The American prohibition on thinking smart in the drug war

The Washington consensus on drugs rests on two widely shared beliefs. The first is that the war on drugs is a failure. The second is that it cannot be changed.

Americans are a can-do people. They tend to believe that if something does not work, it needs to be fixed. Unless, that is, they are talking about the war on drugs. On this politically fraught issue, Washington’s elites and, indeed, the majority of the population, believe two contradictory things. First, 76 percent of Americans think the war on drugs launched in 1971 by President Richard Nixon has failed. Yet only 19 percent believe the central focus of antidrug efforts should be shifted from interdiction and incarceration to treatment and education. A full 73 percent of Americans are against legalizing any kind of drugs, and 60 percent oppose legalizing marijuana.

This “it doesn’t work, but don’t change it” incongruity is not just a quirk of the U.S. public. It is a manifestation of how the prohibition on drugs has led to a prohibition on rational thought. “Most of my colleagues know that the war on drugs is bankrupt,” a U.S. senator told me, “but for many of us, supporting any form of decriminalization of drugs has long been politically suicidal.”

As a result of this utter failure to think, the United States today is both the world’s largest importer of illicit drugs and the world’s largest exporter of bad drug policy. The U.S. government expects, indeed demands, that its allies adopt its goals and methods and actively collaborate with U.S. drug-fighting agencies. This expectation is one of the few areas of rigorous continuity in U.S. foreign policy over the last three decades.

A second, and more damaging, effect comes from the U.S. emphasis on curtailing the supply abroad rather than lowering the demand at home. The consequence: a transfer of power from governments to criminals in a growing number of countries. In many places, narcotraffickers are the major source of jobs, economic opportunity, and money for elections.

The global economic crisis will only intensify these trends as battered economies shrink and illicit trade becomes the only way for millions of people to make a living. Mexico’s attorney general reckons that U.S. consumers buy $10 billion worth of drugs from his country’s cartels each year, a business that propelled Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, to Forbes magazine’s latest list of the world’s billionaires. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, all that money allows the two main cartels to train, equip, and pay for a highly motivated army of 100,000 that almost equals Mexico’s armed forces in size and often outguns them. And this ascendancy of the drug cartels is a global problem. The opium trade is equal to 30 percent of Afghanistan’s legal economy, and from Burma to Bolivia, Moldova to Guinea-Bissau, drug kingpins have become influential economic and political actors.

Fortunately, there are some signs that the blind support for prohibition is beginning to wane among key Washington elites. One surprising new convert? The Pentagon. Senior U.S. military officers know both that the war on drugs is bankrupt and that it is undermining their ability to succeed in other important missions, such as winning the war in Afghanistan. When Gen. James L. Jones, a former Marine Corps commandant and supreme allied commander in Europe, was asked last November why the United States was losing in Afghanistan, he answered: “The top of my list is the drugs and narcotics, which are, without question, the economic engine that fuels the resurgent Taliban, and the crime and corruption in the country. . . . We couldn’t even talk about that in 2006 when I was there. That was not a topic that anybody wanted to talk about, including the U.S.” Jones is now U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security advisor.

But such views have set off fierce clashes between military commanders newly focused on creating peaceful economic opportunities for Afghan families and the U.S. drug warriors set on eradicating Afghanistan’s major cash crop at any cost. What’s more, inertia alone almost guarantees strong support for drug eradication from the massive bureaucracy that lives off the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that have funded the war on drugs for decades. The opinions of these drug warriors are immune to data: After decades of eradication efforts around the world, neither the acreage of land used to grow drugs nor the tonnage produced has shrunk.

But prohibition at any cost is becoming increasingly hard to defend. As the drug-fueled escalation of violence in Mexico spills across the border into the United States, the American public’s willingness to ignore or tolerate policies that don’t work is bound to decline. And the consequences of failure are already on mounting display: According to the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican drug cartels have established operations in 195 American cities. It is much harder to ignore the collateral damage of the war on drugs when it happens in your neighborhood.

That is the case in many other countries where the nefarious side effects of U.S. drug policies have long been felt. Three of Latin America’s most respected former presidents, Brazil’s Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Colombia’s César Gaviria, and Mexico’s Ernesto Zedillo, recently chaired a commission that came out in favor of drastic changes in the war on drugs—including decriminalization of marijuana for personal use. The commission, on which I sat, spent more than a year reviewing the best available evidence from experts in public health, medicine, law enforcement, the military, and the economics of drug trafficking. One of the commission’s main conclusions is that governments urgently need options beyond eradication, interdiction, criminalization, and incarceration to limit the social consequences of drugs. But though smart thinkers increasingly propose confronting the drug curse as a public health crisis—more options are in the commission’s report at www.drugsanddemocracy.org—real alternatives have found no space in a policy debate stalemated between absolute prohibition and wholesale legalization.

