The War on Drugs, which is celebrating its 40th year, has been a colossal failure. It has curtailed personal freedom, created a violent black market, and filled our prisons. It has also trampled on states’ rights: Sixteen states have legalized “medical marijuana” — which is, admittedly, often code for legalizing pot in general — only to clash with federal laws that ban weed throughout the land.
That last sin is not the War on Drugs’ greatest, but it is not insignificant, either. A bill introduced by Reps. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and Ron Paul (R., Texas) would remove the federal roadblock to state marijuana reform, and though the Republican House seems almost certain to reject it, the proposal deserves support from across the political spectrum.
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While we would support the total demise of federal marijuana laws, this bill simply constrains the federal government to its proper role. The Constitution allows the federal government to restrict interstate commerce, and the federal laws forbidding the interstate transfer of marijuana would remain in effect. The feds would also still intercept drug shipments from other countries.
What would change is that states — if they so chose — could legalize pot that is grown, sold, and consumed within their own borders. The Supreme Court has said that the federal government may regulate not only interstate commerce, but any activity that has a “substantial effect” on interstate commerce. It has further asserted that pot that is never even sold, but grown for personal consumption and never crosses state lines, can in aggregate have such an effect and therefore may be regulated. But the Court has not said, as House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith wrongly asserted, that Congress must regulate so comprehensively.
In addition to bringing federal pot laws in line with the Constitution and allowing states to pass reasonable marijuana policies, this law would eliminate the frightening discrepancies between state and federal policies regarding “medical marijuana.” In a society under the rule of law, a citizen should be able to predict whether the government will deem his actions illegal. And yet in California and Montana, businesses that sell medical marijuana — an activity that is explicitly sanctioned by state law — have been raided by federal law-enforcement officers.
Public opinion is such that fully ending the drug war is not within the realm of political possibility. Returning marijuana policy to the states, however, is a workable idea, and it would mark an excellent first step toward real reform.
Some republicans are vocally saying "no way is this going to pass" but they better be mindfull that the largest supporters of medical marijuana is actually the elderly- they suffer innumerable diseases it can help with, and they vote... Just keep that in mind politicians. Particularly when a large chunk of the elderly are registered republicans.
Great! Now instead of the prisons being filled with those unlawfully engaged in marijuana trafficing, we will have them filled with "legal" users convicted under DUI laws, not to mention the population that will be maimed or killed by the drivers on a high that think they can drive like a Formula One or NASCAR driver.
Do you think the cartels in Mexico are going to let the individuals in each state just grow and sell their toke-making stuff? It will be ugly.
You've never met anyone high on pot before, have you? This is one of the most blatantly ignorant screeds on the drug I've ever seen. I hope you're just cribbing arguments from Reefer Madness for comedic effect.
The issue of 'Drugged Driving' has often been brought to the forefront in many debates concerning the use of Marijuana (recreational, spiritual or medicinal) so I feel it may be useful to cover this topic comprehensively.
The often cited statistic that 6-8% of drivers in motor accidents test positive for marijuana is a case-book example of mistaken causality. A positive test merely indicates that the driver has used marijuana sometime in the past 90 days. Since roughly 7% of the population uses marijuana on a monthly basis, the 6-8% statistic, far from proving anything about the effects of marijuana, simply affirms what should be expected.
Here is a graph which indicates the presence of certain amounts of cannabis in your body REDUCES accident risk:
* Fact: When combined 2002 to 2005 data are compared with combined 2006 to 2009 data, the Nation as a whole experienced a statistically significant reduction in the rate of past year drugged driving (from 4.8 to 4.3 percent), as did seven States: Alaska, California, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Four of these seven States have legalized medicinal marijuana, Alaska, Hawaii, Michigan and California. External Link
* Fact: California led the US to a nationwide, statistically significant reduction in the incidence of "drugged" driving during a time period when the number of patients claiming the protection of the California Compassionate Use Act and SB-420 increased by a factor of 10. External Link
* Fact: The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine document states that MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE DANGEROUS DRIVING: External Link
Google MARIJUANA DRIVING STUDY. You'll see two common findings:
1. Drivers under the influence of marijuana are VERY SLIGHTLY impaired.
2. Unlike those under the influence of alcohol, marijuana consumers are aware they are VERY SLIGHTLY impaired and they CONSISTENTLY ADEQUATELY COMPENSATE by slowing down a little and being a little more cautious. That doesn’t mean they get in the fast lane on the interstate and drive 15 miles per hour. Marijuana makes you cautious, not crazy! Those Cheech and Chong movies were comedies, NOT documentaries!
