What about the others?

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views November 29, 2004]

"The criminalization of drugs has spawned a crime wave in this country similar to the days of Prohibition, " writes Anthony Gregory, in "Rolling Back Drug War Crime" for the Independent Institute. He cites statistics that are now commonplace, in which few people seem to be interested. "The U.S. government spends $33 billion annually on the War on Drugs. Yet, the Drug War has not reduced drug use, crime, or poverty as its proponents claim." Even the inevitable comparison to the ill-fated era of Prohibition fails to rouse any activist energy in the general public:

Before Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in 1919, homicide rates in America were relatively low. In the 1910s, about 5 in 100,000 Americans fell victim to murder. At the height of Prohibition, the murder rate climbed nearly 60%. But after the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition sixteen years later, the rate steadily declined back to pre-Prohibition levels. The War on Drugs, from the 1960s to the present, brought the homicide rate back up to about 10 per 100,000--almost twice the rate before Prohibition and the Drug War.

In fact, the more the government spends on the Drug War, the more violent crime increases.

Gregory cites Jeffrey Miron's work, Drug War Crimes: The Consequences of Prohibition, in which Miron claims that "Eliminating drug prohibition could reduce the homicide rate in the U.S. by 25 to 75 percent." Gregory writes:

Dr. Miron found that homicide rates and drug-law enforcement move in tandem in a variety of ways. As the Drug War intensifies, the black market in drugs becomes more profitable, and those willing to risk prosecution and heavy prison time often become more willing to flout the law in other ways. Gang warfare becomes the norm, just as it did with alcohol prohibition, and innocent bystanders fall victim to the crossfire spawned by the drug laws. . . .

In some cases, police officers themselves have become corrupted by the huge cash flows available to them if they agree to look the other way or even assist in organized crime.

The millions of dollars spent on drug law enforcement have had no proven substantial effect in reducing drug abuse. Drugs are not more difficult to acquire. According to Miron’s research, the price of cocaine, adjusting for inflation and purity, fell in real dollars from $450 per pure gram in 1981 to about $100 by 1996.

As much as drug laws increase the risks facing drug dealers, they barely deter users. Although more than 1.2 million Americans are arrested for possession each year, there are still an estimated 28 million users.

Many an honorable or naive person can tell the story of what it's like to be caught in the legal net of the irrational "war on drugs." Consider the case of 19-year-old college student Kemba Smith. Sentenced to 24 years in prison, in 1994, for her association with a drug dealer boy friend, even the prosecutor conceded that Smith had never sold, handled, or used drugs.

To what depths has a system degenerated, when such a travesty of justice becomes normal and occurs again and again? In Smith's case, she encountered a miracle, that is, a presidential pardon. She was one of the few ordinary people whom President Clinton granted executive clemency upon leaving office. Smith served only six, instead of the mandatory minimum sentence of 24 years.

She is now a legal assistant for a Virginia law firm, and actively works for drug sentencing reform. In "Clinton's pardon saved me, but what about the others?" (USA Today, 11/16/04), she writes:

Despite my poor choices, it is hard to understand how locking up a first-time, non-violent drug offender until Jan. 5, 2016, at a cost of $25,000 a year, would make America safer. . . .

Both the federal guidelines at issue in the Supreme Court cases and mandatory minimum sentences enacted by Congress limit a judge's ability to conclude that justice will be best served by a lesser sentence. . . .

My story is not unique. There are thousands of other women and men--many of them parents like me --caught in this web of excessive, inappropriate sentences that ruins lives without reducing crime. I cannot forget the reality of my lost years or the miracle that gave me a second chance. When Congress turns its attention to federal sentencing, it must leave room for those chances and give judges the opportunity to offer true justice.

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