Human beings have been eating psychoactive plants and drugs that directly interact with their nervous systems for thousands of years. Whether for sacramental, medical, or recreational reasons we have been ingesting drugs since the beginning of human history. It is a universal behavior, seen in all cultures throughout history, so why is there a literal war being waged against certain drugs in America? Where did the notion of illegal plants, or illegal animals for that matter, originate? This country was founded on the principles of a fundamental human right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” so when did that cease to include a right to use or experiment with drugs? It is clear that many people enjoy altering their consciousness, but the current legislation in this country severely restricts your ability to do so. No one would propose that heroin or cocaine addictions are a good thing, however legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are responsible for tens of thousands of more deaths annually than all illicit drugs combined (“Annual”). Decriminalization, not incarceration, is the only way to holistically address drug use in America while maintaining integrity and respecting the individual’s right to privacy. The public health problem of drug abuse, instead of being handled through treatment and education, is merely being exacerbated by being treated as a criminal justice issue. While prison populations grow and prescription drug abuse climbs, illegal drug use in America remains unaffected by increasingly harsh criminal penalties (Mendoza). It would appear that the government’s War on Drugs is both illogical and a violation of our constitutional rights.
Drug abuse and drug trafficking present very real problems for the United States government and its people, and despite all of its shortcomings the federal War on Drugs is how we’ve been addressing these problems for over 40 years. If billions of taxpayer dollars are being paid to fund this drug-control policy, it follows that we should have some confidence in the effectiveness of this approach. President Richard Nixon first launched the Drug War with a modest budget of $100 million in 1970; President Obama’s most recent Drug War budget was $15.5 billion, with $10 billion being spent on enforcement and incarceration (Mendoza). In a recent interview, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske stated his own doubts about current policy: "In the grand scheme, it has not been successful…Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified." With all the money that has been poured into federal anti-drug policy and yielding no apparent progress, it might be helpful if we looked at how some of it gets distributed. According to data gathered in The Alternative Press’ investigation of federal drug spending for the past four decades, taxpayers have spent “$33 billion in marketing ‘Just Say No’-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have ‘risen steadily’ since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.” $450 billion has been dedicated to imprisoning drug offenders, with over a fourth of that for Marijuana incarceration alone (Mendoza). Uniform Crime Reports and FBI records showed that 1,663,582 people were arrested for drug law violations in the year of 2009, as well as “858,408 persons for cannabis violations… Of those charged with cannabis violations, approximately 89 percent were charged with possession only” (“Drug”).
Clearly, there is a disconnect between the policy and the people on more than one level. Americans are continuing to use drugs despite harsher criminal penalties and more drug arrests being made each year. Perhaps the government is so adamantly determined to fight illegal drug use as a criminal problem no matter the cost because it is concerned with the dangers those drugs will present to its people. A recent study published in the medical journal Lancet, however, seems to indicate that this is not the case. When analyzed for “not only how addictive the substance is, but how it harms the body, its role in breaking up families and economic costs, such as health care, social services and prison,” scientists found alcohol to be more dangerous and damaging to the body than a whole slue of illegal drugs including cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and even crystal meth (Swoope). An examination of the National Vital Statistics Report appears to support the findings of these scientists: Alcohol was responsible for 23,199 deaths in 2010 not including indirect or drunk-driving related incidents, Tobbacco for 85,000, while only 17,000 deaths were attributed to all illicit drug use both direct and indirect (“Annual”). It would appear that regardless of the legal status of their drug of choice, people are going to make foolish choices that can hurt or even kill them. The fact is, the government should not be in the position of regulating common sense or stupidity, and former police detective of 18 years Howard Wooldridge touched on this when he said, “We can eat ourselves into a heart attack or smoke tobacco until we are dead or incapacitated. We can take aspirin & Tylenol to our heart’s content and can’t sue anyone when those drugs kill us from long-term overuse. Those freedoms we still have. But then the biker who goes 70 without a helmet is later arrested for toking up with Willie on the back porch” (Wooldridge).
