Speaking of drugs, it looks like Grandpa Carter is off his meds again. In this New York Times op-ed, he calls for an end to the war on drugs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17carter.html
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IN an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.
Fousesquawk comment: First of all, George Schultz, in my view, placed drug enforcement low on his scale of priorities when he was secretary of state. Secondly, what does Paul Volcker know about drugs. And Richard Branson? Virgin Atlantic Airlines? I wonder what distinguished former secretary general of the UN Carter is talking about. Boutros Boutros Ghali? Or was it the crook from Ghana?
The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.
What is non-violent? The problem is that Carter and others use this term to describe people who have smuggled or sold commercial quantities of drugs if they were arrested without violence or in possession of a gun. The illusion is that all those people in prison for drug offenses are non-violent drug users instead of dealers and traffickers.
These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”
Carter is doing the same thing here. In this country, people get prison sentences for trafficking in commercial quantities of drugs-not using them. It is true that offenders on parole or probation have been sent back to prison for violating their probation or parole by using drugs. The original charge was invariably something far more serious.
These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries.
Those "futile efforts to control drug imports" have kept the drug situation from being infinitely worse in this country. Is Carter suggesting that we should not try to stop illegal drugs from entering our country?
This approach entailed an enormous expenditure of resources and the dependence on police and military forces to reduce the foreign cultivation of marijuana, coca and opium poppy and the production of cocaine and heroin. One result has been a terrible escalation in drug-related violence, corruption and gross violations of human rights in a growing number of Latin American countries.
According to Carter, enforcement efforts have caused all the violence in Latin America.
The commission’s facts and arguments are persuasive. It recommends that governments be encouraged to experiment “with models of legal regulation of drugs ... that are designed to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.” For effective examples, they can look to policies that have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.
Europe? Did Carter ever visit Needle Park in Zurich? Is he talking about that failed experiment in England where they gave licensed heroin to addicts-and tripled their addict population before scrapping it? What is a model of legal regulation of drugs? Would everyone comply with those legal regulations-or would there simply be a new form of black market?
But they probably won’t turn to the United States for advice. Drug policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison populations. At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number was nearly 2.3 million. There are 743 people in prison for every 100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and seven times as great as in Europe. Some 7.2 million people are either in prison or on probation or parole — more than 3 percent of all American adults!
That's because we have a lot of criminals in this country, Mr Carter. Go to the federal prisons and see what they are in for. Yes, a large percentage are drug dealers-dealers not users.
Some of this increase has been caused by mandatory minimum sentencing and “three strikes you’re out” laws. But about three-quarters of new admissions to state prisons are for nonviolent crimes. And the single greatest cause of prison population growth has been the war on drugs, with the number of people incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses increasing more than twelvefold since 1980.
Again. People don't go to prison-in this country- for simply using drugs. They go to prison for selling drugs. Again, I make note of those who violated parole or probation by using drugs and being returned to prison.
Not only has this excessive punishment destroyed the lives of millions of young people and their families (disproportionately minorities), but it is wreaking havoc on state and local budgets. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state’s budget went to higher education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education.
Two reasons for that: First, California spends more on prisoners than virtually any other state. Second, a huge proportion of California's prisoners are illegal alien criminals. Once again, Carter doesn't know what he is talking about.
Maybe the increased tax burden on wealthy citizens necessary to pay for the war on drugs will help to bring about a reform of America’s drug policies. At least the recommendations of the Global Commission will give some cover to political leaders who wish to do what is right.
That's right. Bring it back to those rich people who aren't paying their fair share.
A few years ago I worked side by side for four months with a group of prison inmates, who were learning the building trade, to renovate some public buildings in my hometown of Plains, Ga. They were intelligent and dedicated young men, each preparing for a productive life after the completion of his sentence. More than half of them were in prison for drug-related crimes, and would have been better off in college or trade school.
To help such men remain valuable members of society, and to make drug policies more humane and more effective, the American government should support and enact the reforms laid out by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, is the founder of the Carter Center and the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.
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And an idiot!
What Carter is advocating is that the world scrap all the agreements nations have made to cooperate with each other to combat the manufacture and international traffic of drugs (Vienna Convention).
What Carter in his naivete doesn't realize-or want to- is that in America, we do have rehab and education programs for mere users and addicts. I can't speak for every podunk jurisdiction where someone may get a few days or weeks in jail for possession and use, but long prison sentences are for those who deal or traffic in drugs. Let me ask Mr Carter a question:
Gary, it is no doubt hard to convince someone who devoted a large part of his adult life to DEA, often risking your life in the line of duty.
ReplyDeleteBut criminalization of recreational drug use, like Prohibition of alcohol, is a failure, and for the same reasons.
One hundred years ago, anyone could buy heroin over the counter of any pharmacy in America, legally. Did this cause social problems? Yes. Were the laws to control or prohibit sale, possession, and use motivated by a sincere desire to control or end these social problems? Certainly.
But, just as many socialist schemes founder on the ingenious ability of humans to pursue what they want, call it the actions of the "free market" if you will, the attempt to eliminate the evils of "demon rum" or "John Barleycorn" or marijuana or narcotics foundered on the reality of the "free market," whether legal or illegal.
If all this stuff were legal, it would also be dirt cheap. Drug gangs wouldn't be able to afford high tech weaponry on the profits, making them rivals of many governments for real power. Shooting a debtor would not be the only safe means to collect what a dealer is owed. (In fact, dealers would mostly be out of business). Tainting with various poisons could be controlled by inspection.
We WOULD need to prepare to deal with the social problems drug use has ALWAYS involved. It would be good to get rid of the distortions caused by current law, but we need a controlled decompression, so we don't have hordes of kids screaming "It's legal! Try some!" This is dangerous stuff. It is better to stay off it. Laws should allow employers to maintain a "drug free work place" on the grounds that using this stuff can make an employee dangerous to those around them.
It can be done right, and it would be far better than the dangerous situation we have created by well-intentioned but misplaced criminal laws.
It is not often that I argue a position so well that Gary Fouse is struck speechless.
ReplyDeleteSiarlys,
ReplyDeleteActually you often leave me speechless with your comments. I just don't bother to engage them. Your argument for legalization is typical of the Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm notion that all the bad guys will just go away.
Obviously you DIDN'T read it at all. I never said the bad guys will go away. I said they'll have to work harder for their money, and probably have less opportunity to accumulate as much of it.
ReplyDeleteDoes some heir of Al Capone control the wholesaling of the beer you drink today, when you are not in Germany?
I did make a lot of other points, none of which you have even attempted to respond to. Pathetic for a man intelligent enough to teach English.