Tsar admits: we've lost the war on drugs

SCOTLAND'S drugs tsar has sparked a furious row by openly declaring that the war on drugs is "long lost".

Tom Wood, a former deputy chief constable, is the first senior law enforcement figure publicly to admit drug traffickers will never be defeated.

Wood said no nation could ever eradicate illegal drugs and added that it was time for enforcement to lose its number one priority and be placed behind education and deterrence.

But his remarks have been condemned by Graeme Pearson, director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), who said he "strongly disagreed" with Wood.

The row has erupted as concern mounts about the apparent inability of police, Customs and other agencies to stem the flow of illegal drugs. It was reported yesterday that an eight-year-old Scottish school pupil had received treatment for drug addiction.

And despite decades of drug enforcement costing millions of pounds, Scotland has one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with an estimated 50,000 addicts. At least half a million Scots are believed to have smoked cannabis and 200,000 are believed to have taken cocaine.

Wood holds the influential post of chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, a body which advises the Executive on future policy. The fact that Wood and Pearson are at loggerheads over the war on drugs is severely embarrassing for ministers.

Wood said: "I spent much of my police career fighting the drugs war and there was no one keener than me to fight it. But latterly I have become more and more convinced that it was never a war we could win.

"We can never as a nation be drug-free. No nation can, so we must accept that. So the message has to be more sophisticated than 'just say no' because that simple message doesn't work.

"For young people who have already said 'yes', who live in families and communities where everybody says 'yes', we have to recognise that the battle is long lost."

He added: "Throughout the last three decades, enforcement has been given top priority, followed by treatment and rehabilitation, with education and deterrence a distant third.

"In order to make a difference in the long term, education and deterrence have to go to the top of the pile. We have to have the courage and commitment to admit that we have not tackled the problem successfully in the past. We have to win the arguments and persuade young people that drugs are best avoided."

Wood said he "took his hat off" to the SCDEA and added that it was essential to carry on targeting dealers. He stressed he was not advocating the decriminalisation or legalisation of any drugs.

"It's about our priorities and our thinking," said Wood. "Clearly, at some stage, there could be resource implications, but the first thing we have to do is realise we can't win any battles by continuing to put enforcement first."

But Pearson, director of the SCDEA, said he "fundamentally disagreed" that the war on drugs was lost.

"I strongly disagree when he says that the war on drugs in Scotland is lost. The Scottish Executive Drug Action Plan acknowledged that tackling drug misuse is a complex problem, demanding many responses. It is explicit within the strategy that to effectively tackle drug misuse, the various pillars of the plan cannot operate in isolation."

Alistair Ramsay, former director of Scotland Against Drugs, said: "We must never lose sight of the fact that enforcement of drug law is a very powerful prevention for many people and, if anything, drug law should be made more robust.

"The current fixation with treatment and rehabilitation on behalf of the Executive has really got to stop."

And Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: "I accept Wood's sincerity, but this is a very dangerous message to go out. I would never say that we have lost the war on drugs. Things are dire, but we should never throw up the white flag."

But Wood's view was backed by David Liddell, director of the Scottish Drugs Forum, who said: "We have never used the term 'drugs war' and it's right to move away from that sort of approach. For every £1 spent on treatment, £9-£18 is saved, including in criminal justice. The balance has been skewed towards more punitive aspects."

And John Arthur, manager of the drugs advice organisation Crew 2000, said: "I think Tom Wood is right. This is something our organisation has been arguing for for a long time and it is good to see this is now coming into the mainstream."

Among the ideas now backed by Wood is less reliance on giving methadone as a substitute to heroin addicts.

He says other substitutes should be considered, as well as the possibility of prescribing heroin itself or abstinence programmes.

One new method being examined by experts is neuro-electric therapy, which sends electrical pulses through the brain. One addict with a five-year habit, Barry Philips, 24, from Kilmarnock, said the treatment enabled him to come off heroin in only five days.

Wood said: "We need to look at the other options. Other substitutes are used in other countries. They even prescribe heroin in Switzerland and there is a pilot in Germany, with pilots also mooted in England and, more recently, Scotland. We need to have a fully informed debate."

A Scottish Executive spokesman said: "We have a very clear policy on drugs, which is to balance the need to tackle supply and challenge demand. They have to go hand in hand and we make no apology for that."

You took two endpoints 25 years apart and claim use "shot up" 30%!? You're a worse weasel than MrLeRoy ... and that says something!