The addiction to a failed policy has long been fueled by the self-interest of a relatively small prohibitionist community—and enabled by the distraction of the American public. But as the costs of the drug war spread from remote countries and U.S. inner cities to the rest of society, spending more to cure and prevent than to eradicate and incarcerate will become a much more obvious idea. Smarter thinking on drugs? That should be the real no-brainer.

Moisés Naím is editor in chief of Foreign Policy.  [Editor's note: emphasis in column added]

Statement of R. Gil Kerlikowske
Director, National Drug Control Policy
Remarks at Release of the 2009 World Drug Report
June 24, 2009

It is a great pleasure for me to be here with UNODC Executive Director Antonio Costa for the release of the 2009 World Drug Report. I am also pleased that we can be joined today by Michele Leonhart, Acting Administrator of DEA, and William McGlynn, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). Congratulations to Antonio and his team in Vienna for putting together this very comprehensive document. As the report shows, every nation is affected by the drug problem.

As we approach June 26th, International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking, it is a good time to reflect on what we can do better. In the United States, we are moving away from divisive “drug war” rhetoric and focusing on employing all the tools at our disposal to get help to those who need it. We recognize that addiction is a disease and are seeking public health solutions. My top priority is to intensify efforts to reduce the demand for drugs which fuels crime and violence around the world.

As a long time police chief, I have seen up-close the terrible impact drugs have on individuals, families, and communities. The earlier we can intervene to get people help, the better – that’s why prevention through schools and the media, and screening for substance abuse problems in a wide variety of health care settings is so vital. We will be expanding these existing efforts and working to ensure drug abuse treatment services are incorporated into our national health care reform process. These efforts will include expanded work to address the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs, a problem of increasing concern within the United States.

Further, we will make sure those caught up in our criminal justice system due to their involvement in drugs get the help they need. Many of those with the underlying disease of addiction commit crimes and thus, frequently come into contact with the criminal justice system. We can no longer afford to simply incarcerate them, while leaving their addiction untreated and their problems unaddressed. We must seize the opportunity to provide evidence-based treatment – either out of jail through diversionary programs like drug courts, or while in jail – to set them on a path to recovery. The Obama Administration is focused on providing treatment for Americans in need so they can permanently break the cycle of addiction and crime.

Our new Fiscal Year 2010 Budget proposes doubling funding for adult, juvenile, and family drug court, tripling Federal support for treatment in state prisons, almost tripling prisoner re-entry funding, as well as $30 million to fund the recently enacted Second Chance Act to address drug-abuse related recidivism.

Internationally, the United States also recognizes its responsibilities. We will continue to provide assistance to partners in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan and elsewhere to reduce the flow of drugs and to bring violent drug traffickers to justice. The United States will work with our partners around the world to stop the flow of weapons associated with drug trafficking, the corrupting impact of the large illicit profits, and to curb the flow of precursor chemicals used to produce drugs.

We will also dedicate ourselves to assisting countries and regions, especially in the developing world, grappling with the terrible impact of the drug trade. West Africa is an example. UNODC has been instrumental in calling international attention to the dramatic rise in narco-trafficking through West African nations. Already, this increased trafficking has been harmful to stability and good governance. Though domestic consumption in West African nations is not significant yet, we know from experience elsewhere that transit states develop domestic markets. There are signs this is beginning to happen in West Africa. I am gratified that the EU has been taking steps to assist African nations. Let me make it very clear that the Obama Administration will be a strong partner in this effort. In fact, we are increasing our counternarcotics assistance to West Africa. The President’s FY 2010 Budget Request includes $6.7 million for counternarcotics efforts in West Africa.

We are eager to collaborate with the UNODC and to share with treatment providers from around the world the latest information on effective treatment and prevention modalities. Our National Institute of Drug Abuse sponsors over $1 billion in research each year, both in the United States and abroad, and we have a responsibility to get those findings out to the field, where it can be put to use.

There is much to be done, but I believe we are on the right track with current and new initiatives to make the drug problem smaller for the United States and the world. Thank you very much.

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. The UN notes that decriminalization in Portugal “keep[s] drugs out of the hands of those who would avoid them under a system of full prohibition, while encouraging treatment, rather than incarceration, for users” and “It also appears that a number of drug-related problems have decreased.”

