America's Drug Policy: Living on Borrowed Time
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By Contact the author. December, 2000/January, 2001. This article was published in the January, 2001 issue of the Brookfield East (Brookfield, Wis.) high school newspaper. One out of nine school-age children has one or both parents in prison in this, the United States 1. At the present exponential increase in incarceration, this number will be one out of four alarmingly soon. We are breeding an entire generation of embittered and disenfranchised "prison orphans". We are losing an entire generation of young people. The federal policy of the "War on Drugs" originated in the Nixon Administration in the early 1970s, and has continued since that time. Believe it or not, your parents never had to go through the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, nor were they subjected the embarrassing privacy violations that stem from American's federal drug policies. We are told growing up that we live in a "free country," but what "free country" sends two million people to prison 2, with over 80% of the imprisoned there for non-violent drug offenses 3? The number of people behind bars for drug "offenses" is equal to the entire populations of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and half of North Dakota combined. And statistics show that the government cares more about stopping drug use than halting crime. For crime, they tell us, must somehow be related to drug use and drug deals. Thus, the average sentence for a first time, non-violent drug offender is longer than the average sentence for rape, child molestation, bank robbery or manslaughter 4. As our prisons rapidly fill to bursting levels, rapists and murderers are being given early release to make room for "no parole" drug offenders. While law enforcement continues to go after relatively easy drug violation arrests, every major city in this country has a record number of unsolved homicides 5. To add to the problem, the "freedom and responsibility" President, George W. Bush, recently appointed John Ashcroft as his Secretary of Defense, a zealous "Conservative Christian" Drug Warrior who has taken in $44,500 from beer companies since 1993 6. Prisons are currently taking twice the funding of public schools, yet most public school teachers vehemently support the failed "War on Drugs". And make no mistake about it. It is not the average family that is effected by the U.S. policy on drugs, it is often minority groups which are targeted. Some have even gone to the extreme of calling the federal drug policy a "War on Blacks" rather than a "War on Drugs". One out of three young (ages 18 to 35) black men in the United States are in prison or on some form of supervised release. And our country has more black men in prisons than in colleges 7. We call ourselves the "land of the free," yet we have four times the amount of black men in prison than South Africa had at the height of apartheid, the official national policy of institutionalized racism 8. Questioners ask about the chaos that would occur if drugs were re-legalized. My response is look at America right now. With more people in prison than any other country in the world, we have reached a point of pure and utter chaos. With politicians being re-elected at a 99% ratio, we have reached beyond a point of chaos. I also inform them that drugs were totally legal in America at one time. Before World War I, any child in America could walk into a drug store and buy heroin. It was sold as a pain-reliever and a sedative, in measured doses, just as Bayer sells aspirin today. The child didn't need a note from his parents or a doctor's prescription. And yet, despite this unrestricted availability of drugs, there was no drug problem in America. But when the government made drugs illegal, it created a black market -- providing enormous profits in return for running the risk of prosecution -- which led inevitably to the muggers, the pushers, the gangs, and the violence. The fact of the matter is that the federal government can't keep drugs out of the country; it can't even keep drugs out of its own prisons. And yet the Democrats and Republicans go right on spending your money, building more prisons, authorizing more wire-taps, and inspections of your private affairs -- just as though the Drug War was one of America's greatest successes. I have news for them: if someone is going to indulge in drug use, they are going to do it whether the drug is legal or illegal. The criminals already know that the "War on Drugs" is a failure. They continue to indulge despite the drug war. It has been well known by those in the inner circles of drug use that the simple solution to ending more drug use would be to stop creating a black market by re-legalizing drugs. Even the politicians know this is the solution, and step by step more politicians are coming to the reasonable solution to the problem. The Governors of New Mexico and Minnesota both recognize that the solution to the drug problem is to re-legalize drugs. Several members of Congress also recognize the solution. State legislators in Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin likewise recognize the solution is to legalize drugs. There are no violent gangs fighting over aspirin territories. There are no violent gangs fighting over whisky territories or computer territories or anything else that's legal. There are only criminal gangs fighting over territories covering drugs, gambling, prostitution, and other victimless crimes. Making a non-violent activity a crime creates a black market, which attracts criminals and gangs, which turns what was once a relatively harmless activity affecting a small group of people into a widespread epidemic of drug use and gang warfare. I don't advocate legalizing drugs because I want to use drugs, nor do I advocate legalizing drugs because I want drug use to sky-rocket. I advocate reforming America's Drug Policy because I want Leon Kelly, Scott Bryant, and John Graham to live. Leon, only fifteen (15) at the time of his death in Janesville, was shot by drunk undercover police officer Joe Zwaska. Tests showed Leon had traces of marijuana in his blood. Scott Bryant, age 29 at the time of his death (1995), was killed by police officer Robert Neuman of the Dodge County Sherrif's Department. Bryant was unarmed and did not resist in any way when police charged through the door of his home with a no-knock warrant. His seven-year-old son watched his father die, while an ambulance took 35 minutes to arrive. Police later reported finding less than three grams of marijuana. John Graham, age 49 at the time of his death (1986), refused to get out of his truck and resisted during an on-site interrogation. He was then handcuffed by Sauk-Prairie police officer John Mueller and ordered to remain face down on his driveway. Graham was then shot twice in the back of the head by Mueller with his police revolver. I want these incidents to stop before any other non-violent citizen is harmed. Ending the "War on Drugs" will stop these incidents from occurring. Works Cited 1. Califano, Joseph. Behind Bars: Substance Abuse and America's Prison Population. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 1998; Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). The Consequences of Mandatory Minimums, Federal Judicial Center Report, 1994. 2. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Press Release. Nation's Probation and Parole Population Reached Almost 3.9 Million Last Year. Washington D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, August 14, 1997. 3. CASA Report. 2000. 4. Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). The Consequences of Mandatory Minimums, Federal Judicial Center Report, 1994. 5. The Lindesmith Center for Drug Policy Research. 6. Drug Reform Coordination Network. OnLine. http://www.drcnet.org/wol/166.html#ashcroft. December 29, 2000. 7. National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Population Estimates 1996. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Rockville, MD: page 19, Table 2D, 1997. 8. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1996. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 382, Table 4.10, and p. 533, Table 6.36, 1996. |
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