Like this weasel who cherry picks the peak year in the NSDUH survey 25 years ago to measure success?-- Overall drug use dropped 60% from its high in 1979 and has remained relatively flat for the last 15 years. That's how I measure success.

Oh, by the way. These numbers are so ridiculously small in a nation of 300,000,000 citizens, arguing about some supposed 30% increase from .07% to .09%, and why that happened, is a waste of time.

Heh heh, so I guess heroin is just a teeny-tiny problem.

Speaking of the ONDCP, they totally discount the heroin numbers of NHSDA surveys.

"Cautious evaluation of this data is necessary because the NHSDA cannot accurately measure rare or stigmatized drug use, relying as it does on self-reporting and on people residing in households. In alternate research, the number of hardcore* users of heroin in 1998 was estimated to be 980,000,"

"Estimates of heroin use from the NHSDA are considered very conservative due to the probable underreporting and undercoverage of the population of heroin users."

________________________________________

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, Oct 4, 2000:

"For example, numbers like heroin addiction. You can find numbers that go from 255,000 up to the one I'm currently using, 980,000, if I remember the last time we updated it, and those are all valid scientific studies."

--http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/symposium/panelmccaffrey.html

So, the government says its own household survey numbers are not reliable, and both the ONDCP and the Drug Czar said there were 980,000 heroin addicts.

-- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1454298/posts?page=87#87

Rio Linda summary: Heroin addiction rate in the US is about 0.35% of the population, rather than the 0.09% used by the NHSDA and other weasels.

The ONDCP is nothing more than a coordinating agency

LOL!
That's not what you were claiming when you stated we were only spending $12 billion per year (the ONDPC budget) on the drug war!

The DEA has been around since 1973.
No, the name was changed from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973. The same agency has been conducting a drug war since 1914.

Start there.

Ok...Since 1973 we have increased our prison population from under 200,000 to over 2,000,000.
Since 1973 heroin has gotten stronger and cheaper.
Since 1973 cocaine has gotten stronger and cheaper.
Need I go on?

I'll nip this Household Survey trip of yours in the bud while I'm at it. The Household survey does not show us how many people are using drugs in America. The survey shows us how many people in selected areas are willing to admit to drug use for $30....and that's all it shows.
.

Well, when I said the last 10 years I looked at the 1996, 1997 number and was ballparking -- 650-700-750 -- same difference. (1994 was 12 years ago.)

If you want to nitpick, fine -- then let's go ahead and compare the 1996 number of 641,000 to the most recent figure, 771,000 -- that's a 20% increase. Drug use went up 40% in the same period.

We're arresting fewer people, and that's part of the reason for the increase. It's not THE reason, it's not even the main reason. It's one factor.

"Heh heh, so I guess heroin is just a teeny-tiny problem."

No, it's a big probem for a teeny-tiny percentage of the population.

"Like this weasel who cherry picks the peak year in the NSDUH survey 25 years ago to measure success?"

I posted the chart for all to see. That's the chart I use to measure success. The chart speaks for itself.

You're the one distorting the facts -- using end-points 25 years apart and talking about drug use "shooting up" 30%. You should be ashamed.

let's go ahead and compare the 1996 number of 641,000 to the most recent figure, 771,000 -- that's a 20% increase. Drug [marijuana-kh] use went up 40% in the same period.

Arrests are up, and mj use is up.

We're arresting fewer people, and that's part of the reason for the increase.

You lost me-- your data shows more arrests.

No, it's a big probem for a teeny-tiny percentage of the population.

Well, gosh golly! I thought all of society was victimized. Now it's just a big problem for a teeny-tiny %. I guess heroin is just a teeny-tiny problem, at worst, for everyone else!

You're the one distorting the facts -- using end-points 25 years apart and talking about drug use "shooting up" 30%.

I was using NHSDA numbers 25 years apart... just like you did. You should be ashamed!

Are you saying you want to use the ONDCP numbers instead? Fine. What's the heroin "past-month" chart look like from 1979 to 2004 from the ONDCP?

"Estimates of heroin use from the NHSDA are considered very conservative due to the probable underreporting and undercoverage of the population of heroin users."

Ah. Well, that makes sense as to the raw number, but the trend should be accurate, right? Well, whatever.

So, how does the ONDCP get its super-accurate number? According to their report, "As with cocaine, estimates for the size of the hardcore heroin using population are derived from mathematical models rather than probability-based population survey estimates."

