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The Drug War is Lost Each year for the past forty years our presidents have asked for more and more money to fight the War on Drugs. The Congress has dutifully complied and when each of the last seven presidents left office they’ve left behind a far worse drug problem than when they began. So if it is true that “insanity” can be defined as making the same mistake over and over again, always expecting a different outcome, then our decades-long battle against drugs has been truly insane.
Barack Obama now resides in the White House and if there’s one thing we know about him it is that he is a single-solution guy, and he is consistent. Just as he expects to fix the failed public education system by throwing more money at it, and just as he can be expected to prosecute the “Overseas Contingency Operation” (the former War on Terror) by throwing money at terror-sponsoring Islamic states, he can be expected to attack the drug problem in the same way.
On her recent trip to Mexico, in what historians may one day refer to as the Obama-Clinton “mea culpa” round of diplomacy (see also Obama’s “America is arrogant” speech in Strasbourg), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton couldn’t seem to repeat often enough the notion that the American people are to blame for Mexico’s drug wars because it is we who create the demand for drugs. She didn’t go so far as to say that Obama had authorized her to grant absolution to the drug cartels, but she did imply that it is we who make them do what they do.
But therein lies the heart of the problem. For decades we’ve been fighting the drug war on the wrong front, never stopping to assess the enemy’s principal strengths and weaknesses. So what has caused administration after administration to aim their guns in the wrong direction? Quite simply, it is the seriously mistaken belief that our illegal drug problem is largely demand driven. It is not. The drug problem is as much supply driven as it is demand driven and we can deal with it in one of two ways. We can either adopt the Singapore model or we can legalize drugs. Either alternative would be equally effective.
The Singapore model is simple and straightforward. Under Singapore law, persons aged 18 or over who are convicted of carrying more than 15 grams of heroin face mandatory death by hanging. The death penalty also applies for smuggling more than 500 grams of marijuana or 250 grams of methamphetamine. Smuggling “designer drugs” such as ecstasy can result in a 30-year jail sentence and/or 15 strokes of the rattan cane (that rattan cane must be a really unpleasant experience), while the mere possession and use of marijuana can lead to a 10-year jail term and a fine of $17,000.
But is it possible that American liberals would ever agree to such harsh penalties? Not likely. They may be willing to kill a few million late term babies, but to stretch the necks of ten or twenty drug smugglers? Never! Nor could they be expected to favor execution by lethal injection, a solution that would appear to make the punishment truly fit the crime.
Our only real alternative... the only possible way of controlling the traffic that now threatens to turn Mexico into the North American equivalent of Somalia... is legalization, in combination with the Singapore model minus the death penalty. Short of that, we should not be surprised to see additional tens of millions of Mexicans fleeing north across the border one day soon, creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the desert southwest that could easily dwarf the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s.
Our drug problem grows and grows because the supply is there and producers demand that it be sold. Drug dealers give drugs to those who are inexperienced but willing to give it a try, they continue the process until their targets are “hooked,” and when the newly addicted lack the resources to support their drug habit they either turn to a life of crime or they become dealers themselves. Our prisons are filled with men and women who have followed that exact path.
So why would anyone risk the terrible consequences of drug peddling – loss of freedom, perhaps even death? Quite simply, it is the opportunity for immense profits. Hence, the answer to the drug problem cannot be found in more cops on the street, more prisons, bigger and better interdiction programs, or mandatory prison sentences. Clearly and simply, the answer is to take the PROFIT out of drugs. The immense profits earned by the drug cartels are both their major strength and their major weakness.
It is an absolute certainty that, if we were to take the profit out of pantyhose and peanut butter, it wouldn’t be long before we’d be without dripping obstructions in our shower stalls and kids would be munching on plain old jelly sandwiches. And with a Democrat in the White House and strong Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, there could be no better time to attack the profits of the drug trade.
With legalization the state would simply give away the tons of illicit drugs seized in anti-drug operations and stored in warehouses across the country. And once users have been identified by obtaining their daily allotments from local physicians, pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics, the addicted can be assigned to mandatory treatment programs. The street market for drugs would quickly dry up and the level of violence along the Mexican border would return to normal.
But while liberals and libertarians may readily agree with the concept of legalization, it is conservatives who will require additional convincing. Although legalization is not an overly complicated concept, conservatives are likely to have a strong knee-jerk reaction. While they embrace without question the virtue of market forces where other products and commodities are concerned, they will not be quick to see the economics of drugs in the same light.
In complete disagreement with the late William F. Buckley, a principal proponent of drug legalization, conservatives can be expected to argue that legalization will expand, not shrink, the number of addicted... apparently under the cockeyed theory that tens of millions of self-destructive non-users are just standing around, waiting to turn themselves into brain-dead vegetables. Conservatives will tend to deny the simple economic reality that, with legalization and rehabilitation, the street market for drugs will go into steep decline.
What is needed is a tightly managed legalization (rationing) program to dry up the street market, a comprehensive drug treatment program for those requiring rehabilitation, and tough Singapore-style criminal penalties, minus the death penalty, for those found in possession of quantities of hard drugs and “designer” drugs. The use and possession of marijuana should be handled with the same penalties and restrictions now applied to the consumption of alcohol.
But can we expect our political leaders to ever find the courage to attack the problem from that perspective? Probably not. To do so would require a level of courage and creative thinking that has not been, heretofore, the hallmark of government policy-making... either at the state or the federal level. That being the case, we might want to take a longer than usual look at our children and grandchildren as we tuck them into their beds each night. Then, as we turn out the lights and tiptoe quietly out the door, we need to fix that picture in our minds because the time may come when we will cherish it.
Unless we can find the courage to deal with the drug problem in a wise and effective way, many of those little innocents will one day have their lives ruined by the scourge of hard drugs. Young men will turn to thievery and violence and many of the young women will take the easy way out and turn to prostitution. And when they do the fault will not be entirely with the drug dealers... we will all share the blame because of our failure to do what is necessary to take the profits out of the illicit drug trade. The Obama Administration is now in charge of the problem and they show no signs of having anything new or courageous to offer. Our lack of courage and our inability to see the problem for what it is will almost certainly guarantee a most horrific outcome... not only in Mexico, but in our own family circles as well. With Obama and Clinton in charge it’s pretty clear that the drug war is lost... again. |
