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An Opportunity For President Obama: Change America's Status Quo on Drug Policy
During the President's transition to power, his "Open For Questions" web site received thousands of questions. The most popular question concerned marijuana decriminalization. While many were deemed worthy of serious, nuanced responses, the marijuana question was dismissed with a single sentence: "President-elect Obama does not support the legalization of marijuana."
Having described the War On Drugs as an "utter failure" a few years ago, the President owes Americans a much better explanation.
The word is that the President will name Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske as the next "drug czar." While Chief Kerlikowske will undoubtedly represent an improvement from the past, his appointment will sadly demonstrate that our new President wishes to continue a status quo, law enforcement approach.
Mr. President: the status quo has failed. The only outcomes of this unjust "war" have been the destruction of millions of lives and billions of dollars. Our punitive approach is extinguishing human hope, tearing families apart, empowering violent criminal enterprises, and - at a time of dramatically shrinking budgets - straining social and police resources to their breaking point.
Drug offenders represent the largest source of our prison population growth, and more than half of federal inmates are drug offenders. More than a half-million people are currently serving prison time for non-violent drug offenses and one third of all women in jail are serving time for a non-violent drug conviction. One out of every nine young black men in America lives in a prison. The direct cost of this imprisonment exceeds $14 billion annually, and the additional law enforcement support costs drive the yearly tab to well beyond $40 billion.
This year, about two million people will be arrested for a drug offense. In a great number of these cases, young Americans guilty of nothing more than the possession of a politically incorrect intoxicant - ranging from marijuana to crack cocaine - will be separated from their families, stripped of eligibility for student aid, and eternally exiled from the world of gainful employment. This unfolds hundreds of times each day while we - the privileged - sip our martinis and dare wonder why they don't make better lives for themselves.
These policies have amounted to nothing short of a genocide. Millions of supposedly free Americans - most of them poor black Americans - have been arrested, imprisoned, and had their hopes and futures destroyed - all for possessing the moral equivalent of a bottle of wine.
Beyond staggering social costs, these policies have seriously damaged the Constitutional rights of us all. In the name of protecting us from our vices, we have assented to the evisceration of our fourth, fifth, eighth and tenth Amendment rights. And recently, in the Supreme Court's Morse v. Frederick decision (colloquially known as "Bong Hits for Jesus"), we trimmed our hallowed First Amendment rights as well: the Court actually ruled that speech can be selectively punished based merely on its marijuana-based content. This is a flagrant affront to the Framers' First Amendment intent that no idea should ever be considered too dangerous to be heard.
Our double standards are staggering: American television networks sandwich "anti-drug" ads between beer commercials and dreamy sequences that promote "medications" to cheer us up. That most of us miss the irony is a vivid demonstration of our blindness; it would be funny were it not so heartbreaking.
With 800,000 people arrested annually for marijuana offenses alone, even so-called "soft drugs" are not immune from our insanity. John Walters, President George W. Bush's drug czar, recently referred to marijuana growers as "violent criminal terrorists .. who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties." I do not know a single human being who believes this to be true, yet his conflation of two drastically different problems went completely unchallenged by the mainstream media - and by most of us who were paying his salary.
Whether with marijuana, cocaine, or other illicit drugs, it never seems to matter that the sensationalism is unsupported by the facts. These monumental inequities are based entirely on ideology, superstition, and racism. The science - that is, in the rare instances when the interest-conflicted DEA permits such science to be done - doesn't support the logic of these policies at all.
Even today, the mere suggestion that the demonized substance du jour isn't a major threat is considered fringe, unserious, and hardly worthy of acknowledgment, let alone any serious intellectual indulgence.
One of the stated principles of the Obama Administration with regard to science and health policy is to "restore the basic principle that government decisions should be based on the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on ideological predispositions." The millions victimized by our War On Some Drugs would benefit immensely from the reality-based approach that this principle demands.
We sometimes look back on historic injustices - slavery, segregation, internment - and wonder why so many good citizens stood by and did nothing while epic moral crimes unfolded around them. Likewise, our children and grandchildren will demand to know why we stood by and did nothing in the face of this.
Our nation confronts unprecedented - even existential - social and economic challenges, thus we must be unafraid to ask the big questions. One such question is: how can a nation committed to justice and liberty for all continue to enforce policies that corrode liberties, destroy communities, strain police forces, and empower violent criminals?
As the Great Depression ravaged our society in the 1930s, we came to realize that alcohol prohibition was creating more problems than it solved. A perfect parallel, the War On Drugs is socially, morally, and economically unsustainable, and the time has come to end it.
