent crime.
Regarding the question, is conducting the war on drugs distracting law enforcement personnel from other needs, such as a war on terrorism? That is, are said personnel so caught up in a drug warrior mentality that they view all other law enforcement jobs as less important, including this new war on terrorism? Here’s a quote from the article sited in the OP.
" ‘We have spent a half-trillion dollars on the drug war since 1990 and we are less safe and less healthy than ever,’ says Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy and long-term opponent of the prevailing national policy. Zeese, like most reformers, favors a legally controlled market that would focus on treatment and remove the hyperprofits of today’s illegal trade.
"He charges the drug war actually ‘blinded our government to terrorism,’ citing reports in Boston news media that FBI agents in the '90s actually apprehended Raed Hijazi, an admitted al-Qaida member. Hijazi, according to the reports, provided the agents with information on the Boston area terrorist cell later involved with the Sept. 11 hijackings. But the FBI was reportedly interested only in information Hijazi had on heroin trafficking.
“Such incidents suggest that even if our federal, state and local governments found enough cash to fight a simultaneous war on drugs and war on terrorism, split agendas could mean that we end up losing both struggles.”
