Enough Already -- Stop Funding the Taliban Through Opium Prohibition

In the system of strong regulation (much stronger than the regulation we currently have for alcohol and tobacco), I believe we could make it much more difficult for kids to acquire drugs (inlcuding alcohol and tobacco).

We merely need to get serious about doing things that might work rather than continuing to use the same strategy that has failed us for nearly 40 years now.

 

There are a LOT of people that don't keep alcohol in the house (I am one of them).

The real point is that, through regulations and stricter enforcement using the "We Card" programs of the '90s, we were able to have a significant impact on the number of young people who are able to get alcohol and tobacco. We had such an impact that, starting in 2002, kids started reporting that it is easier to acquire illegal drugs than alcohol.

Clearly, we can have a positive impact through regulation that we have not been able to accomplish through prohibition.

 

And it shouldn't be easy to get any of them, alcohol and tobacco included. We need to get serious about getting drugs (again, alcohol and tobacco included) out of the hands of our young people. It should be evident, after nearly four decades and over a trillion dollars, that prohibition does not work. Over half of our young people use illegal drugs before they leave high school and have every year since SAMSHA started the survey in 1972.

Prohibition is not working, but through strong regulation, we can keep drugs out of the hands of our children.

 

Besides, most parents are pretty conscientious about keeping track of how much alcohol they have in the house. The one time I took a beer out of the fridge, my father knew it within two hours.

 

Not according to statistics. It is a small difference (34% reported that it was "easy" to get drugs versus 31% for alcohol), but the point is that prohibition is not getting us anywhere.

We need a much stronger system of regulation that has as its primary, overriding goal being removing the access that minors have to ALL drugs. I am tired of our politicians "sending messages," I would like to find some solutions that actually work.

 

And I bet if you had teenagers in the house, you would have some kind of lock on the liquor cabinet or some way of knowing if your kids have been getting into the bottles. I plan to lock up all of my liquor (I also have liquor in the house for special occasions and guests) once my kids are tall enough to reach the cabinet that the bottles are in.

 

There is a lot of evidence that what you have stated above is simply urban legend.


Research results indicate that drug use does not pose significant productivity or safety problems in the work force. In 1994, the National Academy of Sciences published results from a three year research effort compiling research resulting from all major studies of drug testing program effectiveness. The report concluded, "the data . . . do not provide clear evidence of the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on safety and other job performance indicators."
Source: "Drug Testing," from 1994 NAS study "Under the Influence: Drugs and the American Work Force," (hereafter, NAS study) available at above site.


Though frequently inaccurate and ineffective, drug testing is extremely expensive. Texas Intruments reports that their drug testing program costs $100 per employee. Drug testing products and services are a multi-billion dollar industry. But the incidence of drug use in the workforce is very low. The federal government reported in 1990 that only 0.5% of tested employees tested positive. The same year, the government spent $11.7 million on its drug testing program. That works out to $77,000 per identified drug user.
Source: "Drug Testing," pgs. 4, 14.


http://www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/testing/10842res20021021.html


A positive drug test does not indicate whether an employee was impaired or intoxicated on the job, nor does it indicate whether an employee has a drug problem or how often the employee uses the drug. Thus most tests do not provide information relevant to job performance.

Source: Lewis Maltby, Vice President, Drexelbrook Controls, Horsham, PA, as cited in Report of the Maine Commission to Examine Chemical Testing of Employees, (December 31, 1986).


"Few employers have used impairment testing, and information concerning that experience is very limited and extremely difficult to obtain. The available information, however, indicates that impairment testing is not just a better answer on paper, but in practice as well. Employers who have used impairment testing consistently found that it reduced accidents and was accepted by employees. Moreover, these employers consistently found that it was superior to urine testing in achieving both of these objectives."

Source: National Workrights Institute, "Impairment Testing: Does It Work?" (Princeton, NJ: NWI, undated), from the web at http://www.workrights.org/issue_drugtest/dt_impairment_testing.html, last accessed March 17, 2004.


In a study of high tech industries, researchers found that "drug testing programs do not succeed in improving productivity. Surprisingly, companies adopting drug testing programs are found to exhibit lower levels of productivity than their counterparts that do not... Both pre-employment and random testing of workers are found to be associated with lower levels of productivity."

Source: Shepard, Edward M., and Thomas J. Clifton, Drug Testing and Labor Productivity: Estimates Applying a Production Function Model, Institute of Industrial Relations, Research Paper No. 18, Le Moyne University, Syracuse, NY (1998), p. 1.


According to a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published by the Southern Economic Journal in 2001, "Nonchronic drug use was not statistically related to either of the labor supply measures, indicating that light or casual drug use did not lead to negative effects on the labor supply."

Source: French, Michael T., M. Christopher Roebuck, and Pierre Kebreau Alexandre, "Illicit Drug Use, Employment, and Labor Force Participation," Southern Economic Journal (Southern Economic Association: Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 2001), 68(2), p. 366.

 

As any schoolchild could tell you, you ask the pot dealer.

That is one of the biggest problems with our drug policy, it lumps mar1juana in with all other illegal drugs, creating a situation where kids can get anything they want. Unfortunately, the drug dealers would rather that their customers use high profit drugs (cocaine, heroin, MDMA), so mar1juana becomes a "gateway" because it is prohibited.

I would rather have mar1juana regulated to break the gateway effect created by prohibition so that if kids get it, they get it from older siblings or peers rather than people who would rather see them hooked on something far more dangerous.

This is the biggest reason to change our policies regarding opiates. In Switzerland, they have had a prescription heroin trial going on for over a decade. In that time, the "junkies" have shown reduced criminality, increased recovery rates, and the ability to live their lives, work their jobs, and generally become responsible, taxpaying members of society. And these are people who are addicted to perhaps the worst drug on the planet. Even heroin addicts can be productive members of our society in the absence of prohibition.

 

So, you would put anecdotal evidence ahead of empirical data?

Even if drugs became regulated tomorrow, I would support a private businessman who chooses to perform pre-employment or for-cause drug testing. Personally, I would only perform for-cause impairment testing for employees who were involved in some kind of accident or who were acting impaired on the job. However, IMO, that would be your right even though (as the evidence I showed pointed out) urinalysis only catches pot smokers, for the most part, as just about everything else metabolizes and excretes within 24-48 hours.

People who smoke pot, even daily, are far less dangerous than people who use any other drug, especially alcohol, with the same frequency. The evidence also shows that mar1juana users, in general, are as productive as drinkers.