In contemporary American politics, there are few things more blasphemous than suggesting we end the War On Drugs. But we'd do well to remember what George Bernard Shaw once said: all great truths begin as blasphemies.
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We need jobs. We need products, which do not destroy the environment, while generating jobs. America has the capacity to grow a plant, which can produce, fuel, fiber, paper, food and medicine. Cannabis hemp has industrial history. Cannabis hemp could be the plant of the future.
Cannabis hemp is so many industries, contained in a plant, which could be grown all over America. I think we need to worry more about jobs and new industry. Put some of the profits from the new industry into education.
Investors could be investing in green environmental friendly products. Trickling up jobs. We have a plant, which could grow the economy. One new products at a time. Machines would need to be built to produce the materials. The materials would need workers to produce the products. All, while improving the environment. Cannabis hemp removes the most toxins from the air and is 100% biodegradable.
Thank you Anthony for your important post. What in the real world can be done?
I've often thought that the American citizens should bring a Class Action Suit asking the govt to PROVE marijuana is a "dangerous drug" and therefore illegal.
There is S-O-O-O-O much evidence of the safety of MJ, most expressly the fact that NOT ONE DEATH can be attributed to it, the govt would find it impossible to win a case on this matter.
Obama wouldn't have to be crucified for de-criminalization if he explained the Civil Rights issues in the matter...and state that he actually has no choice but to right the wrong that has turned this country upside down.
Its all in the way he handles it...and he COULD handle it, he could become in fact much more popular by handling this in line with our CIVIL RIGHTS. It really is a ... DUH.
Class Action Suits can start anywhere.
I am in agreement with the author. In August of 1996 I wrote a paper, very heavily researched, "Drug Criminalization: Organized Crime Cash Cow, Prime Cause of U.S. Victim Crime, and Threat to National Sovereignty."
It had already been very well established that the criminalization of drugs was a total failure relative to its advertised objective. On the other hand it underwrote, and guaranteed, profits to organized crime of over five hundred billion ($500,000,000) per year. Those profits were and are used to gain leverage and control over otherwise legitimate businesses and operations. The funds are also a major part of the cash flows through the financial industries. It is naive to think that these enormous annual sums are buried in back yards. They represent power. That power and leverage can only be countered by the decriminalization of drugs, so that government can begin to exercise some control of distribution and monitored use.
Obama's nightly prayer:
GOD, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to know the difference.
Barack isn't gonna touch this one with a ten foot pole, mark my words.....
Strange you would chose this nightly prayer for President Obama. Cannabis 'enables' one to accept and apply this prayer to daily life.
Cannabis/hemp crosses party lines. "Change" in the way we pursue the war on drugs would be beneficial to President Obama from both parties. President Obama could change the war on cannabis with the stroke of a pen. He could remove cannabis from the Dangerous Substance List and let the conversation begin.
Cannabis/hemp is the green we need. It would help industry and the environment. It would compete with many products on the market today, but competition is good. Many products on the market today are not beneficial to our environment, or our people. It is time for change.
Our country is just a joke when you consider some of our policies.
The "War on Drugs" is about nothing at all other than enriching a law enforcement element with taxpayer money. That lobby and movement will in turn funnel contributions toward candidates whom are "tough on crime."
This isn't rocket science, you just need to follow the money. Like most areas of our country's domestic policies, it isn't about the public good, it is about who can we give taxpayer money to which would be the best return on our re-election monetary distributions?
This country is corrupt through and through, and until the public starts to get informed and fed up, nothing will change. I'm continually amazed by the numbers of citizens that know nothing, spend no time educating themselves, wear political blinders, yet feel completely qualified to have a 'serious' political opinion.
Our drug policy is currently criminal and benefits nobody but law enforcement and the cotton industry. (How is it that industrial hemp is illegal in this country???????) Considering water issues in this country, it is INSANITY that hemp is not being grown.
Anthony;
In recent years, many large US businesses have been warned by US government officials to change the way they do business in Colombia and other Latin American and Caribbean nations because they had received "black peso" dollars, according to Customs and DEA officials
The companies become involved when international money brokers, working in league with drug traffickers, sell cheap American dollars, proceeds of the drug trade, to Colombian importers of appliances, cigarettes, liquor and other products. They use those dollars to buy legitimate goods in the United States from top US companies and their distributors. The money brokers often pay for the goods in strange ways, like wire transfers from unrelated third parties, which should set off some kind of alarm among the legitimate companies, according to the US Department of Treasury.
