Priorities in war on drugs require reconsideration

The United States has been at war since the 1980s.

Though it's easy to make jokes about the still amusing "Just Say No" slogan popularized by Nancy Reagan, the slogan kicked off a campaign unequaled in its use of American resources, manpower and time.

The war on drugs, though, seems a war of trade-offs that needs serious reexaminations of its successes and its failures.

Recent numbers released in a study this week show that the war on drugs has been effective in accomplishing many things — doubling the number of drug charges since 1984 (good). However, since the ‘90s, the length of sentences for drug offenders has declined, as prison sentences prove ineffective for little more than shifting who drug suppliers are in their community (bad).

According to recent Justice department statistics, in 1999, 31 percent of drug cases brought before prosecutors in this country were involved with marijuana while only 11 percent were involved with opiates (like heroin) or other drugs (like ecstasy). Marijuana is the only drug that has some medicinal benefits. Though it is still illegal, doesn't it make more sense to focus more efforts into the most deadly narcotics (like heroin) or the current hip and deadly drug of the moment (like ecstasy)?

After all, if we were to prioritize the illegal drugs in this country by the threat they pose to its citizens (hence the need for a "war") marijuana should be more of a secondary objective.

The other major focus of the drug war is cocaine and its derivative, crack cocaine. In 1999, the two together summed up nearly 45 percent of drug cases before prosecutors. Most of those convicted were drug traffickers and less than one in 20 was convicted of mere possession charges.

Cocaine, however, is addictive. Thus, demand for it is large by its addicts. Thus, the imprisoning of major traffickers causes a bump in price from the person taking their place, and the imprisoning of addicts just increases the drug trafficking through prisons, and still leaves them an addict.

This war needs to consider treatment for its prisoners. California has had some success with a treatment-only program for convicted users called Proposition 36. Though its success rate in Los Angeles was something like seven in 10, with its expansion, counselors now put an addict’s chances of cleaning up at 50-50.

That’s half the addicts not coming back tomorrow for another hit or going to prison to swap cigarettes for it. Half. And many users have turned themselves in for treatment, because they want out as much as we want them out.

Proposition 36 is not without its faults. As it essentially decriminalizes drug use until the third conviction, it has many skeptics that say it is not a penalty at all.

But if we were to shift the war on drugs more to these most deadly and most addictive drugs, isn't the addiction penalty enough? And if that isn't, isn't rehabilitation? After all, the detoxification process of drug addiction is hardly a pleasant experience, and should the user lose their addiction, they will have the uncomfortable experience of reentering their society, peer group and family in a constant state of recovery.

One of the reasons that many people stumble in rehabilitation and return to drugs is that they are unable to handle the pain of the transition back. By forcing this transition, we are hardly "letting them slide."

Perhaps we should consider a similar national policy. Federal funding could help aid treatment programs to add random drug testing to insure more people were staying clean for longer, a common item on the wish list of California treatment centers.

We learned a lot about drugs and drug trafficking in the last 15 years, now we need to start fighting that war with smarter strategies where it's tougher to fight.

Because the enemy in the war on drugs needs as much saving as the people we're protecting in the first place. Addicts aren't demons, they're people too, people who stumbled and need our patience to help them up.

n Editorial Board: Keith Thomas, Tom McHenry, Erica Sagon, Matt Poston, John Wakefield, Shawn McGann.

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