Federal Drug War Rethought
As both a U.S. Attorney and Member of Congress, I defended drug prohibition. But it has become increasingly clear to me, after much study, that our current strategy has not worked and will not work. The other candidates for president prefer not to address this issue, but ignoring the failure of existing policy exhibits both a poverty of thought and an absence of political courage. The federal government must turn the decision on drug policy back to the states and the citizens themselves.
My change in perspective might shock some people, but leadership requires a willingness to assess evidence and recognize when a strategy is not working. We are paying far too high a price for today's failed policy to continue it simply because it has always been done that way.
It is obvious that, like Prohibition's effort to eradicate alcohol usage, drug prohibition has not succeeded. Despite enormous law enforcement efforts -- including the dedicated service of many thousands of professional men and women -- the government has not halted drug use. Indeed, the problem is worse today than in 1972, when Richard Nixon first coined the phrase "War on Drugs."
Whether we like it or not, tens of millions of Americans have used and will continue to use drugs. Yet in 2005 we spent more than $12 billion on federal drug enforcement efforts. Another $30 billion went to incarcerate non-violent drug offenders.
These people must live forever with the scarlet letter P for prison. Only luck saved even presidents and candidates for president from bearing the same mark, which would have disqualified them from not only high political office, but also many more commonplace jobs.
The federal drug laws affect even those who have never smoked (or inhaled!) a marijuana cigarette. One of the lessons I learned while serving in Congress is how power tends to concentrate in Washington, and how that concentration of power begets more power and threatens individual liberty. The ever-expanding drug war is a perfect illustration of this principle.
We simply must bring our system back into balance. First, the federal government should get out of the "drug war" and allow states to determine their own drug policies. Rather than continuing to arrest and imprison people for offenses that do not directly harm other people, we should focus federal law enforcement on crimes involving serious fraud or violence, with identifiable victims. Even then, only where there is a clear and specific federal interest, should the federal government be involved.
As president, I would also begin dismantling the vast bureaucracies that have grown up as part of the drug war. My drug "czar" would diminish rather than expand the office. Importantly, the vast power of the federal government would no longer be employed to override the decision of the citizens of the states to reform their drug laws.
I also would review my presidential pardon and commutation powers as a possible means to reduce the number of people in federal prison for non-violent drug offenses. We can no longer afford the human and economic costs of imprisoning so many thousands of people for drug possession. This is the most destructive impact of drug prohibition.
With regard to the medicinal use of marijuana, it appears that politics, rather than true science, led to the government's classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, preventing its medical use, and has blocked attempts to reconsider that classification. As president, I would direct the DEA to initiate, for the first time, a truly open, fair, and objective process to test and evaluate the medical potential of marijuana. Based on the studies that I have consulted, I believe the result would be reclassification of the drug.
Regardless of federal policy, the federal government should accept the decisions of the citizens of the states if they choose to allow the medical use of marijuana. As president, I would ensure that no executive branch official interfered in a state initiative or referendum campaign. I also would direct the Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Agency to respect state law. Crimes of violence, whether involving drugs or not, must continue to be investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
None of this means that I believe drug use to be harmless, or appropriate for minors. For that reason I would encourage people and institutions throughout America, from churches to social agencies to sports leagues, to work together to address drug abuse. One of our nation's greatest strengths is the willingness of people to organize outside of government to solve human problems.
But treating what is, at base, a moral, spiritual, and health problem as a matter of federal criminal law has solved nothing. The next president must put politics aside and take a long, hard look at the failure of the federal war on drugs. We must reestablish the primacy of individual choice and state's rights in deciding these issues. This always has been the greatest strength of America, and should be again.
Bob Barr, a former member of Congress from Georgia, is the Libertarian Party's nominee for president.
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obama should give you a cabinet position sir.
Please! Are you on drugs?
A day late and a dollar short, too bad you didn't realize this when you could have done something about it, now you want our vote when Barack needs all the help he can get to get rid of Republicans and their outdated way of thinking. Vote for Obama.
Well thought out and intelligable.
Sadly that cannot be said of most Federal Policy.
Mr. Barr --
Thank you for being that rarest of all creatures: an honest politician.
While I have never been a fan of yours in the past, I must compliment you on the ability to admit when you have been wrong, and admitting that the course you once opposed, is correct.
Not only is that an extremely hard thing to do, it demonstrates the presence of a nobility of character -- something sadly missing in modern day politicians.
BTW, my Bush-adoring relatives in Texas are interested in your candidacy, as they are disillusioned by McSame and his prom date, Caribou Barbie.
HOW CAN YOU FIGHT A DRUG WAR WHEN THE FBI, CIA AND ATF ARE THE LARGEST DRUG DEALERS IN YOUR COUNTRY ??????
A well thought out and excellent idea, I admire you for coming around to this conclusion and having the courage to speak out against the present policy.
One additional observation in regards to the statement 'One of our nation's greatest strengths is the willingness of people to organize outside of government to solve human problems', isn't this great strength you speak of (and which I share with you) one of the very things that the party you used to belong to lambasted at their recent no-ideas convention delivered by none other than a teleprompter reading/book banning/petty/corrupt/vindictive/religious end-of-time believing/knows-what's-best-for-everyone else liar?
