DEA "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization" - a rebuttal

(self) | March 13, 2012 | (self)

[JustSayNoToNannies]

The DEA Web pages on "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization" are linked with some regularity on FR. They're full of errors in fact and logic; since I couldn't find a comprehensive rebuttal online, I've started creating one. Here's my rebuttal to their "Fact 1;" more to come as time permits.

Claim 1: "We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts."

• Claim: On the demand side, the U.S. has reduced casual use, chronic use and addiction, and prevented others from even starting using drugs. Overall drug use in the United States is down by more than a third since the late 1970s. That’s 9.5 million people fewer using illegal drugs. We’ve reduced cocaine use by an astounding 70% during the last 15 years. That’s 4.1 million fewer people using cocaine.

  Fact: And from 1980 to 1995, alcohol consumption dropped by 23% (http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-1/30-38.htm), while from 1973 to 2006 cigarette smoking dropped by 59% (http://www.lung.org/finding-cures/our-research/trend-reports/Tobacco-Trend-Report.pdf) - all while alcohol and cigarettes remained legal. Correlation is not causation. Here the DEA commits the ancient logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this therefore because of this") - like the rooster who claimed his crowing caused the sun to rise.

• Claim: Almost two-thirds of teens say their schools are drugfree, according to a new survey of teen drug use conducted by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University. This is the first time in the seven-year history of the study that a majority of public school students report drug-free schools.

  Fact: That's what teens think other teens are doing. Here's what teens say about what they themselves are doing: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported in 2002 that teens said for the first time that they could get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer (http://www.casacolumbia.org/download.aspx?path=/UploadedFiles/b0ooqrvk.pdf). This is the DEA's idea of "progress"? What this shows is that the best way to restict teens' access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).

• Claim: The good news continues. According to the 2001-2002 PRIDE survey, student drug use has reached the lowest level in nine years.

  Fact: And 8 years later, the percentage of daily marijuana use was essentially unchanged (http://www.pridesurveys.com/Reports/index.html), despite ever-rising spending on drug enforcement. Trends in youth drug use simply don't correlate with drug criminalization efforts.

  Claim: According to the author of the study, “following 9/11, Americans seemed to refocus on family, community, spirituality, and nation.” These statistics show that U.S. efforts to educate kids about the dangers of drugs is making an impact. Like smoking cigarettes, drug use is gaining a stigma which is the best cure for this problem, as it was in the 1980s, when government, business, the media and other national institutions came together to do something about the growing problem of drugs and drug-related violence. This is a trend we should encourage — not send the opposite message of greater acceptance of drug use.

  Fact: Legalization does not "send the opposite message of greater acceptance of drug use." We manage to educate kids about the dangers of alcohol and tobacco despite their legality. If we're going to criminalize everything we don't want kids doing, we've got a long list to work on.

• Claim: The crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s has diminished greatly in scope. And we’ve reduced the number of chronic heroin users over the last decade. In addition, the number of new marijuana users and cocaine users continues to steadily decrease.

  Fact: See the first fact, above.

• Claim: The number of new heroin users dropped from 156,000 in 1976 to 104,000 in 1999, a reduction of 33 percent.

  Fact: See the first fact, above.

• Claim: Of course, drug policy also has an impact on general crime. In a 2001 study, the British Home Office found violent crime and property crime increased in the late 1990s in every wealthy country except the United States. Our murder rate is too high, and we have much to learn from those with greater success—but this reduction is due in part to a reduction in drug use.

  Fact: Apparently the DEA hopes we won't notice that:

  • All those countries also have anti-drug laws.
  • There is no evidence that those countries had rising levels of drug use.
  • As mentioned previously, correlation is not causation.

• Claim: To put things in perspective, less than 5 percent of the population uses illegal drugs of any kind.

  Fact: According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in 2008 8% of Americans had used an illicit drug in the past month and 14.2% in the past year (http://www.samhsa.gov/data/nsduh/2k8nsduh/tabs/Sect1peTabs1to46.htm#Tab1.19B).

Supply Reduction

• Claim: There have been many successes on the supply side of the drug fight, as well. For example, Customs officials have made major seizures along the U.S.-Mexico border during a six-month period after September 11th, seizing almost twice as much as the same period in 2001. At one port in Texas, seizures of methamphetamine are up 425% and heroin by 172%. Enforcement makes a difference—traffickers’ costs go up with these kinds of seizures.

