American Justice – The War on Drugs

I just read an opinion piece over on salon.com about Jim Webb and what he is doing regarding the US Criminal Justice System. I’ve always had the greatest respect for the System, but the War on Drugs is a prime example of an area where things need changing. This so-called “War” has always struck me as mostly wrong even if it was well-intentioned.

If we start by looking at what the War on Drugs has done versus what the intentions were we can see how successful it has been. The War on Drugs can be traced back to the 70’s under President Richard Nixon. It was then that the DEA was formed under Executive Order in 1973. It, like the war, has since grown well beyond its initial creation. From the DEA website:

At its outset, the DEA had 1,470 Special Agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Furthermore, in 1974, the DEA had 43 foreign offices in 31 countries. Today, the DEA has 5,235 Special Agents, a budget of more than $2.3 billion and 87 foreign offices in 63 countries

This growth can really be attributed to President Reagan in the 1980’s. The sheer amount of money and manpower now devoted to this is mind-boggling.

From what I can gather the original idea was to deal with substance abuse using the criminal justice system to dismantle the supply side of the equation. Any intelligent person can see the immediate problem with this approach. When you take something that is fundamentally a health issue and criminalize it you run into all sorts of potential abuse. Things can easily become a self-feeding cycle of destruction that will just grow and grow if left unchecked. You are also trying to, in essence, legislate recreational behaviors a la Prohibition. We all know how well that worked out.

Let’s look at some of the current numbers regarding the War on Drugs and see whether it is actually working. First the criminal justice side. The US currently has 5% of the total world population. Our current prison population makes up 25% of the total world prison population though. That is a huge disparity for a country that is founded on the idea of personal freedom. If you look at when the number of incarcerated began to rise, you see how well it coincides with the War on Drugs being started. It’s very disturbing to see the spike as shown in the graph. If we go back to 1980 and look at how many drug offenders we are throwing in jail we see a huge spike beginning in 1980. How huge a spike? A 1200% jump. That is correct, a 1200% jump. That is not a normal progression given time. 74% of those convicted of drug offenses end up in prison. Going by federal numbers only 11% of those incarcerated are actually high-level dealers. Most are abusers.

It’s not just the prison statistics that are a problem though. If you look the rise in drug use over the last thirty years, it can be seen that this war is not working very well. “Say No To Drugs” was a joke. The drug of choice might change, but the number of those who are addicted has not changed much. It’s only gone up in aggregate over the last thirty years. And interesting side effect of this is it has actually helped to push “hard” drugs on the populace since drugs like pot which tend to get seized more easily are becoming less profitable.

What to do?

So how do we deal with this problem? It does not take a genius to see that we need to change what we are doing. What we do need is a group of leaders brave enough to push for the needed changes. I know what I would like to see change. This is just a quick list of four points that I think we need to look at. I think these could work though.

1. Re-classify drugs – This is not about “legalizing” in the standard sense I think. We should make these controlled substances more like the various legal drugs. Control them through the FDA or the ATF. Sell them as we do alcohol or tobacco products. Maybe we should look at having some being sold as prescribed pharmaceuticals and some as OTC drugs. Perhaps a combination of these? We have the mechanics in place to properly control them. Let’s use those.

2. Scrap the DEA – This is probably going to be the hardest part. The DEA is, I think, a big part of the problem. Their whole existence relies on an illegal drug trade. They are enforcing laws that we already have bodies that could handle this. The FBI and the ATF both are equipped to handle this. If they need help absorb the DEA into them. I don’t see why we need another government body to enforce laws.

3. Mandatory Sentencing is Bad – I am not the first to say this. We’ve seen the unintended effects of mandatory sentencing requirements. When you remove the ability for a Judge to sentence based on the situation you open up situations for all sorts of problems. If you incarcerate based on an arbitrary numbering system, you will have abuses and miscarriages of justice. The current stats place 11% of federal drug-related defendants as actual high level dealers. This means most of those hit by this are abusers or low level flunkies. This defeats the stated goals of mandatory minimums which were to take out the leaders. Don’t take my word for it though. The DoJ has agreed these have failed. Mandatory sentencing is unfair, racist and generally a bad idea. Let’s get rid of them.

4. Drugs Addicts Are Not Criminals – At least not in any normal sense. These are people with a serious problem. Jailing them, if they are nonviolent offenders, does nothing to help them or society as a whole. It just makes things worse in the long run. Let’s treat them, get them the help they need, watch them, and not treat them like the scum of the earth. If you put these people in jail with violent criminals, they will become violent criminals themselves to survive.

I know none of these ideas can happen overnight. I also know that in the US we are finally beginning to have a reasonable discussion about these things. It would take a fundamental change in how the US looks at both drugs and the criminal justice system to make these things happen. I do think the time has come to push this change.

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