Our drug czar’s response is that we’re going to double funding for courts that sentence non-addicted non-problematic marijuana users to addiction treatment, when his own numbers show that 37% of pot smokers sentenced to treatment haven’t even used in the past thirty days and only 15% of those who seek marijuana addiction treatment do so voluntarily, and even that’s an overestimate since many of those 15% are coerced by reduced sentencing or emplyer pressure.

Our drug czar’s response is that we’re going to continue to pour money into “Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan and elsewhere” enacting the same strategies of interdiction and eradication that haven’t worked in 70 years.

Our drug czar’s response is that we’re going to pump another $1 billion into NIDA to fund only research that shows purports to find harms from marijuana and none that prove its medical efficacy and relative social harmlessness.

Some of that is good to hear when you’re talking about heroin, cocaine, and meth. People are terribly physically addicted and getting rehab and help to stay clean will help reduce crime and decrease recidivism.

But when we’re talking about cannabis, the underlying premise that its responsible use by adults is somehow a social ill that must be cured is mistaken. Marijuana prohibition is a solution in search of a non-existent problem.

“Supporting marijuana use is an example of domestic terrorism—it puts the public at great risk and threatens the very fabric of our society.” -Ron Brooks, President of National Narcotics Officers’ Association, 4/11/08

In my many annual public appearances and media interviews advocating for cannabis law reforms, the question will often arise ‘if NORML and the other drug policy reform groups are right that there are safe and viable alternatives to cannabis prohibition laws, who then opposes you in trying to amend current state and federal laws?’

The recent political endorsement given to former Republican congressman and ardent drug warrior Doug Ose by the National Narcotics Officers’ Association (NNOA) provides a handy opportunity that helps reveal exactly who are America’s prohibitionists and what are their motivations against ending cannabis prohibition.

Who Actually Supports (Or Profits From) Cannabis Prohibition?
At this juncture having worked over 17 years at NORML/NORML Foundation, my standard reply, without achieving doctoral dissertation length is 1.) There are five basic subgroups of Americans who strongly oppose any reforms in cannabis laws, and 2.) These subgroups constantly seek to deepen and enhance prohibition laws, i.e., politically and culturally oppose citizens and organizations who don’t favor prohibition laws; advocate for greater criminal sanctions and fewer civil liberties (more penalties, longer prison sentences, higher fines, and more of the ‘Big Three Ps’: police/prosecutors/prisons) and civil penalties (forfeiture, drivers license suspension, loss of child custody for parents who consume cannabis, denial of college loans to students busted for pot, removal from public-assisted living housing, etc…).

The Five Pillars Of Pot Prohibition
For all intent and purposes, in my opinion, educators, religious leaders, health organizations, military leadership, business and insurance institutions, and economists are not rabid supporters of cannabis prohibition per se. However, the five subgroups of Americans who do support rigorous cannabis prohibition laws and penalties are:

1- Law Enforcement
Police, sheriffs, state police; prison guards, parole officers and wardens; federal law enforcement [i.e., DEA]; local, state and federal prosecutors; drug court professionals and probation officers. Also, as you plainly read from the NNOA’s webpage, private law enforcement officer associations such as NNOA, California Narcotics Officers Association (read the CNOA’s anti-cannabis, laugh-inducing rants, click here, and here), Fraternal Order of Police, Chief of Police Association (and their state affiliates; Florida’s chapter is a prime example of police influencing the law—not just enforcing them) and the National Association of Attorney Generals (NAAG) work in concert to promote prohibition over tax-n-control policies.

2- So-called Parents Groups
Back in the 1970s there really was an organic, grassroots parents’ movement motivated and organized to oppose NORML’s marijuana decriminalization efforts. However, after the successful election bid of Ronald (and Nancy) Reagan in 1980, the executive branch largely hijacked the parents’ movement under the guise of Mrs. Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ anti-drug program and a number of well funded government front groups were established by inside the beltway Republicans as promotional vehicles for Mrs. Reagan, leaving the nascent grassroots parent’s movement largely high and dry.

The legacy of federal government anti-drug bureaucracies usurping the 1970s parents’ movement against marijuana is found today in a number of what are supposed to pass for parents’ groups, but today are largely government-funded organizations such as, in two examples: National Families in Action (NFIA) and Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA).

3-Companies and industries that financially benefit from the government’s 70-year old ban on cannabis and hemp products

When government passes a law there are always winners and losers. When the US Congress created cannabis/hemp prohibition in 1937 it created a number of economic opportunities for certain industries that effectively exist to support and prosper cannabis prohibition, such as: drug testing industry; private prisons; private for-profit cannabis ‘rehabilitation’ centers, high-tech surveillance (i.e., forward looking infrared radar, aka FLIR) and interdiction devices (i.e., ion scanners).