  Fact: Based on available federal government data (http://www.justice.gov/ndic/pubs44/44849/44849p.pdf, http://www.abtassociates.com/reports/american_users_spend_2002.pdf), no more than 21% of the cocaine that enters this country is seized, and no more than 19% of the heroin. The DEA is grading itself on a very generous curve if it calls a score of 21% anything better than failing.

• Claim: Purity levels of Colombian cocaine are declining too, according to an analysis of samples seized from traffickers and bought from street dealers in the United States. The purity has declined by nine percent, from 86 percent in 1998, to 78 percent in 2001. There are a number of possible reasons for this decline in purity, including DEA supply reduction efforts in South America.

  Fact: Cocaine purity rises and falls with no correlation to drug enforcement activity; after that cherry-picked dip in 2001, purity rose again (https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/price_purity.pdf).

• Claim: One DEA program, Operation Purple, involves 28 countries and targets the illegal diversion of chemicals used in processing cocaine and other illicit drugs. DEA’s labs have discovered that the oxidation levels for cocaine have been greatly reduced, suggesting that Operation Purple is having a detrimental impact on the production of cocaine.

  Fact: Oxidation is used to remove impurities; whatever the significance of these reduced oxidation levels, it hasn't meant a reduction in cocaine purity, as shown above.

• Claim: Whatever the final reasons for the decline in drug purity, it is good news for the American public. It means less potent and deadly drugs are hitting the streets, and dealers are making less profits — that is, unless they raise their own prices, which helps price more and more Americans out of the market.

  Fact: Speaking of prices: powder cocaine prices have declined by roughly 80 percent since 1981, with the average price of one expected pure gram of cocaine purchased at Q1 (i.e., 0.1 to 2.0 bulk grams) costing approximately $107 in 2003. (https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/price_purity.pdf)

• Claim: Purity levels have also been reduced on methamphetamine by controls on chemicals necessary for its manufacture. The average purity of seized methamphetamine samples dropped from 72 percent in 1994 to 40 percent in 2001.

  Fact: Methamphetamine purity did decline during that period - but then it rose again. (https://www.ncjrs.gov/ondcppubs/publications/pdf/price_purity.pdf) As with cocaine, purity rises and falls with no correlation to drug enforcement activity.

• Claim:The trafficking organizations that sell drugs are finding that their profession has become a lot more costly. In the mid-1990s, the DEA helped dismantle Burma’s Shan United Army, at the time the world’s largest heroin trafficking organization, which in two years helped reduce the amount of Southeast Asian heroin in the United States from 63 percent of the market to 17 percent of the market. In the mid-1990s, the DEA helped disrupt the Cali cartel, which had been responsible for much of the world’s cocaine.

  Fact: When Southeast Asian heroin declined, South American heroin picked up the slack. When the Cali cartel was disrupted, other cartels stepped in. These high-profile busts serve only to create opportunities for other traffickers.

• Claim: Progress does not come overnight. America has had a long, dark struggle with drugs. It’s not a war we’ve been fighting for 20 years. We’ve been fighting it for 120 years. In 1880, many drugs, including opium and cocaine, were legal. We didn’t know their harms, but we soon learned. We saw the highest level of drug use ever in our nation, per capita. There were over 400,000 opium addicts in our nation. That’s twice as many per capita as there are today. And like today, we saw rising crime with that drug abuse. But we fought those problems by passing and enforcing tough laws and by educating the public about the dangers of these drugs. And this vigilance worked—by World War II, drug use was reduced to the very margins of society.

  Fact: The only anti-drug laws passed in the 1880s were against smokable opium, and were targeted at the recently immigrated Chinese laborers. Even when the Harrison Narcotic Act was passed in 1914, "The supporters of the Harrison bill said little in the Congressional debates (which lasted several days) about the evils of narcotics addiction in the United States. They talked more about the need to implement The Hague Convention of 1912," which was "aimed primarily at solving the opium problems of the Far East, especially China." "Even Senator Mann of Mann Act fame, spokesman for the bill in the Senate, talked about international obligations rather than domestic morality. On its face, moreover, the Harrison bill did not appear to be a prohibition law at all." (http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm)

  And if the use of opiates and cocaine declined in the early part of the twentieth century (although the use of barbiturates and amphetamines was widespread), they rose again later despite not a single anti-drug law being repealed. Again we see that trends in drug use do not correlate with anti-drug laws and enforcement.

