The Case to End the Drug War
The year was 1969 and the anti-war movement against American intervention in Vietnam was in full swing. Richard Nixon had just entered office after a whopping victory in the presidential election, and he was already swamped in the country’s most turbulent foreign policy situation since the Korean War.
Facing an enormous backlash to the country’s illegal invasion of a country that did nothing to harm the United States, Nixon sought to squash the opposition by targeting protesting dissenters.
And what was the boogeyman with which he could demonize them? Their favorite pastime to unwind, that old devil from Reefer Madness, marijuana.
When ramping up the Drug War, Nixon tried to silence dissent by jailing his opponents, many of whom were simply caught with small amounts of marijuana. This system of mass incarceration was then dragged into the following decades: abused by Reagan and later by his vice president, exploded under Clinton, handed off to Bush 43, and continued under Obama.
Fast forward to today. The United States currently has five percent of the world’s population, but is now home to 25 percent of the world’s prison population. As of the latest statistics from U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, America now has a penal population of more than 2.2 million. That’s around half a million more prisoners than ever-so-tolerant China.
So why are there more prisoners in the so-called “Land of the Free” than in a totalitarian police-state like China, a nation with around five times the population of America?
The answer lies within the War on Drugs itself.
According to some of the latest numbers from a study on inmates by a special report from the Department of Justice, 52 percent of those who are incarcerated at the federal level are drug offenders. The majority of drug inmates have been charged for using cocaine (powder and crack), methamphetamine, and simple marijuana possession.
The same study goes on to state the demographics of drug offenders in federal prisons. The largest demographic behind bars is African-Americans, who make up more than 38 percent of inmates charged with drug offenses. That’s a massive number, especially given the fact that African-Americans only make up around 12 percent of the public population.
The demographic with the second-highest percentage of drug-related charges were Latinos. This group makes up more than 37 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug crimes. Latinos make up around 17 percent of the American populace, slightly higher than African-Americans. The most common drug found on Latinos when they were arrested was simple marijuana, which was involved in 59 percent of arrests.
In third place were Caucasian, or white, Americans, who make up 21 percent of convicted drug offenders in federal prison. The most common drug of choice among white Americans behind bars was methamphetamine, which made up nearly 50 percent of their offenses.
When presented with numbers like these, counter-arguments from critics often frame these inmates as violent offenders, however, internal records debunk this exhausted talking point.
According to the same special report from the Department of Justice, less than a quarter of federal drug offenders used a weapon during their offenses. The study shows that only 24.1 percent of drug offenders used weapons in their offenses. Meanwhile, an overwhelming 75.9 percent were arrested without the use of a deadly weapon.
These numbers are staggering, especially given America’s self-proclaimed title of the “most free and liberated country” on earth. Perhaps the so-called “Land of the Free” can look across the Atlantic for solutions to our mass incarceration and drug abuse problems.
One petri dish experiment for how the United States should handle its drug problem lies on the Iberian Peninsula. In just a decade and a half, Portugal has gone from having one of the highest abuse epidemics and drug-related crime rates, to having the lowest drug-mortality rates in Western Europe.
So the question is obvious — “how did Portugal wage such a successful war on drugs?” Well they did just the opposite — they brought it to an end. In 2001, at the height of their overdose epidemic, Portugal made the move to completely decriminalize all drugs.
In a recent report from the Intercept, entitled “Brazil’s Latest Outbreak of Drug Gang Violence Highlights the Real Culprit: the War on Drugs,” Glenn Greenwald, who currently resides in Brazil, analyzes the nation’s growing violence surrounding narcotics, and how the country’s former colonial master has handled their outbreak.
According to Greenwald, “nobody who is found possessing or using narcotics is arrested in Portugal, nor are they turned into a criminal.” Instead, he goes on to say, they are sent to sessions to speak with drug counselors and various therapists who find the best options to treat addicts.
This stunning transformation has yielded much better results than countries that still employ harsh, draconian criminalization laws, such as the United States.
One of the primary reasons behind this success lies in the reallocation of federal funds. According to Greenwald, all the money that had been wasted prosecuting and imprisoning drug users was freed up to invest in treatment programs. These therapeutic methods have a significantly cheaper price tag than imprisonment, which also allows those funds to be used for other public goods.
By virtually every existing measurement, Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs was, and still is, an incredible success. The nation’s treatment of addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal offense has led to the rehabilitation of citizens who otherwise would have been thrown into a prison cell and, instead of being a productive member of society, would be incarcerated on the taxpayers’ dime.
Years ago, critics would have lamented the idea of complete drug decriminalization and the release of all non-violent offenders behind bars. Today, however, the idea is making its way into the mainstream. It was even mentioned by tech icon, and presidential candidate, John McAfee during a 2016 Libertarian primary debate. McAfee claimed that one of his first actions, if elected president, would be an executive order to free all non-violent drug offenders from prison.
