Posted on 10/05/2007 7:17:45 AM PDT by cryptical
I've looked forward to interviewing the U.S. drug czar for years, and Tuesday afternoon I finally got the chance when current czar John Walters visited with the U-T editorial board. I'm happy to note that he took my libertarian griping seriously; many drug warriors seem amazed that anyone could suggest that the drug war is futile, costly, counterproductive and hypocritical, and often amounts to an assault on civil liberties.
I said to Walters that by any possible statistical reckoning of deaths, car wrecks, suicides, drownings, crimes of violence, etc., alcohol is vastly more destructive in the U.S. than all illegal drugs combined. I asked if he disputed this.
He didn't answer me directly even after I reposed the question. Basically, he said that while alcohol may be a big and destructive problem, the fact that alcohol is legal doesn't mean you don't try to reduce the use of other, illegal drugs. He said "the danger of marijuana today" is far greater than in the old days, thanks to its potency.
Did he in any way acknowledge the oddity of having a war on drugs that don't kill all that many people while tolerating drugs (alcohol, tobacco) which fill up graveyards 24-7?
Nope.
I said that many libertarians object to the drug war not just on the grounds that government shouldn't tell people what they can put in their bodies but on the grounds that the execution of the drug war routinely involves assaults on civil liberties. I cited past drug czars' eager touting of confiscation policies, in which a family could lose its only car without even a court hearing if one member were caught driving the car while in possession of pot. Did he see the drug war as diminishing civil liberties?
Walters offered a broad defense of asset-forfeiture tactics as being "designed to reduce the demand in a tangible way. ... I'm not going to say" that "laws sometimes aren't misapplied," but claims that civil liberties are a routine victim of the drug war are "great misrepresentations" and a "great mischaracterization."
He said the "magnitude of the injustice" suffered in some cases was exaggerated.
I wanted to get to other questions before our time ran out, so I didn't ask him the obvious follow-up about the fact that no one is actually ever charged with a crime in many asset forfeiture cases, and that there is plenty of evidence that giving police agencies a motive to seize property (they can sell it later and add to their budgets) is a horrible idea.
Then I got into Milton Friedman's critique of the drug war, noting the evidence that the drug war -- by making popular intoxicants illegal and only available via a highly lucrative black market -- was responsible for lots of crimes beyond buying and selling, and that it had led to police corruption, among many other unintended consequences. I asked what he would do to combat drugs if could start over from scratch.
He said "the problem is not that we make drugs a crime; it is that drugs are catalysts to crime." And he said what "the facts really say" is that Milton Friendman's criticisms of the drug war were "untrue -- demonstrably untrue."
Here's what Friedman had to say in Newsweek in 1972 as the drug war was first gearing up:
Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?
But, you may say, must we accept defeat? Why not simply end the drug traffic? That is where experience under Prohibition is most relevant. We cannot end the drug traffic. We may be able to cut off opium from Turkey but there are innumerable other places where the opium poppy grows. With French cooperation, we may be able to make Marseilles an unhealthy place to manufacture heroin but there are innumerable other places where the simple manufacturing operations involved can be carried out. So long as large sums of money are involved -- and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal -- it is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others in our image.
Still looks "literally hopeless" to me. Walters offered stats showing declining use of certain illegal drugs, but so have past drug czars -- and guess what? New drug crazes emerged like clockwork (meth, oxycontin, etc.). Has the basic human interest in altered consciousness ever waned? Of course not.
Here's what Friedman wrote in 1992 as a follow-up to his 1972 Newsweek column:
Very few words in that column would have to be changed for it to be publishable today. The problem then was primarily heroin and the chief source of the heroin was Marseilles. Today, the problem is cocaine from Latin America. Aside from that, nothing would have to be changed.
Here it is almost twenty years later. What were then predictions are now observable results. As I predicted in that column, on the basis primarily of our experience with Prohibition, drug prohibition has not reduced the number of addicts appreciably if at all and has promoted crime and corruption.
Here's what Friedman wrote in 1991 about the vast toll the drug war took on the poor, especially minorities:
We can stop destroying the possibility of a decent family life among the underprivileged in this country. I do not agree with many people who would agree with me on that point about the role that government ought to play in the treatment of addiction. I do not agree either with those who say that the tragedy of the slums is really a social problem, that the underprivileged do not have enough jobs and therefore government has to provide them with jobs. I want to tell those people that government performance is no better in creating jobs and solving other social problems than it is in drug prohibition.
It is 2007, and nearly 30 percent of young African-American males in many cities are in jail, on probation or on parole, and the drug war is the main reason. It is 2007, and it is still common to hear black youths and young adults describe an urban lifestyle so barren that pro sports and drug dealing are the only way out. Is Milton Friedman "demonstrably untrue" in warning of the drug war's collateral damage in ghettos? Of course not.
Here's what Friedman wrote in 1988 about a huge problem with the drug war that's rarely mentioned:
Legalizing drugs would reduce enormously the number of victims of drug use who are not addicts: people who are mugged, people who are corrupted, the reduction of law and order because of the corruption of law enforcement, and the allocation of a very large fraction of law enforcement resources to this one particular activity.
Is he wrong again? Hardly. Especially after 9/11, our eagerness to spend billions a week to wage an unwinnable war on drugs is simultaneously wasteful, irrational and dangerous.
Walters didn't say what he would do to reduce destructive drug use if he could start from scratch. He seems to believe in the status quo.
Why? Because in fighting the drug war, ''There are clear signs of progress.''
