War on Drugs

At the federal level the Controlled Substances Act, and it's various amendments, is the law of the land. It stipulates severe criminal penalties for making, selling, and using the substances it controls, such as marijuana, ecstasy, peyote, heroin and cocaine.

The act is enforced by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Though eight states have made medical marijuana completely legal, the DEA claims supremacy, and has enforced the federal laws in these states, going so far as to arrest and imprison bedridden terminally ill patients for using doctor prescribed marijuana.

An estimated 40 billion is spent each year by federal and state drug control programs like the DEA. An additional 20 to 30 billion is spent on incarceration costs (prisons and jails). The national drug trade is estimated to be 60 to 70 billion a year, none of which is taxed (an estimated loss of 30 to 40 billion in income and direct taxes).

Prohibition does not stop the making, selling, buying or using of recreational substances, as our country's experience with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s showed. The most optimistic reports show that we only interdict 10-15% of drug traffic. That means that prohibition is 85% to 90% ineffective. That also means that we have NO control over recreational substances.

Prohibition is of most benefit to drug dealers and drug lords, as prohibition laws drive prices up, securing greater profits for those in the illegal drug black market. Criminalized drug black markets are actually more dangerous to society since purity standards vary widely, and because people with substance problems are afraid to come forward due to the fear of criminal sanctions

Prohibition only creates crime and related social harms. This was the case in the 1920s with alcohol, and it is the case now with currently illegal drugs.

The Green Party calls for decriminalization of victimless crimes - for example, the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Although the War on Drugs has been a tremendous failure in terms of improving life in our country and reducing crime and preventing addictions, it has enjoyed one area of great success: the demonization of users of recreational illegal drugs (whether these users are responsible, irresponsible, or addicted), and the establishment of a completely unthinking double standard about the illegal drugs vs. "accepted" drugs, like alcohol and tobacco.

Many otherwise intelligent people have absorbed these negative (and frequently completely untrue) views of those who use illegal drugs. In reality, that demonization is no more warranted than that attributed to those that abuse alcohol. About 10% of the people that use alcohol use it abusively. This minority of abusive users is echoed by other substances as well. Depending on the substance, only 5% to 15% of the users develop abusive use habits. This means that 85% to 95% of users use recreationally, responsibly, and without developing abuse problems.

An estimated 37 to 45 million Americans use recreational substances that are currently prohibited. They hold jobs, pay taxes, have families, and are contributing members of society. Because of the prohibition laws, otherwise law abiding citizens who use illegal recreational drugs responsibly will never reveal to you their use. Further, instilled in them is a fear and distrust of the police authority which only creates resentment toward police in the community.

Ultimately, demonizing persons with abuse problems is faulty logic. These negative stereotypes do not assist the problem user, regardless of if the drug is alcohol, cocaine, or heroin. The fact that the vast majority of users are responsible, recreational users is a clear indication that the problems of drug abuse are not due to the drugs themselves, but due to individual problems with a small minority of people.

The reality is that the War on Drugs affects all of us in ways that are not entirely obvious.

We have stricter and stricter gun control because the crime wave that rides on prohibition has caused huge public outcry. Rather than focus on the cause of crime (socioeconomic factors of the drug war are a major component), the public and legislators lash out at gun owners.

Crime is higher as a result of the war on drugs. In particular, homicides have skyrocketed (10 per 100,000 - the only other time the homicide rate was so high was during alcohol prohibition).

Drug use INCREASED 7 fold among 12-17 year olds after the modern War on Drugs started. The economics of prohibition favors the targeting of youths. Drug dealers don't ask for ID.

Gang tagging creates an enormous graffiti problem causing millions of dollars in damage every year. The gangs are a product of drug prohibition.

Pay phones no longer accept incoming calls. This inconvenience is disproportionately borne by residents of poor neighborhoods - as a result of the drug war.

In an effort to reduce street dealing, many residential areas (at least in large cities) have road blocks preventing through traffic on side streets. For local residents of such areas it makes traveling to and from one's home very difficult, another product of the drug war.
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The Green Party supports the legalization of Medical Marijuana.

The criminal prosecution of patients for medical marijuana must end immediately, and marijuana must be treated as a medicine for the seriously ill. The current cruel, unjust policy perpetuated and enforced by the Bush Administration prevents Americans who suffer from debilitating illnesses from experiencing the relief of medicinal cannabis.

While substantial scientific and anecdotal evidence exists to validate marijuana's usefulness in treating disease, a deluge of rhetoric from Washington claims that marijuana has no medicinal value. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 defines marijuana as a Schedule One narcotic, making it very difficult for American researchers to perform rigorous double-blind scientific studies on marijuana. Even without these difficulties, research has shown marijuana to be a safe and effective medicine for controlling nausea associated with cancer therapy, reducing the eye pressure for patients with glaucoma, and reducing muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, para- and quadriplegia.

Internationally, scientists are undertaking massive studies to determine the healing powers of cannabis. In August 2003 the esteemed British medical journal The Lancet reported that the world's largest study into the medical effects of cannabis have confirmed that the drug can reduce pain and improve the lives of people with multiple sclerosis. The three-year study was the first proper clinical appraisal of whether cannabis-derived drugs can help treat MS. Harvard medical doctor Lester Grinspoon has said he would have loved to do a similar study, but has been held back by the law. On his web site (www.rxmarijuana.com), and in his book The Forbidden Medicine, Grinspoon documents how marijuana relieves the pain of people enduring more than 110 different medical conditions—like AIDS, Crohn's Disease, glaucoma, cancer, and many more. Marijuana helps increase appetite, reduce blood pressure and intraocular pressure.

Despite well-funded opposition from the federal government, citizens in eight states have cast ballots to legalize the use of medicinal marijuana. Medical marijuana community health centers have opened up in the states, like California, only to be aggressively attacked and closed by federal law enforcement agents. Physicians must have the right to prescribe this drug to their patients without the fear of the federal government revoking their licenses, and doctor-patient privacy must be protected. The Drug Enforcement Administration should not be practicing medicine.
According to national polls, 73% of the American People favor marijuana for medical use. Current marijuana laws do not represent the will of the people. In some states (e.g. California), the "will of the people" has been to make medical marijuana legal. In these cases, the "will of the people" has been overridden by the "will of the DEA" and the "will of the Justice Department".
Prohibition and the forces that support it are enemies of liberty and domestic tranquility. While there may be issues with the use, and sometimes abuse, of various recreational drugs like alcohol, those issues and those people that abuse should be dealt with directly, instead of creating an unregulated black market that feeds the mouth of crime. That is all prohibition has ever done, and will ever do.
Prohibition policies are based on fiction. They destroy society by creating an environment of crime and corruption, as well as giving government "Big Brother" powers over the lives, recreational habits, and choices of all citizens. And prohibition policies create vast bureaucracies. The lies and propaganda which these bureaucracies must create and disseminate, in order to prop up their fiction, can cause aware and thinking people to develop a tragic deep and permanent distrust of the government, of the hardworking people in law enforcement, and of the political process.

The War on Drugs is an abject failure. Problems of drug use and abuse should be addressed though harm reduction and treatment and not though criminality, in much the same way that alcohol problems are dealt with.
Ending this blight of inefficiency, waste, and injustice is the only way to secure our future and protect our children.

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