The founding documents of this country guarantee each citizen a right to worship in a manner of his or her pleasing, unless of course any of your practices or sacraments violate the current list of illegal drugs. We have reached the point where the penalties for using a drug have become more detrimental than the effects of the drug itself. In his article on Modern Prohibition, retired police officer and founder of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Howard Wooldridge points out the reality that many successful presidents, athletes, and other public figures have used illegal drugs in their past and suffered no ill effects, however, if a drug charge had been on their record then their “‘freedom’ to succeed would have been severely curtailed” (Wooldridge). The government has gone unreasonably far in its attempts to limit your personal right to pursue happiness, but what about your right to treat your medical problems? Marijuana is prescribed in several states as a cheap, relatively side-effect free, and effective treatment for multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), glaucoma, and clinical depression to name a few. Yet it is still a classified schedule 1 narcotic with no medical value by the federal government. Michael Lapihuska is a PTSD patient in California who has experienced firsthand the problems with this policy when he was arrested in Alabama for the possession of one gram of marijuana. He has been treated successfully with marijuana and has a legal prescription in his home state, but now he faces a possible ten year prison sentence for having his medicine away from home (Crumpton). Lapihuska is a victim of the Drug War whose story presents just one example of how the current paradox between federal and state drug policies is a sign of the inherent problems in America’s drug legislation, and the need for change.
Decriminalization may be just one possible alternative to America’s current policy, but it appears to be the most effective way to address drug abuse while still upholding the constitutional rights of individual freedom. Some opponents of decriminalization argue that it would cause a spike in drug use, or that the country would become a center for ‘drug tourists’. Critics in Portugal, a country that once had one of the worst hard-drug use problems in Europe, feared just that when the country decriminalized all illegal drugs in 2001. This proved to be an irrational fear when, according to a report published by the Cato Institute 5 years after decriminalization, “illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled…New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half” (Szalavitz). Many seem to think that decriminalization would mean ignoring America’s drug problem or leaving it unaddressed, but Portugal has provided an example of how decriminalization would encourage treatment for the people who need it, and would allow for money to be spent on programs that are actually successful in reducing drug use as opposed to funding the mass incarceration of the country’s drug-using population. Maia Szalavitz, journalist and writer of the TIME Magazine article reporting on Portugal’s story, reminded readers that “the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, our prison population has grown by over 40,000 inmates per year since 1995, with a staggering 25 percent of those being sentenced for drug law violations (“Drug”).
Whether you believe that decriminalization is the right alternative or not, it is undeniable that the current War on Drugs is wholly ineffective and constitutionally unethical. The United States is in dire need of a new policy, one that acknowledges the reality that it is the personal responsibility of each individual citizen to use a drug, legal or illegal, in a safe manner. Blaming drugs for the problems associated with them is like blaming an automobile for drunk driving. It is not the product; it is not the drugs that are the problem. It is the judgment of the people using those drugs or sitting behind the wheel. With a swelling prison population, prescription drug abuse rising, and drug use rates failing to be reduced, the time for a change in U.S. drug policy is now. Decriminalization has the potential to be a resounding success in addressing drug use as a public health issue instead of a criminal one, and Portugal is a shining example of how it can bring about positive changes to both the economy and the society (Szalavitz). Each person is the customs agent of his or her own personal body, and it is not the duty of the government to tell its people what they may or may not eat or drink. If you can be told what NOT to put into your body, then it follows that you can be told what TO put into your body, and we are getting dangerously close to becoming a society where the government could make just such a requirement.
Works Cited
"Annual Causes of Death in the United States." Drug War Facts. Ed. Douglas A. McVay. 6th ed. Canada: Common Sense for Drug Policy, 2007. Drug War Facts. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. <www.drugwarfacts.org>.
Crumpton, Ron. "Drug Laws Trump Constitutional Rights." UAB Kaleidoscope. University of Alabama at Birmingham, 27 Sept. 2010. Web. 9 Apr. 2011. <www.uab.edu>.
"Drug War Clock." DrugSense. MAP Inc. Web. 02 May 2011. <http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock>.
Mendoza, Martha. "Report: Drug War a Failure." Associated Press. The Houston Chronicle, 13 May 2010. Web. 09 Apr. 2011. <www.chron.com>.
Swoope, Kelly. "Study Says Alcohol Is More Damaging to the Body than Illegal Drugs like Heroin and Cocaine." ABC2. ABC News, 1 Nov. 2010. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <www.abc2news.com>.
Szalavitz, Maia. "Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?" TIME. TIME Inc., 26 Apr. 2009. Web. 13 Apr. 2011. <www.time.com/>.
Wooldridge, Howard. "Modern Prohibition and Individual Liberty." Campaign For Liberty. 31 July 2009. Web. 20 Apr. 2011. <http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=150>.