The WOD is a big smokescreen. The little guys on the street get busted with a joint in their socks and do hard time, whilst big business flies way over everybody elses head and boosts their bottom line without any recourse.
Legalize them, and tax them appropriately? Sure, it makes sense, but only if you're willing to see a massive reorganisation and rationalisation of corporate America....not gonna happen, anytime soon methinks....
A politician must have nothing to lose if he wishes to relax the rules of the drug war. In terms of public relations, it would be a huge boost to the Republican party to energize their religious base. You guys must see this in Obama's shoes. He is already preparing for re-election. The only possible time the drug war rules would even consider being relaxed is in 2012 after he has won re-election. There is no possible chance that it will even be discussed by Obama until then! In fact, ANY politician who even brings forward a bill is lambasted by Republicans immediately. Take Barney Frank for example. Few people realize before the banking crisis made him infamous that he brought forth a bill to legalize marijuana in 2008 and it didnt even come close to making it to a vote.
That was a very compelling argument. And you are right about the first one to take a stand will be stoned (No pun) to death. Our Christian brethren will never take this lying down. And the GOP will hang their hat on anything they can.
You can't blame the DEA for having their collective heads up the 'golden gooses ass'. Everybody likes a cash cow. It's easy money taking down medical marijuana dispensaries. End Cannabis Prohibition NOW.
Handling drugs is one thing Ron Paul gets right. Put him in charge.
If you want to go back in time 200 years.
I fully support this idea, despite being a non-user myself. I dont use any drug considered illegal but I think that we should be treating abuse and not punishing use. I act believe this is an issue that takes a chunk off of the GDP of our country becuase of the potential industry that is repressed, the black market created and the destruction of faith in the justness of our nation and constitution. Like abortion, making this illegal doesnt stop it, it just drives it into back alleys and the black market. Goddam religious nuts run this country. EVEN OBAMA ; im sorry.
Great article. People get into emotional response patterns - and it's hard to see another way. They are also fearful that it will be easier for their kids to get drugs. But, to me, legalizing drugs does not mean that you can buy heroin at Walgreens. What I would like to see is a program that allows addicts to get their shots at gov't. run clinics, for a fee. It would greatly reduce crime, and the whole area of narco trafficking. Addicts could be given counseling and rehab services, if they wished (paid for by savings in law enforcement). It makes so much sense, it will probably never be done. Perhaps a pilot program will someday be possible.
Mr. Citrano has written an excellent article. Now all we need is for those who learn from history to read it.
Obama: So what our challenge is going to be is identifying what works and putting more money into that, eliminating things that don't work, and making things that we have more efficient.
You might think that this statement would mean an end to the War on some Drugs, but it's all about the definition of "works" and who it "works" for.
Yesterday, near Pittsburgh, a college student was shot and killed by police after a 3 hour standoff. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-
Mr. Briggs' friends and fellow students said the incident was completely out of character. The man they remembered was a great friend who had shown no inclination to hurt anyone, they said.
"I don't know what all happened, but Joe was there for people," said Greg Sell, a 22-year-old senior from Ohio who became friends with Mr. Briggs when they both played for Seton Hill's football team. "If you needed something, he was a person you could call on."
State police said Mr. Briggs' roommates, who were not hurt yesterday, told them he might have been having personal problems with a relationship. Mr. Briggs and one of those roommates, police said, went to the Filly Corral, a strip club near a travel plaza off Interstate 70 in Smithton, on Saturday night. There, Mr. Briggs got "heavily intoxicated," they said.
Mr. Briggs' companion told them Mr. Briggs acted irrationally and fired a gun randomly out the car window on the way home to Greensburg from the club, state police said.
Sometime after the two men reached their home, Greensburg police got a call that Mr. Briggs was threatening to shoot himself and his roommates, according to state police.
...Is there anyone who thinks any of this would have happened if he were stoned????
So, the guns and alcohol, they won't ruin your life, will they?
The best on-topic anecdote--
A few years ago, a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals was found dead in his hotel room. There was a bag of pot on his night stand.
The police IMMEDIATELY ruled the pot out as a possible cause of death. If they had found a bottle of wine, a bottle of aspirin, etc, they would and could not rule it out immediately as a possible cause of death.
Why? Cause pot has never killed anyone...
...but, you know, it will ruin your life....cuz "they" make sure it will....chewing gum would ruin your life too, if they put you in jail and gave you a criminal record for it.
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