Despite the idea gaining traction, several people still have doubts that it can work. The counter to this argument lies in the growing movement to legalize marijuana. Its popularity has exploded in just the last decade. Just a decade ago, support for legalization hovered around 38 percent, but today, that number has grown to 60 percent.
This boom in popularity should not come as a surprise.
The American public has seen how much of an overwhelming success that legalization has been in certain states that have allowed the product into the private sector. The process has proven to have a plethora of benefits for these states.
Colorado, perhaps the nation’s leader when it comes to legalized marijuana, has seen enormous benefits for their state with the substance. According to numbers from the state’s Department of Revenue, from fiscal year June 2015 through June 2016, Colorado raised more tax money from the sale of marijuana than it did from alcohol. The numbers show that the state gathered more than $70 million from the taxation of marijuana in that time, compared to just $42 million raised from alcohol.
The millions of dollars in tax revenue, and funds saved on imprisoning users, have been used in each state to fund public works projects. Roads, bridges, public schools, and other state-run programs have seen much more funding in recent years since the legalization projects have been implemented.
Opinion polls on the issue of marijuana legalization now has majority support among Progressives, Libertarians, Democrats, Independents, and young Republicans; although one of the few holdout groups that still views the issue in a negative light are some older conservatives. Although there are still a few arguments that may persuade them.
First, and most obviously, the legalization of marijuana, along with the release of hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug offenders would save massive sums of money, a truly fiscal position.
According to the special report from the Department of Justice referenced earlier in this article, of the more than 94,600 drug offenders in federal prisons, around 71,000 were arrested for non-violent use of narcotics. The cost of housing one federal inmate per year is about $30,000. So by rough estimates, releasing all non-violent federal drug offenders would save taxpayers about 2.1 billion dollars per year (This number only includes federal inmates, the number of inmates in state prisons is much higher).
Another argument that may resonate with small-government conservatives is the relegation of the legal marijuana industry to the private market. The demand for cannabis is very high, which has already led to a burgeoning marijuana industry in states where it has been legalized. This boom has brought with it, not only tax revenue, but also an entirely new market for entrepreneurs and workers.
Some estimates from Casey Research put the net worth of the industry to be $150 billion if it were implemented nationwide. This study also claims marijuana would have the second-highest major commodity market if legalized nationwide, trailing only gold at $167 billion. Hemp would beat out corn, iron, and wheat, among others.
Finally, older conservatives should favor the legalization of cannabis because of the reduction in crime that would accompany it. Like it or not, marijuana is already coming into the country, primarily through smugglers who transport it from black market dealers, some of whom have ties to cartels and organized gangs. We saw a similar trend with alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century.
If marijuana were to be legalized nationwide, this would essentially kneecap organized drug crime, and move the substance to private companies. This way, if there were a dispute among dealers, the problem would be solved in court with suits and ties, not in the streets with guns and knives. Legalization would also help our neighbors to the south, where much of Mexico’s wave of drug crime stems from trying to get the product to the United States.
This would also significantly improve safety standards for consumers. As it stands now in states where marijuana is still contraband, consumers are at the mercy of whatever their dealer puts in the drug — this means the product could be laced with unknown substances. Legalizing the drug would allow for FDA regulations to protect the safety of consumers who use the product.
The War on Drugs has been a failure by virtually every measure. It has torn families apart, turned productive citizens into burdens on taxpayers, and stripped Americans of their liberties for simply trying to tweak their consciousness.
Marijuana has been proven to be far safer than alcohol, which has caused countless deaths on the highways, and tends to be more addictive than hemp. It has also helped countless medical patients and veterans cope with the issues they face from both physical and mental illnesses. These are just a small sample of the health benefits for the substance.
With the many financial problems facing the United States, one the first steps we could take as a nation to alleviate some issues is to unleash the massive market force that is legalized marijuana to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue. America should also free its non-violent drug offenders who are guilty of nothing more than choosing what to put in their own bodies, freeing up federal and state funds to use on infrastructure and education.
Luckily, the nation looks like it is on the right path when it comes to this issue, despite our current Attorney General, whose name we shall not mention. Some of our elected officials are even making pushes to find practical solutions to the country’s over-incarceration. Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, has recently proposed a bill in the House of Representatives to decriminalize marijuana nationwide, a great first step.
Aside from the plethora of financial benefits ending the War on Drugs would have, it is also the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective. We should not being throwing our fellow Americans behind bars if they did not harm anyone else or steal their things — this should be common sense.
The primary victims of these policies are overwhelmingly poor people and minorities, often one and the same. Common sense decriminalization would benefit everyone, from Wall Street executives (who have a less-than-subtle reputation of consuming copious amounts of cocaine) to the poor kid in Chicago who just wants to have a joint to unwind.
Decriminalization and legalization carry with them endless benefits, but until our elected officials in Washington realize this and make a change, we are doomed to continue on an unsustainable and preventable path.