* On November 30, Gil Kerlikowske presented this to the press: New Data On The Dangers Of Drugged Driving. External Link
Looking at only fatalities, the data that Kerlikowske provides makes absolutely no distinction between the parties at fault and innocent second-vehicle casualties. No distinction between impairment and the mere presence of metabolites and no distinctions between drunk or drugged drivers (illegal or prescription).
And guess what? Kerli also forgot to mention the fact that U.S. traffic fatalities are at a record low despite drivers traveling farther than they did in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study of traffic injuries and fatalities in 2009 found that 33,808 people were killed in vehicular accidents, which is a decline of 9.7 percent from 2008’s figures. In fact, you’d have to go all the way back to 1950 to find a year when fewer people were killed.
While there might be an increase in DUIs involving marijuana, but it's highly doubtful that many will involve speeding. Alcohol promotes speeding, but marijuana users tend to be paranoid speedometer watchers who are more apt to drive UNDER the speed limit rather than over it.
I hope I see the day when these ridiculously expensive and ineffective laws are repealed. This is definitely a case where prohibition just doesn't work.
Really? Of all behavior-affecting substances, you think marijuana will be the one to push vehicular deaths through the roof? Sorry to break it to you, alcohol's been king of that mountain for some time and has no plans on moving. Show me your support for banning or controlling alcohol to a similar extent as other substances or your argument will be invalid. Sorry, that's just how it works.
Great point. How many cannabis users are there now and how many traffic fatalities have they caused. It would seem to me that if driving under the influence of pot was as bad as dui of alcohol, there would be lots of deaths already happening with users. Its just not the same.
Editors - spot-on. Some forty-odd years ago Milton Friedman had a column in Newsweek (when it could separate fact from opinion) advocating the legalization of most such drugs. The illegalization of those drugs has had the parallel effect that prohibition had: It has spawned crime. Mexico is in the state it's in because of our drug laws.
But for Americans, the worse part of the War on Drugs is that it has become a war not only states' rights, but a war on individual civil liberties as well. So, let's by all means legalize marijuana, and from there go on to other such drugs.
".... not to mention the population that will be maimed or killed by the drivers on a high that think they can drive like a Formula One or NASCAR driver."
You could replace "war on drugs" with "war on illegal immigration, " "war on grafitti and vandalism," "war on property crimes" in general and your statements about the frustrations of fighting crime would still be true. Yet none of them would be a justification for legalizing those pathologies any more than the downsides of the drug war are for legally that particular one.
The drug culture argues a lot like its liberal allies do. If the left hates GWB with a blind unreasoning hatered, he is by definition "divisive." I hate you, so you're being divisive. The junkie version of this argument is, "Come on - you know I'm going to flout your drug laws regardless. Therefore you're the ones guilty of any social upheaval or violence which results, not me."
I can nevertheless see the right-libertarian justification for legalizing drugs. But let's go in with our eyes open. Legal drugs aren't going to fix the pathologies you list. They're going to make them far worse. Take crime. The "legalize it!" position on drug crime is that there are certain people who just really want to sell drugs. They'll sell it for $500 a day in cash illegally - or, once you legalize it, they'll go to work at 7-11 and legally sell packets of Tijuana Gold from behind the counter legally, accepting minimum wage just as happily. Or alternately, they'll go to work at McDonald's for $7.25 an hour, etc.
The position taken by those of us not on LSD of course is a little different. We think there are certain people who don't want a legitimate job but who want to make $500 a day in cash. If we legalize drugs, they'll move on to p*mping out ten year-olds and they'll step up the car theft. And when you legalize those, the career criminals will step up to selling hearts and lungs from murder victims.
The criminal class will always be with us. I'm no fan of drugs, including pot, but we're probably better off with our career criminals selling pot than producing kiddy pourn or taking hostages in banks.
I don't accept your premise that the war on drugs is equivalent to the other 'wars' you mention. I ask you this question: In regards to harm reduction, should any law cause more harm than the activity that it seeks to regulate?