No wonder you left that party, I'm sure the comment about the constitution being just a piece of paper was the final straw if you hadn't already left by then.
The drug war is a winning issue because so many Americans believe so many right wing politicians who run on it as a wedge issue. Themselves, like Rush Limbaugh and numberless other insiders, are beyond its reach because the judges belong to the same country clubs.
The drug war is class war and, by design, it is fought against those whose addictions they share but not their economic underclass status. The well- to-do use their commonly ill-gotten gains in wealth and status to afford themselves expensive drug rehabs and incarcerate those they see as their inferiors. In the process, they disenfranchise these "others."
The drug war is an elaborate Ponzi scheme to distract the masses as surely as the corrupt leaders of Rome used similarly elaborate spectacles requiring senseless violence and death from gladiators in the Coliseum.
One of themore astonishing things aobut right-wing types is that they're always hawking "free market" solutions, unless it's regarding behavior they disapprove of. Here is a case where the free market forces are so overwhelming that fighting them is spectacularly inane. I have an extremist view: legalize all vices and tax them; use part of the tax revenue for treatment programs for those who are, um, unable to maintain their lives because a weakness towards a given vice. The rest, and I believe there will be a lot left over, is gravy.
Why was nobody in the Central Int. Agency ever charged for the importation of illegal substances? The fact that this happened sponsored by the government should make anybody's charge for its prohibition invalid when you have been supplied by your accuser. Wasn't the whole war on drugs just a way for the people responsible to cover up their illegal doings? Wasn't that why Noriega was captured and never let to speak publicly again? Isn't this why Clinton and Bush Sr. are best friends, always have been?
Mr. Barr, it takes a lot of courage to change your position so thoughtfully. I applaud you!
Thank You, Congressmen Barr.
First post by a sitting politician in a long time that makes sense and exhibits real political courage. You know, I've been shopping around for a new political party lately......
"The WAR" on anything that's not an actual enemy pointing a gun at you... is unwinnable.
Even as a metaphor, it's a loser.
And after dozens of years, trillions of dollars and Lord knows how many lives ruined, the Metaphor is not working.
For all the good this investment has done, we ought to have just spent it rebuilding the ghettos and creating jobs for disaffected people.
But no action on this topic would be better than the actions we've taken. And in the intervening years since this "WAR" was declared, we've gone from one "headline drug" to another and watched cartels and small time thugs get rich beyond anyones' imaginations.
The "WAR" on drugs has been a failure by any measurement. Time for a new set of strategies.
Time to stop lining the pockets of private contractors used by intelligence services, law enforcement and the DOD or DEA.
As yourselves - what if we just stopped and redirected the money elsewhere? What's the worst thing that could happen?
Does anyone REALLY believe that drug abuse would suddenly spread like wildfire from where it is now? Does anyone really think it's contained?
Thanks Rep. Barr for having the guts to say this out loud. We admire your convictions.
30 billion for incarceration each and every year, I think that would have funded all the dialysis treatements in this country...
Then they (the incarcerated) loose the right to vote and have a heck of a time in the job market. But we must consider that while we are paying 30,000 per year per head, these prisoners are being used as SLAVE Labor for corporations. I am ready to audit that here and now.
Then it makes the rest of us (including Mr Bush) totally hypocritical for not taking our punishment because we did not happen to be in the right place or time to be arrested....How many of us do you think have done exactly what these poor people have done.
I think the problem you run into congressman, is that the business interests behind drug proliferation in the United States understand there is more money to be made with it illegal than legal. If legalizing drugs in the US didn't cut into the profit margin it would have been done decades ago.
But I do appreciate you line of thinking.
Thats a terrible reason to allow the insanity to continue. Thanks Bob Barr for your courage
Hmmmm. Remember Clinton? Remember how much he helped develop a rational drug policy? Ha!
Hooray for Barr, sort of. Hooray for cops who have come around. After all, they are the ones who deal with violent situations usually fueled by the drug all those lawmakers are slamming down day and night.
The media is perhaps the biggest monster of all when it comes to this issue. National and local. They tow the line, never ask tough questions, and trivialize the dangers of alcohol and other legal drugs while scaring viewers with meth horror stories and blurring the absurdity that is marijuana law.
The intrusions, the surveillance, the neighbor spying on neighbor began well before 9-11 and will continue to bust our freedom and our chops and march non-violent, good people off to jail, simply for choosing an intoxicant that doesn't match up with the choice pushed at youngsters watching sports by alcohol companies looking for new customers.
Change? With the profit motive for the drug testing and detection industry and incarceration industry, the rewards for law enforcement agencies in the form of grants and forfeiture monies, and the hysteria resulting from decades of a well-oiled and financed propaganda machine (Partnership for a Drug Free America et. al.), and no questioning of policy by the media, in the campaigns or on the street corner, this is gonna’ get worse before it gets better. It would seem.
But, um, thanks Bob for your change of heart.
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