Many of these profit-making, prohibition-supportive companies and industries (some of which are multi-billion dollar and powerful multi-national corporations, i.e., General Electric, Blackwater, Lockheed Martin or Dyncorp) aggressively lobby for government policies and tax expenditures that benefit their companies, and their shareholders.

A change in cannabis laws from prohibition to tax-n-control negatively impacts the bottom line of many large and politically connected US corporations (and their subsidiaries), along with hundreds of smaller government contract-dependent companies.

4- Companies that would have to compete with cannabis and hemp products if it were not for the government’s cannabis prohibition, and therefore lobby for cannabis/hemp to remain illegal and its consumers treated like violent criminals:

The alcohol industry (beer, wine and distilled spirits; wholesalers and retailers), tobacco industry (cigar, spit and cigarettes; wholesalers and retailers), pharmaceutical industry and industrial material and energy companies (i.e., wood, paper, petroleum, plastics, fiber, seed oil, animal fodder, etc…), lobby and/or advocate against taxing and controlling cannabis and hemp products. Pro-industry associations like the US Chamber of Commerce and The Business Roundtable often work closely with industries and companies benefiting from cannabis prohibition by opposing cannabis law reform, promoting the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries (after all, these are legitimate, tax-paying industries. Right? Must be nice…).

5-Local, County, State, Federal and International ‘Anti-Drug’ Government Agencies and Bureaucracies

One could argue that absent the tens of thousands of government employees (civil servants and political appointees alike) and their inherent taxpayer-funded, multi-billion dollar annual budgets, there would be no so-called ‘war on drugs’ in America (and around the globe attributable to America’s exportation of cannabis prohibition through 1.) United Nation treaties and World Bank funding criterion, 2.) NIDA funding for anti-cannabis scientific and medical research and 3.) US Government-funded crop eradication and market disruption.

However, in conclusion, as long as the US Congress continues to allocate tens of billions of funding annually for huge government agencies and anti-cannabis propaganda campaigns—such as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Partnership for a Drug Free America, Drug Awareness and Resistance Education (DARE), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and about a dozen more US government bureaucracies with odd sounding acronyms that represent tax-draining agencies, most of whom the general public have never heard of, such as the incredible Congressional boondoggle known as NDIC, the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, PA—allows the other four pro-prohibition subgroups to both foster and proliferate cannabis prohibition in support of their parochial profits and narrow business interests (or in the case of government agencies and their employees: annual funding with almost assured built-in budget increases, nearly impossible to terminate civil worker status, regular cost of living increases and a host of other highly sought after government employee benefits).

Thankfully, on June 3, Ose and National Narcotics Officers’ Association lost the primary to one of the most longstanding libertarian politicians in the nation, California Republican state senator Tom McClintock—a supporter of cannabis law reforms.

Speaking in Vienna this week, Costa commented on his brief appearance with this ad hominem attack:

“I attended the meeting of the Drug Alliance [DPA] in New Orleans last December, 1200 participants, 1000 lunatics, 200 good people to talk to. The other ones obviously on drugs.” 

Of course, the idea of Mr. Costa — who just yesterday told the New York Times that pot use poses a greater danger to society than the use of cocaine or heroin — calling us crazy would be ironic if it wasn’t so insulting.

That said, unlike Mr. Costa, I’ve chosen not to articulate my thoughts with epithets. Rather, I’ve decided to simply post some of Mr. Costa’s previous statements and let the readers decide who is “obviously on drugs.”

“Today the harmful characteristics of cannabis are no longer that different from those of other plant-based drugs such as cocaine and heroin.”
Quoted in the London Telegraph, June 27, 2006

“Governments and societies must keep their nerve and avoid being swayed by misguided notions of tolerance. … Amid all the libertarian talk about the right of individuals to engage in dangerous practices provided no one else gets hurt, certain key facts are easily forgotten. First, cannabis is a dangerous drug — not just to the individuals who use it. … Evidence of the damage to mental health caused by cannabis use — from loss of concentration to paranoia, aggressiveness and outright psychosis — is mounting and cannot be ignored.”
Commentary in the Independent on Sunday, March 27, 2007

“The links between organised crime, drug trafficking, drug consumption, drug money, arms trafficking and terrorism become clearer every day. We know that even the occasional marijuana smoker is a link in a much longer and more dangerous chain.”
Quoted by Australian Broadcasting, June 27, 2005

“Think also of the fact that more and more people are voluntarily seeking treatment for cannabis abuse problems and that evidence is fast mounting that even casual abuse of ecstasy can lead to long term brain damage. So ‘recreational’ drug abuse can’t be safe, can it?”
Speech given June 26, 2003