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Published:
Sunday, September 05, 2004 - Copyright:
2004 The Denver Post Corp
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
/ Contact:
openforum@denverpost.com
Thoughtful
conservatives such as William F. Buckley
are joining the call for sweeping reforms,
including legalization, taxation and
regulated sale of marijuana.
America's war on
drugs is now in its 90th year. Federal law
first restricted access to cocaine, heroin
and related drugs in 1914. Marijuana was
outlawed in 1937. Now, after nine decades
of largely futile and often
counterproductive efforts at drug
prohibition, the time has come to
reevaluate and reform America's drug laws.
All wars have
casualties, and this one is no exception.
According to a recent report from the
Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif.,
there are now more than 318,000 people
incarcerated in the United States for
drug-related offenses. The U.S. spends
about $33 billion a year prosecuting this
war, and law enforcement makes about 1.5
million arrests per year, according to
Boston University economist Jeffrey A.
Miron.
Wars - especially
long and fruitless ones - inevitably
generate war protesters. What is striking
about the new wave of criticism of the
drug war is how much of it comes from
conservative sources. Most prominent,
William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in the June
29 issue of National Review in support of
the proposition that "the government
should treat marijuana more or less the
same way it treats alcohol: It should
regulate it, control it, tax it, and make
it illegal only for children."
That
conservatives should question a government
policy that intrudes on individual
freedoms for no apparent public benefit is
as natural as it is welcome. Their voices
join with progressives, libertarians, and
the downright hard to classify, such as
former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, in an
impressive new book, "The New
Prohibition," from Accurate Press in St.
Louis. Seven Coloradans have essays in
that book, including federal Judge John
Kane, San Miguel County Sheriff Bill
Masters, and Mike Krause and David Kopel
of the Golden-based Independence
Institute.
We obviously
cannot report all the information packed
into that book in this short space. But
Masters, Kane and others make a compelling
argument that the problems with some
drugs, notably marijuana, are actually
magnified by the current prohibition
policy.
"Marijuana use
decreases aggression and threatening
behavior," Kane notes. "The crimes by some
drug users are committed in order to pay
for drugs in the highly inflated black
market. In other words, the crimes are
caused by prohibition-induced high prices,
not by the pharmacological effects of drug
ingestion."
Even the
last-gasp argument of prohibitionists
against legalizing marijuana -- the claim
that today's varieties are more potent
than the pot so many baby boomers puffed
in the '60s and '70s -- is actually an
argument for the legalization and
regulation of the product. Tell major
companies such as R.J. Reynolds that they
can make billions of dollars growing and
selling marijuana legally if they keep it
within specified ranges of potency and you
can be assured that their legal products
will fall within the specified standards.
As long as marijuana remains outlawed,
there is no possibility of setting such
standards.
Clearly, there
are drugs available that are far more
dangerous than marijuana - including the
ubiquitously legal alcohol. Certain drugs,
such as methamphetamine, are so
devastating to users and so likely to
induce violent behavior that the current
prohibition is the only feasible policy. A
reassessment of the drug war should
include an evaluation of the effects of
each drug on users and adjusting the legal
status of that drug accordingly. Drug
policy should then be placed on a
continuum ranging from continued
prohibition to outright legalization.
Medications that are cleared by the FDA go
through a rigorous process. Drugs such as
heroin, which induces passive behavior,
might be placed on the British system,
where existing addicts can get inexpensive
"fixes" from licensed physicians. As Judge
Kane notes, heroin users are now forced to
steal to get money to buy their drug from
greedy pushers. If addicts can get an
affordable prescription from doctors, they
have no need to steal.
More important,
pushers no longer have an incentive to
recruit new addicts because they can't
profit from the misery they are sowing in
the community by selling their
outrageously priced illegal drugs to a
captive market.
It is also time
to recognize that federal mandatory
minimum sentencing laws for drugs have
become a wellspring of injustice that puts
petty offenders away for draconian
sentences while major drug dealers beat
the rap by ratting out their underlings.
It is time that such laws be changed to
restore reasonable discretion to federal
judges in meting out sentences in drug
cases.
The first step
toward a rational drug policy is, as
Buckley eloquently argues, to legalize,
regulate and heavily tax the sale of
marijuana - with the taxes earmarked to
fund treatment programs for victims of
truly dangerous drugs. In Colorado,
there's not much left to be done on that
score. Possession of 1 ounce or less is
already a petty offense subject to a fine
of up to $100. State voters also approved
the growing and use of medical marijuana
to victims of certain diseases, and that
state law is being followed about as well
as a surly federal government will permit.
Because of the
federal government's pre-emptive
authority, Colorado cannot take the final
step of legalizing and regulating
marijuana on its own. It is time for
Congress and the president to call a
cease-fire in what has become not a war on
drugs but a war on people who use drugs.
Buckley and the wide-ranging authors of
"The New Prohibition" have performed a
signal service by highlighting the current
drug war as a microcosm of the inevitable
failures of a federal nanny-state
mentality.
Editorials alone
express The Denver Post's opinion.
The members of
The Post editorial board are William Dean
Singleton, chairman and publisher;
Jonathan Wolman, editorial page editor;
Bob Ewegen, deputy editorial page editor;
Todd Engdahl, assistant editorial page
editor; Peter G. Chronis, Dan Haley, Julia
Martinez and Penelope Purdy, editorial
writers; Mike Keefe, cartoonist; Barbara
Ellis, news editor; Cohen Peart, letters
editor; Fred Brown and Barrie Hartman,
associate members.
Related
Articles:
High
Time To Eliminate Drug Laws?
An
End To Marijuana Prohibition
Free
Weeds: The Marijuana Debate
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