[DiogenesLamp]

From 1994 and you're trying to depict it as modern day? For shame! That's almost 20 years old!

Who said anything about modern day? I believe I mentioned earlier in my comments that the effect of drugs on humans is the same for any period in history, be it a 19th century Chinese man, or a 21rst century American.

I did not represent the picture, or the linked article (from which I found the picture) as being modern. In my mind, the "when" factor is irrelevant. Human physiology has been pretty much the same for at least all of recorded human history. We still possess the same chemical receptors as did the Neanderthals.

In any case, I learned of the Platzspitz debacle from Listening to the Rush Limbaugh show back in 1994.

[DiogenesLamp]

We have the same thing all over the US. They’re called “crack houses”, public housing, etc. Ours may not be as public in most cases but we do have our own parks for addicts, too.

The difference is that they do not exist by the tacit consent of our society or our government, but through the willful breaking of our laws. Were we to legalize drugs, in 40 years, every OTHER house would be a crack house.

[DiogenesLamp]

Your Chinese example is meaningless. For the first 100 years of American history opium was completely legal yet nowhere near 50% of the population was addicted.

Scarcity my FReind. Hard to be an addict when the supply is not easily available. Back in those days they thought of it, and used it as a medicine.

The China lesson is that when it is freely available, it spreads addiction throughout it's sphere of influence. Humans are humans, and modern day Americans will become just as addicted as 19th century Chinese, if the circumstances are similar.

And the entire discussion of that subject is completely academic as there’s absolutely no authority anywhere in the US Constitution for the Federal government to regulate what adults put into their bodies. None whatsoever.

I would mostly agree on a Federal Level, but not on the State level. States have the right, and the civic duty to control dangerous substances such as medicines, explosives, and drugs.

Anyone arguing otherwise is as liberal as Obama. Period.

I agree with you that our Federal Government has usurped powers which it should not be exercising, but I wouldn't go so far as to say anyone arguing for a federal role is liberal. Cocaine comes from foreign countries, and it is certainly not within the power of individual states to do anything about this. THIS aspect of the drug war must indeed be handled by the Federal Government, and the Constitutional Authority is granted under the Articles requiring the defense of our nation.

Were someone sneaking in Anthrax, or Plague, you would have no trouble discerning a constitutional authority for the Feds to Stop it. It is that same authority which also operates on the drug poisons being snuck into the country.

[philman_36]

None of the reasons you gave means a thing. They're excuses to blame and nothing more than an attempt to demonize the issue through inference.
I guess you're not on the up and up after all. You argue like a liberal on this issue.

The Founding Fathers were the original Libertarians.
There are major players in the conservative realm who disagree with the WOsD.

Your link doesn't seem to do anything when I click on it.
Not my problem. It works for me.
What did you find?
Some interesting websites as sources. Try "search by image"

[CodeToad]

“every OTHER house would be a crack house”

Maybe in your neighborhood but not mine. I have a lot more faith in the people than that. Drugs were legal 100 years ago and every other house wasn’t a crack house.

[philman_36]

You have no “point”, only distractions.
There is a point. If there are any distractions it's you with yours. I've addressed your issue and you're not even bothering to defend your own position.

So you don't won't to address the fact that there are numerous "poisons" available and at hand to everybody every day.
Got it. It really shows your perspective.
And thanks for conceding the point to me.

[philman_36]

Letting an epidemic of poison spread through your society is more closely analogous to sticking your head in a cannon and firing it.
I say the same thing to you...go look at the cleaning supplies under your kitchen sink, or wherever it is that you keep your cleaning supplies, and tell me that there aren't poisonous items amongst them.

So by your illustration you would rather have a filthy, dirty kitchen than trust yourself as a rational human being who is able to safely handle poisonous cleaning products.

Got it.

[philman_36]

Who said anything about modern day?
Then why didn't you state outright that the incident you depicted happened almost twenty years ago and why did you use a 2009 article talking about it? Surely there are older articles you could have used if you only wanted to "give the particulars".
You gave the impression that it was current day and unless somebody went to the site you linked to they would never know how old your picture was.

