[A note from Wayne: Throughout this report, I've had help from Sam Harris' incredible book The End of Faith (a must-read) and recent items from the New York Times in order to help make sense of our present situation.]
Drug policy in America is so irrational that it almost defies description.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration staked out its position on the long-standing controversy over the medical use of marijuana - and infuriated a lot of people. The F.D.A. endorsed a multi-agency study that found that "no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use." This came as an insult to all who know that cannabis is an appropriate treatment for ailments from nausea and vomiting to muscle spasticity and intractable pain, particularly from AIDS wasting.
The penalty of our irrationality on this subject is so egregious that it bears closer examination.
The White house and its personal goon squad the D.E.A. have declared war on sick people and the doctors and pharmacists who treat them. Not only that, but once ensnared in the criminal justice system, you stand a good chance of being branded for life. There are developments on both sides of the issue.
The bad news is made all the more clear by author Sam Harris:
The racism in the enforcement of drug laws is no secret. Our prisons are filled with people of color who make up a minority of the population. What, are no White People doing illegal drugs?
To put this into simple terms, half of the American courts' operating hours are spent on nonviolent drug cases. Also, half of the American police force man hours are consumed in nonviolent drug enforcement. Ask any cop and they'll tell you they are spinning in an absurd cycle of chasing druggies while real, violent criminals - murderers, rapists and child molesters - are regularly paroled to make room for nonviolent drug offenders.
I have been tracking this since the 1960s when marijuana laws were clearly hypocritical compared the actual lethal (and legal) drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The common misperception still exists that illegal drugs kill hundreds of thousands of people, that alcohol kills less than drugs, and that cigarettes kills even fewer. The truth is just the opposite.
The source of our draconian drug policy stems from the religious right's conviction that anything that makes you feel better must be a sin. Their lack of compassion - and empirical evidence - not withstanding, they cling to beliefs that just do not stand up to rational scrutiny. Not only do they believe in their heart of hearts that having help to feel better is a sin, they are also incredibly well organized and have managed to control the laws of the land to successfully create a second - and even a third - generation of disenfranchised Americans. Those caught up in the system have been locked up and, as a result, locked out of the mainstream.
None of this happened by accident. The federal government has known the truth about drug addiction and alcoholism since the 1940s. At two federal prisons around the country (most notably my alma mater, Lexington FCI), research was conducted to learn all that could be gleaned about the whys and hows of addiction.
The CIA had a hand in this work. They were looking for the James Bond "truth serum" that they could use on the Russian spies. That didn't work out so well. They fried men's brains with LSD for months at a time, finally abandoning these experiments along with the Tuskegee syphilis experiments on African Americans. Some good came out of these studies, though, like the methadone maintenance programs, but the government turned their back on the results of their own research.
Instead of creating a humanitarian and successful approach to the social problem of addiction, they gave into the perfect political logic that they would protect us from something that they themselves created. The Cold War was saving us from the Commies and the Drug War was saving us from the Druggies. They ignored the recommendations of their own scientists and made drug policy a police/court/prison issue, not a medical/social issue. They, in fact, created the drug dilemma in this country.
If there were justice, those decision makers would all be in The Hague charged with crimes against humanity. We look to our government to guide us as a good parent might. At the rate their parenting skills are failing, they could be charged with child abuse.
The cost in dollars has been outrageous. How will this stack up when the next attack hits?
Read Sam Harris:
These developments symbolize a step forward in terms of fairness for law-abiding ex-offenders, who are often barred from entire occupations because of draconian drug laws and minor crimes committed in the distant past. It should be clear to all of us by now that confining those people to the ranks of the unemployed makes it more likely that they will commit new crimes, return to prison and become a permanent burden to society.
And finally for this Report, another little_discussed aspect of the drug wars: Voting and the ex-offender.
Drug policy in America is so irrational that it almost defies description.
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration staked out its position on the long-standing controversy over the medical use of marijuana - and infuriated a lot of people. The F.D.A. endorsed a multi-agency study that found that "no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use." This came as an insult to all who know that cannabis is an appropriate treatment for ailments from nausea and vomiting to muscle spasticity and intractable pain, particularly from AIDS wasting.
The penalty of our irrationality on this subject is so egregious that it bears closer examination.
The White house and its personal goon squad the D.E.A. have declared war on sick people and the doctors and pharmacists who treat them. Not only that, but once ensnared in the criminal justice system, you stand a good chance of being branded for life. There are developments on both sides of the issue.
