Over the past year or so, the public has been subjected to an attack against the war on drugs. The latest attack came in the form of a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof (Refer to my blog, "War Against The War On Drugs" [6-14-09]). These attacks have been full of inflated statistics, half-truths and even outright lies.
My 13 years of experience in law enforcement (half of it in narcotics enforcement), my 25 years as a criminal justice educator, and the fact that I have a close family member who is a "crack head," enables me to speak out with some authority on this subject. While I have to admit that for the past 40 years we have not succeeded in stemming the tide of illicit drugs, that is no reason to give up on the war on drugs and certainly is not a reason to decriminalize (a euphemism for legalization) the use and possession of drugs.
I am taking this opportunity to debunk some of the main arguments used by those who want to end the war on drugs and who want to legalize the use and possession of illegal substances.
(1) The anti war on drugs crowd likes to throw around the figure of 500,000 people in our prisons for drug offenses. That number is highly suspect, if not preposterous. Most of those in prison for "possession" are really in there for selling substantial quantities of drugs, having copped a plea to the lesser charge of possession.
(2) The "reformers" are fond of trying to make us feel guilty about the number of people in prison who are drug users. That may account for the inflated 500,000 figure. That is the same story they gave us years ago about alcohol users in prison. Then it was con-wise for inmates to relate their anti-social behavior to the use of alcohol just as they are doing today with drugs, when in fact those substances had little, if anything, to do with their criminal behavior.
The truth is that most imprisoned drug users have been convicted of thefts, burglaries, armed robberies, rapes and murders, crimes they committed as members of society’s criminal subculture. To those who say that many of those crimes were committed to feed a drug habit, I say that those prison inmates would have been thieves, burglars, robbers and murderers even if they had not been using any drugs.
(3) The decriminalization advocates are pleased to have the support of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of cops, prosecutors, judges and citizens who oppose the war on drugs and advocate their legalization. Big deal. Those renegade cops and prosecutors represent less than 1% of their professions, the other 99-plus percent remaining firmly opposed to the legalization of drugs.
(4) The drug legalization advocates complain about the funds that have been wasted in the war on drugs. They refer to Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, who estimates this country spends $44.1 billion a year in enforcing our drug laws. Well, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the current federal stimulus package. The federal government has appropriated $787 billion to bail out insurance conglomerate AIG, a number of big banks, GM and Chrysler, and to stimulate the economy in order to reverse the loss of jobs. .
(5) The anti-prohibition crowd claims that the war on drugs has ruined the lives of countless substance abusers by hamstringing them with criminal records. Say what?! Did anyone force these pleasure seekers to use illegal drugs? Certainly no one forced my own family member to smoke pot and graduate to the use of crack. Yes, that family member, a college graduate by the way, has paid a heavy price – two prison terms – as a consequence of drug use and thievery. Every drug user knows they are breaking the law and that there are consequences if they get caught. It’s not what the war on drugs has done, it’s what the "I can get away with it" thinking has done.
(6) The do-gooders want us to believe that the war on drugs has given rise to the drug cartels and to the deadly drug wars between those cartels. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s not the war on drugs! It’s the enormous demand for recreational drugs that is responsible for the drug cartels and the violence they have spawned. The cartels are merely feeding the insatiable hunger for drugs by Americans. It’s the law of supply and demand! If it weren’t for the demand, there would be no drug cartels.
I could go on to debunk other points made by those who would have us believe that everything would be hunky-dory if we would only stop the war on drugs and legalize their use. The truth is that the use of recreational drugs is debilitating and that will not change if the use of those drugs were to be legalized. It all starts out with that initial "innocent" use of pot and then goes on from there. When are young people going to wake up and realize they could get busted and, if so, they may face some unpleasant consequences for their misbehavior?
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