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1996-05-06
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From: slp9k@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs,alt.drugs
Subject: Justice Dept Report...
Message-ID: <1993May10.234803.67611@cc.usu.edu>
Date: 10 May 93 23:48:03 MDT
Someone posted parts of this article earlier.. I did a quick lexis/nexis
search... and here's the whole thing....
This is contradictory to the article I posted a couple days ago which said that
Clinton would be concentrating on treatment instead of interdiction...
--
********************************************************************************
Darrell Fuhriman * "I'm delighted to be here with all of you
Internet:SLP9K@CC.USU.EDU * who do so much to shape what our people think..."
Bitnet:SLP9K@USU * --Our Prez, Bill
Drop acid, not bombs * to the American Assoc of Newspaper Editors
********************************************************************************
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Chicago Tribune
May 4, 1993, Tuesday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2; ZONE: N
LENGTH: 764 words
HEADLINE: Study refutes link between drug use, crime
BYLINE: By Dan Baum, Special to the Tribune.
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
The number of Americans who use hard drugs regularly is
relatively small and there is scant evidence that drug use - as
distinct from drug trafficking - causes crime, according to a new
Justice Department report.
Eleven years after President Ronald Reagan declared a war on
drugs, the 208-page report, "Drugs, Crime and the Justice System,"
marks the first time the Justice Department has compiled in one
place a comprehensive collection of facts and figures about illegal
drugs and their relationship to crime.
The report, by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, notes that most
drug-related crime appears to be committed by addicts needing a fix
or dealers fighting over turf, situations linked more to the fact
that drugs are illegal - and thus expensive - than to the effects
of the drugs themselves.
"Evidence of a pharmacologically based drugs-violence
relationship is not strong," the report's authors said.
People with criminal records are more likely than others to use
drugs, and drug users are more likely to have criminal records than
non-users, but the relationship between drug use and criminal
activity isn't certain, according to the report.
"For some individuals, drug use is independent of their
involvement in crime. These people may continue to commit crimes
even if drugs were unavailable," it said.
Although it covered a lot of familiar ground, the report
challenged conventional wisdom in several areas.
For example, of the nearly 24 million Americans who have tried
cocaine, fewer than 2 million - or less than 1 percent of the
population - were using it monthly in 1990, according to the
report, released during the weekend.
And despite claims that crack cocaine is "instantly addictive,"
only half a million of the nearly 4 million who had tried it were
using the drug monthly.
By far the most commonly used illegal drug in 1990 was
marijuana, which had been tried by almost 68 million Americans and
was being used monthly by almost 10 million, according to the
report.
By comparison, 103 million Americans were using alcohol at least
once a month.
Release of the report comes at a time when the direction of
national drug policy is unclear.
President Clinton waited until last week to nominate a director
of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, or "drug czar," the
last senior post on his staff to be filled.
Clinton's nominee, former New York City Police Commissioner Lee
Brown, inherits a vastly diminished agency: It was the White House
office hit hardest by Clinton's pledge to reduce the executive
staff.
In February, Clinton cut it to 25 from 147 people, although he
proposed elevating its director to Cabinet rank.
The administration is sending other mixed signals on its aproach
on drug abuse.
After calling for "drug treatment on demand" during the
campaign, Clinton proposed a drug budget this year that places the
same 3-to-1 emphasis on enforcement over treatment and education as
did Bush's spending plan.
But Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has said since taking office that her
prosecutorial emphasis will be with "violent offenders," which
would mark a significant change from the Bush administration policy
of sending even small-quantity, non-violent users and sellers to
federal prison.
More than a million Americans were arrested for drug crimes in
1990, with the federal government alone spending almost $11 billion
on drug control. President Clinton is seeking $13 billion for
fiscal 1994.
More people now are in federal prisons for drug-related crimes
than were in federal prisons for all crimes put together in 1980,
according to Justice Department statistics.
Drug offenders are more likely to be sentenced to prison than
convicted rapists, according to the new report.
Reno, who pioneered alternatives to prison for non-violent drug
offenders as the chief prosecutor in metropolitan Miami, told the
first public meeting of the President's Task Force on National
Health Care Reform in March that "the growth of violence and
substance abuse is a health problem as much as a criminal problem."
Three or four times as many Americans need drug treatment as are
receiving it, the Justice Department report said.
Other signs that the administration may be moving toward a less
hard-line stance on drugs include Clinton's choice of surgeon
general. Joycelyn Elders, who will assume office in June, put
herself on record in January as supporting the medical use of
marijuana.
The Bush administration refused even to consider allowing
doctors to prescribe marijuana for glaucoma, cancer and AIDS
patients.