[philman_36]

The China lesson is that when it is freely available, it spreads addiction throughout it's sphere of influence. Humans are humans, and modern day Americans will become just as addicted as 19th century Chinese, if the circumstances are similar.
Well then your argument is already blown. You can go anywhere, at any time, and get any drugs you want. The ready availability of drugs is well known so America should be in the grips of drug addiction and guess what...it isn't!

[philman_36]

Cocaine comes from foreign countries, and it is certainly not within the power of individual states to do anything about this.
Nobody can control where an indigenous plant comes from, not even the federal government.

THIS aspect of the drug war must indeed be handled by the Federal Government, and the Constitutional Authority is granted under the Articles requiring the defense of our nation.
Well there ya have it. Nothing is outside of their realm and there is justification for anything. And instead of making it a trade issue you try to make it an issue of national defense. That's pretty convoluted in thinking.

BTW, cocaine is legally purchased as medicine all of the time. Once again, it's a controlled substance and not an illegal drug.

@How cocaine can be used in sinus surgery
What many people may not realize is that cocaine is also used in medical care, especially in the ENT world.
Cocaine is one of the most potent anesthetic and vasoconstrictor. These two characteristics make it an ideal medication for use during sinus surgery as well as any nasal procedure where bleeding and pain may be an issue.
Many physicians will use cocaine to help stop nosebleeds (I do not).

[JustSayNoToNannies]

The China lesson is that when it is freely available, it spreads addiction throughout it's sphere of influence. Humans are humans, and modern day Americans will become just as addicted as 19th century Chinese, if the circumstances are similar.

Well then your argument is already blown. You can go anywhere, at any time, and get any drugs you want. The ready availability of drugs is well known so America should be in the grips of drug addiction and guess what...it isn't!

Not to mention that as between 19th century China and 21st century America, "if the circumstances are similar" evaluates as FALSE. Different histories, cultures, systems of government, etc. etc.

[DiogenesLamp]

None of the reasons you gave means a thing. They're excuses to blame and nothing more than an attempt to demonize the issue through inference. I guess you're not on the up and up after all. You argue like a liberal on this issue.

Liberals believe in Total governmental control. Libertarians believe in almost NO governmental control. Conservatives believe in having only so much government as is necessary, and not more. (But not less either.)

I regard the issue of Drugs as being an issue of Law Enforcement. I've known people who killed themselves with drug abuse. The stuff is like a disease which needs to be quarantined. If it is not, it spreads to others.

The Founding Fathers were the original Libertarians.

Not in today's meaning of the term. Thomas Jefferson himself proposed the Law in Virginia to castrate homosexuals.

There are major players in the conservative realm who disagree with the WOsD.

Of this I am very aware, but they are generally among the group which calls themselves "Independents" and "Libertarians" and they disdain the social issues such as Abortion, Drugs, Homosexuality, etc. Reason Magazine, and the Cato institute are working to increase the numbers of Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative "Libertarian" types.

Not my problem. It works for me.

It is not serving your interest in showing it to me if I can't see it.

Some interesting websites as sources. Try "search by image"

I suspect I have some sort of malware on my machine, because I am getting a lot of strange redirects from time to time, but several malware scanning tools don't find anything. Search by image of "Platzspitz" Switzerland?

[G Larry]

Just how many semester hours of Saul Alinsky training do you have?

[Darren McCarty]

The DEA is against legalization because the DEA wants to keep their jobs.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Ending the negative consequences of the futile and counterproductive War On Drugs will make America a better place. If that weren't so, we'd narrow the array of poisons by returning to alcohol Prohibition. Do you support that?

My recollection is that legal alcohol kills ~ 50,000 people per year. Isn't that a small sacrifice to pay for it? Only 50,000 dead people? (per year) Yes, we certainly need another bunch of substances to add to the death rate.

You didn't answer my question: Do you support narrowing the array of poisons by returning to alcohol Prohibition?

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reported in 2002 that teens said for the first time that they could get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer (http://www.casacolumbia.org/download.aspx?path=/UploadedFiles/b0ooqrvk.pdf). What this shows is that the best way to restict teens' access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).

But that benefit will be more than overwhelmed by the incidence of Addiction spreading throughout the land.

