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A tale of two wars on drugs

Jun. 22, 2004 | Ledger-Enquirer | Editorial

Consider two "drug wars" -- one a highly and expensively hyped crusade, the other quieter; but both of tremendous social, economic, legal and cultural significance over the last few decades.

One, waged principally against opiates, cannabis and cocaine by state and federal governments for more than 20 years, has cost billions, perhaps trillions of dollars in taxpayer money; taxed the resources of already overworked law enforcement agencies; sustained a criminal empire the size and riches of which would dwarf the booze kingpins of the 1920s and '30s; created, with the help of "mandatory sentencing" politics, an unprecedented corrections crisis by stuffing prisons to bursting with drug offenders; and provided the dubious rationale for abrogating the Bill of Rights to an extent even the Patriot Act hasn't approached. And even the front-line troops in this war have acknowledged it's a losing campaign.

"Drug war" No. 2, which hasn't generated nearly as much attention -- which, in fact, few people have thought of as a "drug war" at all -- has involved relatively little public money, no prison space, little or no effort on the part of law enforcement. Nobody's been randomly summoned away from a desk or work site to urinate into a cup. And it has been waged against a drug that every year claims more lives than all illegal substances combined.

But the vast differences in expense and approach aren't the most dramatic distinction here. The biggest difference is that one of them has worked.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported last week that smoking among American teens is at its lowest level in almost 30 years -- an achievement the CDC attributes principally to anti-smoking campaigns and higher cigarette prices. Dr. John Banzhaf III, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health and professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School, called it "probably the most dramatic progress which has been made in terms of any public health problem, at least in recent memory."

So providing people with education and information has proven dramatically effective in curbing use of a drug some experts have said is as addictive as heroin; while draconian laws and sentences and self-incrimination policies have created more problems than they have solved.

Surely there's a lesson in there somewhere.

-- Dusty Nix, for the editorial board

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Joluko

Or should I say, "Education won't be used in this war". Education would only serve to enlighten the public about the true problem: There is no problem. Government "education" didn't work with Prohibition because it was all a bunch of FUD. The same is true of today's Prohibition. Were the government to omit the FUD surrounding marijuana use...well, nevermind; that won't happen.

With our northern border decriminalizing human liberty, hopefully the pressure will continue to be turned up against this government and true education will prevail. Maybe our children will get back at least a few of the rights, liberties, and pursuits of happiness that our government has taken from us.

StewScum

That much can be said about marijuana, but what about cocaine or meth? His point is that slapping the hand of the person reaching for a poisonous snake won't just make the person stop wanting to reach that snake. Telling a person what could happen if he touches the snake. might convince that person why not to touch that damn snake.

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Life is like a pot of stew, if you don't stir it up every once and a while, all the scum rises to the top -Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins.