HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/drugs/la.times.editorial

Text File | 1996-05-06 | 7KB | 116 lines

The following appeared on the Commentary page of the Los Angeles Times
Orange County edition. It is not (yet) the editorial opinion of the Times
itself. It is being distributed on Usenet by permission of the author.
The following is his original manuscript; the printed version was edited
slightly to fit in the available space. The author can be contacted
directly at [e-mail] or [e-mail].

Note: the Times' local competitor, the Orange County Register, is already
on record as favoring legalization.

From the Los Angeles Times Orange County, Friday, July 31, 1992, page B11:

Orange County Voices:
ENFORCEMENT FALLS SHORT IN WAR ON DRUGS
by
Bryan J. Vila, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Criminology, Law and Society
School of Social Ecology
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA  92717

    The debate in Orange County about drug legalization has
surged back and forth between judges, physicians, and law enforcement
officials during the past four months.  While this debate has
provoked some thoughtful and accurate commentary, it has also been
the source of much confusion.  As a professor of criminology, and as
a former ghetto cop, police chief, and federal law enforcement
officer, I want to clarify this issue.
    We have become far too committed to the least effective and
most harmful response to the problem of drug abuse.  Contrary to the
position taken by "drug warriors" such as Orange County Sheriff Brad
Gates and Dist. Attorney Michael Capizzi, the evidence strongly
indicates that Superior Court Judge James P. Gray is right:  The War
on Drugs is not working.  We should stop squandering scarce criminal
justice system resources and the bravery of our law enforcement
officers on this  ineffective strategy.  The harm done to society by
enforcing criminal laws against the consumption and possession of
illegal drugs far exceeds the harm done by drug use itself.  This is
something that many people who argue against legalization fail to
understand.  For example, the direct effect of heroin is to make
people stuporous, not violent; the direct effect of marijuana is to
make people euphoric and silly, not aggressive; even stimulants such
as cocaine and amphetamines that do make people more excitable and
agitated seldom lead to violence except in the case of those who
seriously abuse them.  Of course illicit drugs can harm people who
abuse them.  So can overindulgence in alcohol, tobacco, food, and
even our Southern California sunshine.  But our society's response to
alcoholism, lung cancer, obesity, and skin cancer is supportive and
compassionate.  We use a public health approach based on education
and regulation to control these deadly problems.
    In contrast, our attempts to control illegal drug use rely
almost exclusively on law enforcement.  This ill-conceived reaction
to drug use is what condemns addicts to a life of degradation, not
the substances to which they are bound.  It forces addicts to deal
with drug dealers in an underground economy whose violence and
corruption infiltrate the rest of society.  They sell their bodies
and steal in order to pay exorbitant prices for adulterated drugs of
unknown potency.  Most of their crimes are committed to feed their
addiction and protect themselves in a violent world outside the law.
When the violence from this world spills into our daily lives we
respond by committing more resources to drug enforcement.  This leads
to prison overcrowding and forced the early release of muggers and
rapists to make room for more drug users and sellers.  We already
imprison a larger proportion of our population than any other
industrialized nation, yet "drug warriors" demand more jails.
    If enforcement isn't the answer, what is?  Beginning with the
least dangerous drug of all, marijuana, we should attempt to control
drug use via government-controlled distribution systems that sell
only to adults and that do not advertise.  This alone probably will
cut the number of drug arrests in half.  Based on our experiences
with marijuana legalization, we then could develop similar ways to
manage heroin and cocaine use.  But legalization only defuses the
drug economy, it does little to discourage drug abuse.  Using tax
revenues from drug sales, we also should implement the types of
public drug education campaigns that recently have proven effective
against the most deadly drug in our country - tobacco.
    Unlike the War on Drugs, anti-smoking education campaigns
work.  They have brought about a steady decline in tobacco use over
the past decade in spite of the fact that tobacco is more addictive
and deadly than marijuana, heroin, or cocaine.  And they work in
spite of tobacco's easy availability, huge advertising budgets, and
government subsidies.  We need to extend the same type of strategy to
control the use of other dangerous drugs like alcohol, cocaine,
heroin, and marijuana.
    Destroy the $300 billion a year illicit drug economy.
Eliminate the street violence, official corruption, and human
degradation it buys.  Educate people about the dangers of using
drugs - any drugs.  Provide those who still choose to use drugs with
pure drugs of known dosage; then hold them accountable for their
actions and punish them accordingly if they commit crimes.  Help
those who do abuse drugs to bring their lives under control.  The War
on Drugs is itself causing many more casualties than drug use.  It's
time to recognize that the behavior of citizens in a free society is
best controlled by persuasion not by force.  The view of "drug
warriors" that people can only be controlled by force is contrary to
the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded.  We
should reserve the criminal law for those behaviors that present the
greatest threat to society.  Drug use does not itself present such a
threat.
    Judge Gray should be congratulated for his courage and
insight.  We must seriously consider what he, and many other
responsible leaders (such as Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, former
Secretary of State George Schultz, liberal columnist Anthony Lewis,
conservative doyen William F. Buckley, Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke,
retired New York Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy, and U.S. Dist.
Court Judge Robert Sweet) are saying:  The War on Drugs is not
working.  Instead of redoubling our efforts, it is time that we
reexamine where we are going and why.
--
Rob Allen
[e-mail]