[Stossel] Prohibition Spawns Drug Violence

Maybe so, there is a wide gap between the terms "use" and "abuse."

Which they would be able to do quite effectively with a regulated form of cocaine that minimized the addiction factors. You will get the "high" of cocaine with a beverage, the only thing you miss is the speed with which snorted, smoked, or injected cocaine hits the brain, coincidentally, the methods that increase the addiction factor dramatically.

.667% of the population has used cocaine in the past month. 8.5% of the population has used cocaine in their lifetimes. That means that 95% of the people who have used cocaine have not used it in the last month, so even if you assume that every one of the .667% who have used in the last month is addicted, that is still a miniscule number of people who become addicted to cocaine. You may find it funny, but the statistics paint a stark portrait that is in direct conflict with your anecdotal evidence.

 

Nobody is talking about liberty being taken away with regards to health care. Rather, the only people who are talking about it are the ones who are making s*** up.

 

Before it was illegal, it was estimated that 1.3% of the population was addicted to drugs, the exact same statistic is estimated to be the level of addiction today. Drugs were NOT more "widely used" prior to becoming illegal.

I do believe that there would be a minor uptick in reported usage rates, but I believe that most of that would be from people reporting their ACTUAL usage rather than lying to the person who calls to do a survey over the phone about things that are illegal. We saw a minor increase in alcohol usage after prohibition ended, but that went down and leveled off within a couple of years and since then, alcohol usage has remained fairly constant, as has drug use.

Which could very well lead to less usage than we have today, particularly if we do some honest education regarding drug use and abuse. The "education" that people receive today regarding these issues is an absolute joke.

It is VERY important to keep your eye on the dangers. The main point of regulating the industry is to mitigate the dangers inherent with drug use and abuse in our society. IMO, the main danger is kids experimenting with drugs, which leads directly to the addiction statistic, and this is the part of this issue that is most frustrating to me. Kids can get illegal drugs more easily than they can get alcohol and in many cases more easily than adults can get them.

When I was in high school, I knew a dozen or more people from whom I could acquire drugs. Today, I am pretty sure I know two from whom I could acquire pot and none who could get anything else. I think that is a serious problem that our current drug policy simply ignores.

 

I know there will be temptation for and abuse of drugs in a regulated system. My contention is that it is easier to deal with those temptations and abuse in a regulated system than in a prohibitionist system. We have been able to reduce the number of tobacco smokers DRAMATICALLY because we adopted harm reduction strategies in a regulated market.

If we have licensed sales in a regulated market, we could include consultations with a physician as part of regulating some substances. Pharmaceutical grade amphetamines are exceptionally safe and not particularly addictive when taken properly.

In a regulated system, we could monitor the statistics, keep an eye on all of the factors, and if it appears that too many people are having problems, we adjust the system.

 

The only numbers we have from that era are addiction estimates, not usage estimates. However, if Coca-Cola drinking was widespread before 1914, that only bolsters my point that comparatively few people who try cocaine become addicted.

 

Granted, but the problem with drugs is not drug USE. What we need to deal with more effectively is drug ABUSE. If we have a regulated market, we are able to reduce the opportunity for people to become addicted for example by mandating that cocaine be distributed as a beverage infusion as opposed to the powdered or rock forms. The method of delivery has as much or more to do with addiction than the drug itself.

Cocaine in powdered form is definitely addictive, but smoking or injecting cocaine increases the addiction factor dramatically as both of these delivery mechanisms are designed to allow the drug to hit the brain as quickly and forcefully as possible. Through smart regulation, we can reduce the risk factors for addiction, provide comprehensive treatment options paid for by the taxes on the drugs themselves, and dramatically reduce the societal harms caused by drugs.

 

It's Time to Legalize Drugs

Undercover Baltimore police officer Dante Arthur was doing what he does well, arresting drug dealers, when he approached a group in January. What he didn't know was that one of suspects knew from a previous arrest that Arthur was police. Arthur was shot twice in the face. In the gunfight that ensued, Arthur's partner returned fire and shot one of the suspects, three of whom were later arrested.

In many ways, Dante Arthur was lucky. He lived. Nationwide, a police officer dies on duty nearly every other day. Too often a flag-draped casket is followed by miles of flashing red and blue lights. Even more officers are shot and wounded, too many fighting the war on drugs. The prohibition on drugs leads to unregulated, and often violent, public drug dealing. Perhaps counterintuitively, better police training and bigger guns are not the answer.

When it makes sense to deal drugs in public, a neighborhood becomes home to drug violence. For a low-level drug dealer, working the street means more money and fewer economic risks. If police come, and they will, some young kid will be left holding the bag while the dealer walks around the block. But if the dealer sells inside, one raid, by either police or robbers, can put him out of business for good. Only those virtually immune from arrests (much less imprisonment) -- college students, the wealthy and those who never buy or sell from strangers -- can deal indoors.

Six years ago one of us wrote a column on this page, "Victims of the War on Drugs." It discussed violence, poor community relations, overly aggressive policing and riots. It failed to mention one important harm: the drug war's clear and present danger toward men and women in blue.


Drug users generally aren't violent. Most simply want to be left alone to enjoy their high. It's the corner slinger who terrifies neighbors and invites rivals to attack. Public drug dealing creates an environment where disputes about money or respect are settled with guns.

In high-crime areas, police spend much of their time answering drug-related calls for service, clearing dealers off corners, responding to shootings and homicides, and making lots of drug-related arrests.

One of us (Franklin) was the commanding officer at the police academy when Arthur (as well as Moskos) graduated. We all learned similar lessons. Police officers are taught about the evils of the drug trade and given the knowledge and tools to inflict as much damage as possible upon the people who constitute the drug community. Policymakers tell us to fight this unwinnable war.

Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies -- and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men -- have we and other police officers begun to question the system.

Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo.

Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.

Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.

We simply urge the federal government to retreat. Let cities and states (and, while we're at it, other countries) decide their own drug policies. Many would continue prohibition, but some would try something new. California and its medical mar1juana dispensaries provide a good working example, warts and all, that legalized drug distribution does not cause the sky to fall.

Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die.

Peter Moskos is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of "Cop in the Hood." Neill Franklin is a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Both served as Baltimore City police officers and are members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.