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."

I said the federal government was spending $12 billion per year on the WOD.
ROFL!
The federal government is spending more than $12 billion, but it really doesn't matter if it's $12 billion or $120 billion. It is money wasted on a lost cause.

We need to build more prisons and get that number up to at least 3 million.
Why not 5 million, or even better, 50 million?
The prison industry is the biggest growth industry in America. We could even take prisoners from around the world. Just think of the benefits to the Correctional Officers Association!

And heroin use has remained flat at around .09% of the population.
But that's from the ONDCP that you've already admitted uses bogus numbers. These numbers are just too low. We need to throw more money into the drug war to get those numbers higher...for the correctional officers!

And cocaine use initially dropped 65% and has remained flat for the last 15 years at around .7% of the population.
Again, you use those numbers that you have admitted are bogus. Again, we need to throw more money into the drug war to get those numbers higher...for the politicians!

They also get the $30 if they admit to no drug use, don't they? Well, then, what's the problem?
No problem at all if you understand statistics. Of course if you understand statistics, you already know that the results of from this method are bogus.
.

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

A scientific study is one thing. This is a mathematical model containing a "truth-telling" component using accurate-looking constants like .73. Not .7. But .73.

It like doing your federal income taxes -- you don't enter $400. for "donations". You enter $474. Looks better.

I use the NSDUH (National Survey on Drug Use and Health) numbers. So does everybody.

Not the ONDCP:

"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." ________________________________________

Nor Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey:

"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."

paulsen: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!

You are calling our Drug Warriors liars!

You know my 1st way would never be implemented under any circumstances, and should not be...but...no offense, legalization is realistic.

We would have to deal with druggies as we do now with drunks. Some druggies function well just as some drunks function well right now. The rest have to go to a drying facility...and if that fails, they go onto the streets. They used to go to hospitals and sanatoriums until the libs declared that holding drunks in those kinds of places was somehow a violation of their rights. So they live on the streets.

I don't think that there would be so many people doing drugs after legalization as many think. I don't know one person who would go out and do a line of cocaine if it suddenly became legal, and I bet most people here don't know anyone who would either.

You're going all the way back to 1970. Why? What does that have to do with my statement about recent marijuana use?

For the third, and last, time. In response to your post #264, I stated in my post #266 that the recent rise in marijuana use was due to "lax enforcement (marijuana arrests lowest priority), the move towards decriminalization, and the recent medical marijuana laws. All of these changes are lowering the perceived risk of marijuana ...".

You took my statement and tried to counter it by choosing one area, marijuana arrests, and saying there was no correlation.

(God, this is turning into a tpaine post.)

I defined what I meant by "recent" -- the last ten years (1996 - 2006). You took that literally. Whatever. In 1996, the arrest rate was 6% of users (641/10M). In 2005, the arrest rate dropped to 5% (771/14M).

Now, you want to make a different point, be my guest. You want to go back to 1970, be my guest. I'll be happy to discuss that.

But this? This I'm done with.

"The federal government is spending more than $12 billion, but it really doesn't matter if it's $12 billion or $120 billion."

Whoa there hotshot. Not so fast.

What ARE we spending and where? I mean, go ahead and add $8 billion or so for all the federal drug inmates if that floats your boat. There you go. A nice, big, fat, round $20 billion. In a $3 trillion budget.

What do you think the federal government is spending? Where do you get your numbers? Let's see that before we go ranting on about $120 billion, shall we? You'd think this is DU, for crying out loud.

"Just think of the benefits to the Correctional Officers Association!"

Screw 'em. I'm in favor of scrapping our prisons, state and federal, and paying Mexico to house them. Offer the Mexican government $10-20 thousand per prisoner per year and we'd both make money.

Visitation? Get a passport and buy a bus ticket to Nuevo Laredo.

"But that's from the ONDCP that you've already admitted uses bogus numbers."

No. These are NSDUH numbers.

You took my statement and tried to counter it by choosing one area, marijuana arrests, and saying there was no correlation.

1. We were discussing mj arrests and use. 2. I showed that there was indeed a positive correlation: more arrests positively correlates with more use.

Now, let's use your numbers from 1996-2004: there is still a positive correlation between more arrests and more mj use.

"They used to go to hospitals and sanatoriums until the libs declared that holding drunks in those kinds of places was somehow a violation of their rights. So they live on the streets."

No, they'd live on the streets until the bleeding-heart liberals declared it was a violation of their rights and moved them to taxpayer-funded (ie., you and me) hospitals and sanatoriums. And then declare that they should get their drugs for free so they won't steal to fund their habit.

"I don't know one person who would go out and do a line of cocaine if it suddenly became legal, and I bet most people here don't know anyone who would either."

There are many people in Hollywood who didn't know anybody who voted for Reagan.

"Now, let's use your numbers from 1996-2004: there is still a positive correlation between more arrests and more mj use."

More arrests? Yes. A higher percentage? No.

With a public policy of marijuana arrests as the lowest priority (and the percentage of arrests did drop), there is a perception of a lower perceived risk. The number of users increased. The number of arrests increased, yes, but did not keep pace.

let's use your numbers from 1996-2004: there is still a positive correlation between more arrests and more mj use.

More arrests? Yes. A higher percentage? No.

Well, here's a correlation between more arrests, more demand, AND an increase in the percentage of arrests: from 1991-2004, arrests for mj were up over 150%, past-month demand was up 40%.* (that's also a failure to control demand during ONDCP's watch)

And dont forget this correlation from 1979-1991: Arrests declined by 25%, past-month usage declined to a multi-year low*.

Remember the Nixon Drug War? From 1970-1979, demand for mj and arrests for mj show a positive correlation.

*See post #270 on this thread for source.

Rio Linda summary-- There is at least as good a statistical case for the proposition that more arrests lead to more mj demand, as there is for the proposition that more arrests lead to less mj demand. I gave several time periods where the former relationship holds.

I defended the claims that I made and posted links.

I made no claims for the period 1991-2004 (what's the significance?), the period 1979-1991 (again, what's the significance?), or the period 1970-1979 (again, what's the significance?).

You pull these out for no reason -- other than you selectively picked certain times where my statement wouldn't appply.

If I made the statement, "The stock market has gone down in the last five years, I'd fully expect you to post, "Uh, no, you're wrong. It went up three years ago on June 18, last November from the 14th to the 15th, and just last month it rose again! So you're wrong."

I made no claims for the period 1991-2004 (what's the significance?), the period 1979-1991 (again, what's the significance?), or the period 1970-1979 (again, what's the significance?).

Two of those show a positive correlation, for periods ranging from 9 to 13 years, between increased arrests and increased demand for mj. The other shows a positive correlation between decreased arrests and decreased demand from 1979-1991. Given those correlations, one can't very well make a case for saying increased enforcement efforts caused a reduction in demand.

You pull these out for no reason -- other than you selectively picked certain times where my statement wouldn't appply.

You meant to show causality with your figures, correct? If so, then the examples I gave tend to refute your claim.

For heroin use and cocaine use, the ONDCP calculates it from prisoner data and a mathematical formula.

"Office of National Drug Control Policy, Draft — What America's Users Spend on Illegal Drugs, 1988-1998, pp. 9-11. 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."

RTI International is an independent, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) corporation, commissioned by the government to actually do the survey. Nothing sinister there. I mean, if you have a source with more accurate numbers, I'd really like to see it.

If not, well, you know what to do.

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