No, that wasn't just the sort of thing Walters said Tuesday. That was President George H.W. Bush talking in 1990 on the first anniversary of his appointment of the first drug czar, Bill Bennett. Similar claims came out of the Clinton administration in 1997 after stepped-up cooperation with Mexico. Now we're hearing the same from this Bush administration.
This isn't even Orwellian; it's too simple-minded. We are making progress in the drug war, the government tells us, now and always.
Shouldn't perpetual progress at some point add up to something substantial and significant? Shouldn't perpetual progress mean at some point, a la the "defense dividend" after the end of the Cold War, that we can spend less on the drug war?
Why, of course not. Such questions aren't helpful. What's important, after all, is that we are making progress in the drug war. Just look at our charts and graphs.
The mind reels. The only thing "demonstrably untrue" about Milton Friedman's drug-war critique is the idea that it has been discredited.
However you had discrete information that would never be available to government workers. Further you were flexible, another thing not known to government workers. Also you were committed, another thing that is at odds with bureaucrats. You took risks. Further, I am sure there was a feed back loop, such that if that didn’t work, immediately, you would try something else.
So what we have is a flexible, precise, personal, low cost and effective solution. Typical of private actors and not typical of government.
Yet, the delusion remain entrenched that high cost slow bureaucracies is the way to go.
you replied to the wrong guy. Your fear of freedom has clouded not only your judgment but your attention to detail as well.
i reponded to your untrue statement that property seized can’t be resold without a trial.
You know, the same government statistics that said butter bad, margarine good....then margarine bad, butter good. The same government that scientifically changed the food pyramid form animal fats and proteins to low fat carbohydrates that has now resulted with the near nigh same rates of heart attacks, strokes and the added bonus of huge amounts of fatties and diabetes.
You know, that government.
I hope not. You're describing individualism, not conservatism.
All of them? Or just the ones who are going to kill someone?
None. You're missing the point. The ATF is a federal licensing agency involved in legal, regulated products. You prefer them over the DEA since, to you, they represent less federal intrusion.
I was merely reminding you of their intrusiveness.
Their regulatory operations with respect to alcohol and tobacco represent less government intrusion than the DEA and other government tools used in the war on drugs. Not just less, but a LOT less.
I absolutely prefer that scenario.
Yessss. As we would if we legalized gambling, or prostitution, or porn, or the sale of human organs, or a hundred other activities. You're not suggesting that we would eliminate organized crime itself, are you? Because organized crime didn't go away when we legalized alcohol.
So I guess I don't see your point. I mean "elimiating the culture of crime and corruption that currently surrounds (fill in the blank)" sounds noble and all, but I don't see where it actually solves anything.
No, they moved into narcotics! Imagine that.
I never said they did. But laws against drugs assist parents in their efforts to keep their kids off drugs.
"You have not answered why numbers on social behavior are knowable."
You can compensate for those factors in a survey.
For example, you're telling me for a fact that kids lie. Fine. What percentage lie, Mr. I've-got-the-facts? Surely you know the answer! I mean, you wouldn't make that statement without knowing what you're talking about, would you?
Now, armed with this precise information from you, I can apply it to the survey.
Please explain to me how a child on drugs is assisted by words on paper, bound in leather and shelved on oak? How do these magic words directly work with this family? Do they travel through the air? Are there ceremonies? If they work, should we write more words on the magic paper?
No, seven out of every 100 Americans are drug users (defined as using drugs at least once per month). 6% are potheads. .8% do coke. The remaining drugs are small percentages.
"Where did you get this stat?"
http://www.briancbennett.com/
Take your pick.
Since fatalities by sober drivers outnumber impaired drivers by about 2 to 1, don't you think it would be better to focus attention on the greater causes of fatalities instead of the lesser?
And if we could totally prevent all vehicular fatalities involving impaired drivers, then 100% of all fatal crashes would be sober drivers.
Scary isn't it?
So is seeing someone defend the status quo on the WoD that results in crack babies, drug whores, street crime, addicts who can't get treatment, corruption in law enforcement, courts and political process, and overall erosion of basic rights.
That's what we have now and you defend it.
Amazing.
Yes. Not all and not just kids. That is as precise as we could know.
" What percentage lie,"
I have been over this with you, many times. Bernie Shaw to "Michael Dukakis, you don't get it".
Well then, nothing wrong with starting small and working our way up, right? I mean, we wouldn't want to legalize drugs, have a whole bunch of people become dependent on the federal government, then pull the rug out?
I say we tell the drug users up front that there won't be any federal assistance It's only fair.
No federal help for you!
Actually, there is no reasonable argument for making pot legal. It really solves nothing. The gangs remain. The DEA stays in place.
Of all the benefits of marijuana legalization, 90% of them could be achieved by decriminalization.
The government made it possible for you to beat on this guy without being arrested or sued. If it was a legal product, you wouldn't have been able to get away with it.
If my taxes are paying for their medical care when they fall off their My Little Pony, then you bet. I'm just trying to minimize my costs. Same holds true for the adult bikers riding their My Big Pony.
Now, if they have hospitalization insurance, they can ride nude for all I care. But if a biker with no helmet shows up at a hospital, injured, with no insurance, he'd better have cash or the doors are locked.
If I were King.
You are making progress’
If we're talking about the federal government, then property seized can’t be kept or resold without a trial. Sorry, but that happens to be a true statement.
Maybe you're referring to a state case. Maybe you're referring to a federal case prior to 2000. I don't know. But, by all means, keep it a secret for another 50 posts.
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