DEA "Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization" Claim 2 - a rebuttal

(self) | March 20, 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 2;" more to come as time permits. ("Fact 1" rebutted at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2858443/posts.)

Claim 2: "A balanced approach of prevention, enforcement, and treatment is the key in the fight against drugs."

• Claim: Drug treatment courts are working. Researchers estimate that more than 50 percent of defendants convicted of drug possession will return to criminal behavior within two to three years. Those who graduate from drug treatment courts have far lower rates of recidivism, ranging from 2 to 20 percent. That’s very impressive when you consider that; for addicts who enter a treatment program voluntarily, 80 to 90 percent leave by the end of the first year. Among such dropouts, relapse within a year is generally the rule.

  Fact: The recidivism comparison between drug court graduates and others convicted of possession can be explained by the fact that those selected for drug court are those who were less likely to re-offend anyway: non-violent offenders charged only with simple possession (http://www.justice.gov/dea/ongoing/treatment.html) and who are willing to waive their right to a speedy trial and sign a pre-emptive confession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_court).

  And it's not clear why it's "very impressive" that those who complete a treatment program have lower relapse rates than those who don't — that would seem to be a minimum requirement for a treatment program.

• Claim: Law enforcement plays an important role in the drug treatment court program. It is especially important in the beginning of the process because it often triggers treatment for people who need it. Most people do not volunteer for drug treatment. It is more often an outside motivator, like an arrest, that gets —and keeps— people in treatment.

  Fact: Getting people who need it into treatment doesn't justify imprisoning people who don't need treatment.

• Claim: There are already more than 123,000 people who use heroin at least once a month, and 1.7 million who use cocaine at least once a month. For them, treatment is the answer. But for most Americans, particularly the young, the solution lies in prevention, which in turn is largely a matter of education and enforcement, which aims at keeping drug pushers away from children and teenagers.

  Fact: No medical or mental health professional defines abuse or addiction as using once a month; for many of these users, treatment is unnecessary.

• Claim: The role of strong drug enforcement has been analyzed by R. E. Peterson. He has broken down the past four decades into two periods. The first period, from 1960 to1980, was an era of permissive drug laws. During this era, drug incarceration rates fell almost 80 percent. Drug use among teens, meanwhile, climbed by more than 500 percent. The second period, from 1980 to 1995, was an era of stronger drug laws. During this era, drug use by teens dropped by more than a third.

  Fact: Education, which was mentioned as a preventive factor in the previous claim, also increased during the second period ("Just say no to drugs"), so it's unknown how much — if any — of the teen drug use is due to enforcement.

• Claim: Enforcement of our laws creates risks that discourage drug use. Charles Van Deventer, a young writer in Los Angeles, wrote about this phenomenon in an article in Newsweek. He said that from his experience as a casual user—and he believes his experience with illegal drugs is “by far the most common” — drugs aren’t nearly as easy to buy as some critics would like people to believe. Being illegal, they are too expensive, their quality is too unpredictable, and their purchase entails too many risks. “The more barriers there are,” he said, “ be they the cops or the hassle or the fear of dying, the less likely you are to get addicted….The road to addiction was just bumpy enough,” he concluded, “ that I chose not to go down it. In this sense, we are winning the war on drugs just by fighting them.”

  Fact: For most drugs, the risks of the drugs themselves — such as addiction and death — certainly outweigh any additional risks imposed by law enforcement, so any additional discouragement to use from the latter will therefore be slight.

• Claim: The element of risk, created by strong drug enforcement policies, raises the price of drugs, and therefore lowers the demand. A research paper, Marijuana and Youth, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, concludes that changes in the price of marijuana “ contributed significantly to the trends in youth marijuana use between 1982 and 1998, particularly during the contraction in use from 1982 to 1992.” That contraction was a product of many factors, including a concerted effort among federal agencies to disrupt domestic production and distribution; these factors contributed to a doubling of the street price of marijuana in the space of a year.

  Fact: Again the DEA cherry-picks its data; the report (http://www.nber.org/chapters/c10691.pdf) shows that after a 74% jump in price from 1990 to 1991, the price fell back by 1998 to within 17% of its 1990 value. (And over that period, potency increased by 79% — so price per gram of THC actually fell substantially.)

[guitarplayer1953]

Go the way of Portugal and decriminalize all drugs and watch the crime rate go down.

[Usagi_yo]

It’a hard to imagine legalizing anything stronger than pot. I wonder how much money would be saved legalizing pot — taken into account people in the judicial system for just pot related offenses.

Could legalized drug abuse become the next bubble for the economy?

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Go a step further and legalize making and selling, and watch the crime rate go down even more. All making those acts illegal accomplishes is to hyperinflate the profit margin while restricting the market to criminals.

[starlifter]

Subtitle: “Please Keep the LEO Gravy Train Running”

[JustSayNoToNannies]

It’a hard to imagine legalizing anything stronger than pot.

That will be where it starts - and if we decide that what's left of the War On Drugs is actually winnable, that's where legalization will end.

I wonder how much money would be saved legalizing pot — taken into account people in the judicial system for just pot related offenses.

It's not just number of people but also length of sentence. And money would also be saved in no longer going after pot producers and sellers. And saving money is not the greatest of the benefits of legalization - no longer putting hyperinflated pot profits in criminal hands is at the top of my list.

