The Failing Big Government War on Drugs

Its time to stop the war on drugs, were losing the fight and the stakes are too high.  The cost in wealth, health and lives is making it prudent that reform is necessary.

I do not often agree with Jimmy Carter, and I don't like it now that I do not disagree with him on an issue; however, I also do not care if they legalize marijuana.   This is actually a huge turn when for me.  As a former addict, I used to think legalizing marijuana should never happen.  However, after reflecting on the damage that is caused from imprisoning people for a sickness, the path forward became clear.

It is not that I believe that drugs are good and the law should encourage doing them.  Drugs are horrible and they will ruin your life.  However, drug addiction is a disease, and because it is a disease, jailing people for it seems unethical.  Not only that, it is unproductive. 

Jimmy Carter says “I’m in favor of it. I think it’s OK,” and “I don’t think it’s going to happen in Georgia yet, but I think we can watch and see what happens in the state of Washington for instance around Seattle and let the American government and let the American people see does it cause a serious problem or not.”

Washington State and Colorado Legalized recreational marijuana last month, which makes them first and only states to pull this off.

“All drugs were decriminalized in Portugal a few years ago and the use of drugs has gone down dramatically and nobody has been put in prison,” Carter said.

Carter adds that “So I think a few places around the world is good to experiment with and also just a few states in America are good to take the initiative and try something out. That’s the way our country has developed over the last 200 years. It’s about a few states being kind of experiment states. So on that basis I am in favor of it.”

He is right on this.  I would go as far as to say we do not need to have the states test new laws.  The current state of thing is so bad, legalization cannot be much worse.  Let’s remember, people need to take personal responsibility; but that does not mean we need to treat them like they are criminals along the lines of thief’s and violent criminals.  Smoking causes cancer, but we do not/should not put them in jail for smoking.  Yes addiction is a self-given disease, but it’s not always has other factors involves.

Treatments will need to become more prevalent.  America has a prison system designed to gain as many prisoners as possible.  This has become a roadblock in developing sensible laws.  The money that this country spends on the war on drugs is far too much for far too little progress fighting it.

In his book about the war on drugs, James P. Gray said “the common theme throughout this country’s history of Drug Prohibition is that the federal government has been increasingly active, but both federal and state governments have continually passed tougher and tougher laws.  With each upping of the ante, however, the situation has become worse.  To the old saying that enforcing prohibition always leads to violence, corruption, and crime…” 

He also points out that in this case that the war on drugs has also lead to an enormous bureaucracy—a prison industrial complex that is thriving.   

Milton Friedman said “However harmful the ingestion of drugs are to their users, the attempt to prohibit drugs has made matters far worse, threatening our basic rights to life, liberty and property. That is Judge Gray’s thesis in this important book and he cites overwhelming evidence to support it. His proposals to improve the situation do not go as far as I would like, but they are all feasible and in the right direction. If adopted, they would produce a major improvement.”

With hemp it started when after WWII it became a prohibited substance again.  Imagine that, it was useful during the war, but not after.  For decades U.S. Presidents and Congresses have continually reaped political benefits by passing what Gray calls a “Flood of ‘get tough’ laws” which actually just lumped all illegal substances together with no care how they affected people.  After the laws failed, the government responded by creating harsher laws; and they have kept on doing this ever since with the same outcome. 

The Boggs Act of 1951 and the Narcotic Control Act of 1956 both imposed harsh sentencing requirements for all illicit drug offenses.  Richard M. Nixon, who started the war on drugs, expanded the federal government’s involvement by attempting to stop smuggling into the county.  That has also failed.  “The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 consolidated prior anti-drug legislation and established schedules of illicit drugs” and “The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 increased bail amounts and lengths of sentences for drug offenders, and stepped up federal authority to forfeit assets and investigate money laundering.”  Grays book outlines all this perfectly.  He lays out the argument well.

Arresting people is doing nothing to stop drug use, it’s causing violence, and it makes things hard for those that have had or still have the addiction disease.  Washington State and Colorado are doing big things right now.  We will someday celebrate these states has brave.  Republicans will have trouble with winning elections if they do not wake up to reality.  Not to mention what is in the interest of limited government.  

On a side note, no matter what happens, doing drugs is not in my future.