The War on Drugs

California is set to vote on a ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. It is an interesting initiative, given that possession of marijuana would still be illegal under federal law, and federal law trumps state law pursuant to the United States Constitution’s “Supremacy” clause. Moreover, Attorney General Eric Holder just announced the Justice Department’s intention to enforce federal drug laws irrespective of the results of the California initiative.

Exactly how the justice department will pursue its enforcement policy without the aid of local law enforcement – the DEA only has so much manpower and can’t afford to concentrate on individuals possessing small amounts of marijuana for personal use – is unclear. But I suppose the Attorney General has to affirm federal law, so there you go. Homage paid.

I’ve long favored decriminalizing drug use as part of a “harm reduction” policy strategy. If there is a policy that has failed more miserably than our “war on drugs,” I’ve yet to see it. It is inconceivable to me that we have spent hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions, of dollars on this so called war, ruined hundreds of thousands of lives, created a worldwide black market and all the attendant crime that accompanies black markets, in order to accomplish. . . absolutely nothing! It is even more inconceivable that most “responsible” government officials want to continue the war despite strong empirical evidence that there is a better way forward.

And to think that President Obama promised, repeatedly, that “we will not ignore the facts – we will be guided by them.”

Absolutely inconceivable!

Okay. You do not think that word means what I think it means. I get it. Still . . .

I am not advocating drug use. It bothers me that I have to say that. Defenders of the current policy cannot be so stupid as to truly believe the proponents of decriminalization want drug use to increase. Surely they know the debate concerns the most effective policy for decreasing drug use and the problems associated with it. On the other hand, if I had to defend the war on drugs based on its effectivness, I'd probably resort to bad faith arguments just as quickly. So I'll grudgingly repeat myself. I am not advocating drug use.

To the contrary, I think we should treat drug use and users the same way we treated tobacco use and users – we should stigmatize drug use and offer help for those wanting to quit – financed by taxes on the legal sale of the products. In case you haven’t noticed, smoking is down to around 10% of the adult population, even though cigarettes remain legal in every state.

That’s down from 50% in just a few decades. Shouldn’t we at least consider trying a similar strategy regarding drugs?

This is not an original quote, but it sums up the situation regarding the war on drugs perfectly. “The war on drugs is a war against human folly, and all such wars are lost before they even begin.”

Joe H.