Could legalized drug abuse become the next bubble for the economy?

Legal alcohol use is a stable economic activity, not a "bubble" - I'd expect legal pot use to be the same.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Subtitle: “Please Keep the LEO Gravy Train Running”

Yup, the War On Drugs is welfare for LEOs and criminals.

[Vendome]

Bttt read later
..

[starlifter]

Lots of people on both sides of the equation getting rich from the WOD.

[guitarplayer1953]

Like I said Portugal had legalized all drugs even Heroin and Coke. Their crime rate has gone down their prison rate has gone down. The war on drugs has only created a criminal element similar to what happened during Prohibition and the creation of the mob. The right speaks of personal freedom but not really. What bothers me the most is the generation of drugs sex and rock and roll has become the generation of total control over everyone lives trying to tell them what to eat what to wear what they can buy.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

The right speaks of personal freedom but not really.

It's strange how many people don't see that "freedom - but not for acts I disapprove of" is not freedom at all.

[Mechanicos]

The Constitution requires an Amendment to have any prohibition. Last I checked we repealed the last one and have not amended the Constitution for another one.

The issue is NOT should drugs be legal? The Issue is why are we letting the federal government enact a 2nd prohibition without constitutional authority?

[guitarplayer1953]

That is so true it's like the lefts freedom of speech, your free to speak if what you say agrees with what they believe but if you speak of something they don't approve of they shout you down. One of the things that has bothered me over the years is that the government has put LSD and other hallucinogens right up there with heroin and coke. Which is rather strange because of the MK-Ultra and Artichoke programs the government ran during the 50’s-70’s.

[troy McClure]

I think we should use the Singapore as a model for our anti- drug laws.

[troy McClure]

I think we should use Singapore as a model for our anti- drug laws.

[Wuli]

“The right speaks of personal freedom but not really.”

This is something social conservatives really need to confront, within themselves.

Are they really going to stand for small and limted government, or are they against big and intrusive government ONLY if and when it makes on imposition on their sensibilities.

I wish they saw there is common ground.

For instance: That common ground is found in the fact that Roe-v-Wade did not establish abortion as a “right”, as in the rights found in the Bill of Rights. Roe-v-wade means, and simply means abortion cannot be totally illegalized by the states. So, its “legal” like smoking cigarettes are “legal”.

So, in defense of the pro-choice folks, yes abortion is “legal”. But, in defense of the pro-life folks, just because the law says a woman CAN have an abortion, that is not a claim on anyone that THEY must provide it for her. She can go to anyone who agrees to provide it, but no one can be required to be that provider. And, the government cannot command anyone to be an abortion provider, against their will, just because of Roe-V-Wade. Just because it is “legal” does not make it mandatory for anyone not wishing to be part of it.

There are many current social issues that could be bridged this way between social conservatives and Libertarians.

As you can see, it takes Libertarian conservatives also admitting that there are limits to how far “legal” can be imposed against the Liberty of those not in favor of something.

[fr_freak]

I think we should use Singapore as a model for our anti- drug laws.

Oh, absolutely. And while we're at it, let's crap on the US Constitution and piss on the American flag. Police states rock.

[Mack the knife]

The Constitution requires an Amendment to have any prohibition. Last I checked we repealed the last one and have not amended the Constitution for another one.

---

Vin Suprynowicz, in his book “Send In the Waco Killers”, pointed out that there was general agreement in 1900 that a Constitutional Amendment would be necessary to ban alcohol (or any other substance).

After Prohibition was passed and experienced, it was repealed; but the same year it was repealed, Congress passed drug prohibition laws ... without a backlash. By that time, there had been so many overreaches by the FedGov that no one complaiined that that the new drug laws were unconstitutional.

[Mister Da]

Most of the treatment programs are bogus. They are revolving door programs used by the courts to “divert” otherwise sober, law abiding citizens from jail. You go into one of these programs, keep your urine clean, parrot the words of the counselors, & you will be given a clean bill of health. The “clinic” makes a mint from you & the gov’t subsidies, & you get a get out of jail letter from your counselor.

Drug counselors will privately tell you that success rates are around 5% - abysmal. Many don't even try to help the addicts.

True story:

My friend's ex-wife became an addict after a badly broken ankle. She finally enrolled in a local methadone program. We had hopes for her.

But the clinic did nothing for her except sell her that daily dose & collect the associated gov’t subsidy. That daily dose became the most important thing in her life.

This went on for years until she went into the hospital with kidney problems. The doctors there told her the methadone was destroying her kidneys & liver, & would kill her if she continued using it. She managed to quit on her own.

Here is my point: If that clinic had secretly cut her dose a tiny bit each week, she would have been drug free in months & avoided some serious kidney problems. But the clinic would have lost a patient, & the associated subsidies. The clinic had zero incentive to help people, & every incentive to keep them addicted.

BTW, the alcohol rehab industry works exactly the same way & has the same level of success.

[flintsilver7]

Give yourself a minute or two and make a more specious argument. If you decrease the number of activities that are considered crimes, of course crime will go down. That’s like saying you won’t be hungry after you eat. It also isn’t making any kind of a point.