You may feel, and understandably so, that drugs are morally reprehensible. But how do you feel, morally, about a policy that creates a dangerous, and often deadly, environment for innocents not involved in the drug trade? That policy is called prohibition. I didn't see anywhere in your comments where you called for the reenactment of 18th amendment. I'm sure you are aware that alcohol is responsible for more deaths than all illegal drugs combined. And it is also involved in it's fair share of criminal activity.
Your closing paragraph is just plain silly. I have never heard anyone make that argument before. I imagine it is because most people recognize the serious logical flaws in it... Let's make something illegal to give the criminals something to do, so they don't do something that we really don't want them to do. Brilliant thinking!
amused - just a follow-up on your statement: "In regards to harm reduction, should any law cause more harm than the activity that it seeks to regulate?" My follow-up is that we should treat each drug on a case-by-case basis, and examine whether the harm caused by legalizing it outweighs the harm of keeping it illegal. To wit, some drugs, such as heroin, will not cause the user to physical harm to others; others, though, like LSD which causes the user to hallucinate, can lead the user to harm others. Such drugs should probably should continue to be banned.
My dear Patrick, it is extremely disingenuous to compare laws that are obviously there to protect us from each other, such as those pertaining to Pedophilia, Rape and Murder, with laws solely and foolishly designed to protect individuals from themselves --such as prohibition. If it's not directly hurting you, and you forbid it, then you can be sure that it will create unforeseen circumstances which WILL have an adverse affect on YOUR wellbeing. While it is true that taking any drug, including alcohol and tobacco, can sometimes indirectly affect others, this exact same argument was used to implement and painfully prolong alcohol prohibition. But wife battering and child neglect were definitely not curtailed, or even ameliorated, by alcohol prohibition. Prohibition actually increased usage External Link and all related problems, while bootleggers, just like many of our present day drug lords, became rich and powerful folk heroes as a result.
Prohibition has given us huge corruption. Prohibition has given us the planet's highest incarceration rate. Prohibition has given us civil war in Mexico. Prohibition has given us an un-winnable war in Afghanistan. And Prohibition has given us a far higher rate of drug-use than in all other countries with a more sensible policy.
We should all be aware by now of the difference between sensible public policies designed to protect us, and idiotic public policies designed by despotic imbeciles to create as much mayhem as possible.
When we regulate the use of something we do NOT automatically condone it's use; the regulations concerning alcohol and tobacco are there to protect us from the vast increase in criminality that would otherwise exist if these substances were not regulated.
A regulated and licensed distribution network for all mind altering substances would put responsible adult supervision in between children and premature access to drug distribution outlets. Regulated and licensed distribution would reflect and respect society’s values, thus preventing children obtaining easy access to these dangerous substances. What we need is legalized regulation, but what we have at the moment is a non-regulated black market to which everybody, including our children, has easy access, and where all the vast profits go to organized crime and terrorists.
All good arguments, malcolm, but the last paragraph is the best.
Too many pro-drug-war arguments rest on the notion that the black market can be wished away, and so it just gets bigger. Laws aren't just wishes; they require physical enforcement, backed by the consensus of society. If those conditions aren't met, then every application of force in the direction of prohibition only feeds the black market and its negative effects, especially the violence. It's almost simple physics, isn't it?
If all that cost and effort were redirected behind the widely supported and common-sense ideas that you shouldn't drive impaired (by anything) or get children high (on anything), those problems could be pretty effectively dealt with.
I think there are drug dealers who fit both the profiles you describe. I have gotten to know a few convicted drug dealers through my legal practice. Some of them I am quite sure would have found some other line of criminal work if drug dealing had been legal. But others just gave in to the temptation of easy money, and probably would have lived law-abiding laws if the opportunity to get rich dealing drugs hadn't been so readily available.
So your argument is we should have some lesser crimes to attract the criminal class to avoid them from committing graver crimes? The bottom line is by and large the talent of drug dealers is to deliver a high demand product to the market reliably while incurring severe risk because it's illegal. While there are some very bright drug dealers out there (see the Stringer Bell character from the Wire as an archetype), by and large if they have to compete with a free market, they will be out-classed.
Moreover, drug running isn't the same talent as taking hostages in banks. Make marijuana legal and drug dealers will either focus on the remaining set of illicit drugs--or find other black market substances to deliver.
Also it's naive to think of a set of folks as simply a "criminal class." In many neighborhoods, there are powerful incentives to enter the drug trade as there barely are even those minimum wage jobs you talk about.
