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Buzzby

Another View: Drug War's Futility, Failure
Daily Press | 03/13/2006

Border security seems to be in the news often these days. The focus usually is on the people coming into this country from Mexico and Central America. Little media attention is paid to drug-smuggling operations, so little attention is paid by the American people to a failed border policy that has been going on for decades — border skirmishes in The Drug War.

Since January, nearly 50 people have been killed in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Last Tuesday, a state police chief was killed and two other officers wounded when their car was fired on by well-armed assailants. The ambush-style shootings are being blamed on drug lords battling over smuggling routes into the United States. These latest victims can be added to the rising costs of an American drug control policy that does little to keep drugs off the streets in U.S. cities, while racking up huge bills.

Drug warriors in this country like to trumpet their successes in the media, posing with large caches of drugs and weapons they've taken from smugglers and dealers. And for that dangerous work they are to be lauded. But the larger picture shows that for all the foot soldiers' risky work, the supply of available drugs seems little changed. Don't blame that on the folks on the front lines; the fault lies further up the chain of command and is the result of a faulty premise.

The drug war is based on the idea that if the government wishes something to go away, it can simply outlaw it. Apparently those in charge of the nation's drug policy were absent from history class the day Prohibition was covered. It didn't work in the 1920s and it's not working now, because it ignores one of the basic tenets of freedom: so long as the rights of others are not harmed, what one does with one's own body is not the business of government.

An argument can be made that by spending, say, the rent money on drugs, parents expose their children to the possibility of homelessness and a host of other woes. That's true, but it's a societal problem rather than a legal one. And making drugs illegal hasn't kept people from using them.

Defenders of the drug war will point to the Nuevo Laredo victims and ask if their rights were not violated by drug lords. Of course they were, but that's a result of drug prohibition, not drug use. Drug lords are willing to kill to protect their business because of the huge profits involved in the drug trade. Those profits are in direct correlation to the risk involved. That's basic economics.

In the drug trade, the risk comes from dealers attempting to monopolize the market and government officials trying to close the market. In the absence of prohibition, the threat of arrest would be eliminated and danger from other dealers would be reduced because the profits would be smaller.

In a free society, people should be free to make choices with little or no interference from government. Many, if not most, Americans don't see a need for government to meddle in their lives. After all, most of us are upstanding citizens, right? Ah, but those other folks; they need the nanny government to look out for them and limit their choices. Actually, very few of them need someone else to look out for their best interests. And in even fewer cases would the government be the proper custodian. Now might not be the time to legalize drugs, but it's certainly the time to honestly evaluate our current policy, because it's not working.

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Dennis

How many people have to die in the name of the drug war before they realize the most effective way to control drug use, is to legalize and regulate them?

Evidently tens of thousands. The irony is, that all the people who have died, and who will die, are not dying from drug use. They're dying from drug prohibition.

Cassius

Just watching the news article over the last cupla years even, it seems like finally some people who get their words in print are starting to learn some of the facts about the issue. It's very encouraging =)

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{ Cassius, Your Humble Narrator }
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Buzzby

People do die from drug use, several thousand a year. If you include alcohol, tobacco, OTC, and prescription drugs it's hundreds of thousands.

Cassius

However, if you replace the word "drug" with the word "marijuana" in his statement, he would be correct.

 

Buzzby

Myth: No One Has Ever Died From Using Marijuana

The Kaiser study also found that daily pot users have a 30% higher risk of injuries, presumably from accidents. These figures are significant, though not as high as comparable risks for heavy drinkers or tobacco addicts. That pot can cause accidents is scarcely surprising, since marijuana has been shown to degrade short-term memory, concentration, judgment, and coordination at complex tasks including driving.1 There have been numerous reports of pot-related accidents -- some of them fatal, belying the attractive myth that no one has ever died from marijuana. One survey of 1023 emergency room trauma patients in Baltimore found that fully 34.7% were under the influence of marijuana, more even than alcohol (33.5%); half of these (16.5%) used both pot and alcohol in combination.2 This is perhaps the most troublesome research ever reported about marijuana; as we shall see, other accident studies have generally found pot to be less dangerous than alcohol.

Nonetheless, it is important to be informed on all sides of the issue. Pot smokers should be aware that accidents are the number one hazard of moderate pot use. In addition, of course, the psychoactive effects of cannabis can have many other adverse effects on performance, school work, and productivity.

Footnotes

1. Herbert Moskowitz, "Marihuana and Driving," Accident Analysis and Prevention 17#4: 323-45 (1985).

2. Carl Soderstrom et al., "Marijuana and Alcohol Use Among 1023 Trauma Patients," Archives of Surgery, 123: 733-7 (1988).

Tokamak

Great article. My day just got a little brighter for having read it.

Dennis: The irony is, that all the people who have died, and who will die, are not dying from drug use. They're dying from drug prohibition.

Cassius: However, if you replace the word "drug" with the word "marijuana" in his statement, he would be correct.

Actually, you'd need to replace the word "drug" in the first sentence with "marijuana overdose." The second sentence would take some work to be entirely accurate: there are a lot of reasons why people die. There are a lot of drug, drug-related, marijuana-related, and prohibition-related reasons people die. I agree with the sentiment, though.

Peace.

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"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know."
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

walstmonky

Interesting that it's not specified whether that 18.2% (34.7%-16.5%) left after subtracting out the alcohol/cannabis combination users were cannabis only, or may have had other drugs floating around in their system.

355 under the influence of cannabis 186 cannabis only? (355-169)
343 under the influence of alcohol 174 alcohol only? (343-169)
169 using both
867 total if 3 separate categories or 84.75% of the sample so it doesn't seem likely to be three separate categories. Still leaves 68.2% of the people in that sample under the influence of either or both. Noticably absent are heroin and cocaine users. Baltimore being #1 in the US in per capita heroin addiction (estimated 1 in 8 adults) the omission of heroin is glaring. I won't even mention meth since the year the study was done is omitted and it's an East Coast ER.

Why do the percentages seem so high compared to DAWN numbers? I realize DAWN is tracking ER visits and these are trauma patients, but even with DAWN's loose loose definition of drug related there are just 3.4% of patients reporting drug use and only 0.19% reporting cannabis use. So from 0.19% of all ER visits we find a jump to 18.2% of trauma victims? Also notice the significant number of cocaine and heroin users reported, a combined number 448% higher than cannabis users. Of course the speed ball combos were probably counted twice. BTW I picked DAWN since it's widely seen as exaggerating its numbers by cannabis activists and others. If their data are overstated, the relative numbers are even more incongruous.
http://dawninfo.samhsa.gov/old_dawn/...02%5C2.2.2.xls

Also when we get to the actual number of cannabis only users, can we break out whether it was the patients fault or not? I landed in an ER trauma unit while stoned to the bejeezus. I was sitting at a stop light when a fellow behind me rear ended me at speed. I know it wasn't my fault because I enjoyed spending his insurance company's fat settlement check.

I sure would like to see that Kaiser study. A google search brought up dozens of sites with identical verbage to Buzzby's link, but nary a clue to the location of the actual study. Color me skeptical that the numbers presented are an accurate representation of cannabis only users winding up in the ER due to trauma directly related to cannabis use.

I think I won't bother to argue that a reponsible cannabis user doesn't do things that will land him in the trauma unit like drive when overly high or bungee jump using Wal-Mart bungee cords tied together, and therefore its not really cannabis that causes the death of such people.