Oh. Mathematical models. Made-up mathematical models. OK.

What about the raw numbers they plug into this mathematical model? Well, they start by interviewing drug criminals, known for their truth telling. If that's not ridiculous enough, the ONDCP compensates for truth telling and they compensate based on the type of drug. I kid you not!

"As expected, given this alternative criterion for truthful reporting, truthfulness by heroin users is greater than truthfulness for cocaine users. Thus, let TRUTH = 0.73 for heroin and 0.61 for cocaine. Then an adjusted estimate for the number of heavy users equals:

It gets even more ludicrous. Look, I've made my point. The ONDCP number will be whatever they want it to be, probably depending on their next year budget needs.

"That's not what you were claiming when you stated we were only spending $12 billion per year (the ONDPC budget) on the drug war!"

I said the federal government was spending $12 billion per year on the WOD. This money is distributed to the various federal agencies (DEA, HHS, DOJ, etc.) through the ONDCP.

That $12 billion does not include court costs and incarceration costs. That number was a part of the ONDCP budget, but has since been broken out. Since drug incarceration costs are a cumulative number, it distorts the actual amount spent each year by the ONDCP.

"Since 1973 we have increased our prison population from under 200,000 to over 2,000,000."

Well, I agree that's not right. We need to build more prisons and get that number up to at least 3 million. What with this flood of heroin and cocaine you're talking about, we need to arrest 'em and lock 'em up! Right?

"Since 1973 heroin has gotten stronger and cheaper.

And heroin use has remained flat at around .09% of the population.

"Since 1973 cocaine has gotten stronger and cheaper."

And cocaine use initially dropped 65% and has remained flat for the last 15 years at around .7% of the population.

"The Household survey does not show us how many people are using drugs in America. The survey shows us how many people in selected areas are willing to admit to drug use for $30....and that's all it shows."

They also get the $30 if they admit to no drug use, don't they? Well, then, what's the problem?

You have been reading my posts.

I have been saying the same thing for as long as I have been posting on FR...and even before.

My contention is that there are 2 ways to win the "wod"...1) summary execution for all who use or sell drugs, or....gasp....2) legalization. There is nothing in between.

I always get beat up for legalization...but why can't we can treat druggies like we have drunks since the beginning of time?

"I thought all of society was victimized"

Heroin use, as does all recreational drug use, has an effect on society, not just on the user.

"I was using NHSDA numbers 25 years apart... just like you did."

As was demonstrated in the posts following, I did so honestly. You did not.

"I'm confused...You admit the ONDCP numbers are bogus, yet you use those bogus numbers to measure drug war "success"."

No. I use the NSDUH (National Survey on Drug Use and Health) numbers. So does everybody.

But when KenH want to inflate the heroin and cocaine statistics to make a point, he switches to the ONDCP numbers. I don't think even he believes them, but hey, there they are! And they're right from the government! So he'll use them!

You say they're ludicrous, but the drug czar says they're valid, scientific studies:

"Now I would also suggest to you that we've gotten a lot further, 'cause we brought in some of the most noted scientists, epidemiologists, mathematicians, statistical people in the country. We've identified the gaps in our data."

I notice you are not so demanding when citing a one sentence blurb about a University of Alaska survey that purported to show mj use by Alaskan teens at twice the national average. Problem is, no one can find this study!

Furthermore, you try to compare it to a self-survey from the NHSDA, which the ONDCP says "cannot accurately measure rare or stigmatized drug use". You should be ashamed.

Actually, there is a third way. A realistic way. We do it with unemployment numbers. When we reach around 95% employment, we declare that to be "full" employment, given that there are around 5% who either can't or won't work.

When it comes to drugs, we need to admit that there will be a certain number of people who are going to use drugs no matter what we do. As with unemployment, we need to pick a number -- say 5%.

When we reach that number we declare victory then spend only enough each year to maintain that number.

The arrests are not keeping pace with the number of users.

I gave you data (playing along with your invalid NHSDA numbers for the sake of argument) which showed a positive correlation between increasing arrests and increasing drug use, and vice-versa (post #270):

1970-1979: Arrests double, while past-month usage reaches a peak.
1979-1991: Arrests decline by 25%, past-month usage declines to a multi-year low.
1991-2004: Arrests up over 150%, past-month usage up 40%!

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