Nonsense. Is illegality YOUR only reason - or even your primary reason - for not using addictive drugs?

I know the Swiss weren't very happy with their experiment.

Legalization in a single small area is probably the worst possible way to do legalization. Let's not do it that way.

[DiogenesLamp]

Maybe in your neighborhood but not mine. I have a lot more faith in the people than that. Drugs were legal 100 years ago and every other house wasn’t a crack house.

China didn't begin with a 50% addiction rate. It started slow there as well. I will just cross post my argument from this website over here.

I argue that the normal course of drug addiction is an exponential. Without any interference, it would look like this.

Or this:

Or this:

Chests of Opium imported to China.

I will point out that to hover against gravity requires an expenditure of an equal and opposite reaction.

If you stop pushing against gravity, you get a velocity curve which looks like this. (neglecting air friction.)

Turn off the drug war, and your addiction rate (velocity) will increase until it reaches it's maximum rate of sustainability. We are hovering at 2% addiction BECAUSE of the drug war. That is the benefit.

Standing still may not look like a benefit, but when the alternative is falling, it becomes apparent what is the benefit of standing still.

[Darren McCarty]

Letting an epidemic of poison spread through your society is more closely analogous to sticking your head in a cannon and firing it. In my opinion, it is virtually guaranteed to cause a collapse.

It already has spread through society. I can get pot in 15 minutes. I could probably get the real bad stuff (crack, heroin, or meth) in two hours, and I don't even have to go to Detroit or Ypsi to get two of them.

Drugs are bad. The war on some drugs is worse. We are increasingly giving up more freedoms and giving more powers to government, especially the feds in the name of the war on drugs. Asset forfeitures without convictions came from the WoD. The unPatriot Act (judge shopping and sneak and peak) was based on a Clinton proposal to combat the WoD. Debt increases in corrections budgets because of drug crimes. Sudafed controls for those with allergies.

[DiogenesLamp]

I say the same thing to you...go look at the cleaning supplies under your kitchen sink, or wherever it is that you keep your cleaning supplies, and tell me that there aren't poisonous items amongst them.

So by your illustration you would rather have a filthy, dirty kitchen than trust yourself as a rational human being who is able to safely handle poisonous cleaning products.

Got it.

Your analogy is weak.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Libertarians believe in almost NO governmental control. Conservatives believe in having only so much government as is necessary, and not more.

How do you know "only so much government as is necessary, and not more" is more than "almost NO governmental control"?

I regard the issue of Drugs as being an issue of Law Enforcement.

That's a circular statement - if there were no laws against drugs, drugs would no longer be an issue of law enforcement.

I've known people who killed themselves with drug abuse.

People kill themselves with alcohol. Should we return to Prohibition?

The stuff is like a disease which needs to be quarantined. If it is not, it spreads to others.

False analogy - a communicable disease infects a person with no element of choice on their part, whereas drugs don't leap down people's throats.

[philman_36]

Liberals believe in Total governmental control.
Then judging by your reply at @reply 43 you're a liberal.

Libertarians believe in almost NO governmental control. Conservatives believe in having only so much government as is necessary, and not more.
You can no more paint all Libertarians as being the same than you can paint all conservatives as being the same.

I regard the issue of Drugs as being an issue of Law Enforcement. I've known people who killed themselves with drug abuse.
So you're letting personal issues cloud your judgement and your argument. Got it.
And the logical extension of your argument would indicate that you believe gun control should be "an issue of Law Enforcement" since people have killed themselves with firearms. Or hadn't you thought of that?

The stuff is like a disease which needs to be quarantined. If it is not, it spreads to others.
Then you're being idiotic and jaundiced in looking at the issue. @"Illicit drugs" are readily available yet only a small portion of the populace uses them and that percentage has remained relatively steady for decades.

Not in today's meaning of the term.
To use your own words..."Who said anything about modern day? "
Thomas Jefferson himself proposed the Law in Virginia to castrate homosexuals.
And? Homosexuality was viewed as a perversion in his time. To many people in modern day America it's still viewed as a perversion despite efforts to depict it as "normal" behavior instead of abnormal behavior.

Don't bother with the image. Any search engine can yield results for the image, even the website you linked.
It's enough that you tried and failed to pass it off as a current event when it wasn't.