The bad news is made all the more clear by author Sam Harris:
"There are over 400,000 American citizens in state, federal and local jails and prisons for nonviolent drug offenses. Another million are on probation or parole. To get a grip on this figure: This is more than all the people locked up in Western Europe for all crimes whatsoever, and Western Europe has a larger population than the United States."Congress slipped in the Osama/sudafed connection in the latest version of the homeland security law, so that means they are not only snooping into our health records, but they are also threatening our doctors with prosecution for treating us.
The racism in the enforcement of drug laws is no secret. Our prisons are filled with people of color who make up a minority of the population. What, are no White People doing illegal drugs?
To put this into simple terms, half of the American courts' operating hours are spent on nonviolent drug cases. Also, half of the American police force man hours are consumed in nonviolent drug enforcement. Ask any cop and they'll tell you they are spinning in an absurd cycle of chasing druggies while real, violent criminals - murderers, rapists and child molesters - are regularly paroled to make room for nonviolent drug offenders.
I have been tracking this since the 1960s when marijuana laws were clearly hypocritical compared the actual lethal (and legal) drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The common misperception still exists that illegal drugs kill hundreds of thousands of people, that alcohol kills less than drugs, and that cigarettes kills even fewer. The truth is just the opposite.
The source of our draconian drug policy stems from the religious right's conviction that anything that makes you feel better must be a sin. Their lack of compassion - and empirical evidence - not withstanding, they cling to beliefs that just do not stand up to rational scrutiny. Not only do they believe in their heart of hearts that having help to feel better is a sin, they are also incredibly well organized and have managed to control the laws of the land to successfully create a second - and even a third - generation of disenfranchised Americans. Those caught up in the system have been locked up and, as a result, locked out of the mainstream.
None of this happened by accident. The federal government has known the truth about drug addiction and alcoholism since the 1940s. At two federal prisons around the country (most notably my alma mater, Lexington FCI), research was conducted to learn all that could be gleaned about the whys and hows of addiction.
The CIA had a hand in this work. They were looking for the James Bond "truth serum" that they could use on the Russian spies. That didn't work out so well. They fried men's brains with LSD for months at a time, finally abandoning these experiments along with the Tuskegee syphilis experiments on African Americans. Some good came out of these studies, though, like the methadone maintenance programs, but the government turned their back on the results of their own research.
Instead of creating a humanitarian and successful approach to the social problem of addiction, they gave into the perfect political logic that they would protect us from something that they themselves created. The Cold War was saving us from the Commies and the Drug War was saving us from the Druggies. They ignored the recommendations of their own scientists and made drug policy a police/court/prison issue, not a medical/social issue. They, in fact, created the drug dilemma in this country.
If there were justice, those decision makers would all be in The Hague charged with crimes against humanity. We look to our government to guide us as a good parent might. At the rate their parenting skills are failing, they could be charged with child abuse.
The cost in dollars has been outrageous. How will this stack up when the next attack hits?
Read Sam Harris:
"For example, the US government spends, at the federal level alone, nearly $20 billion annually on the drug war. The total cost of our drug laws - when one factors in the expense to state and local governments and the tax revenue lost by our failure to regulate the sale of drugs - could easily be in excess of $100 billion dollars each year. The problem is, that with the prohibition of any desirable commodity comes the conflict of free market forces. The United Nations values the drug trade at $400 billion a year. That's more than the annual budget for the U.S. Department of Defense. The irony is that the cost of our drug policy is the market that they have created has become a steady stream of income for terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Shining Path and others.I have seen some good news in the NY Times, though.
Even if we acknowledge that stopping drug abuse is a justifiable social goal, how does the financial cost of the war on drugs appear in light of the other challenges we face? It would take a one-time expenditure of $2 billion to secure our commercial ports against smuggled nuclear weapons. At present we have allocated a mere $93 million for this purpose. The war on marijuana costs $4 billion annually!"
"Crippled by soaring corrections costs, three cities - Boston, Chicago and San Francisco - are re-examining policies that drive ex-offenders right back to prison by barring them from employment. Locked out of the mainstream, ex-felons mostly drug offenders) can become burdens to their families, their communities and the nation as a whole. These cities have taken groundbreaking steps aimed at de-emphasizing criminal histories for qualified applicants for city jobs, except where people with convictions are specifically barred by statute."Drug courts in California are also taking a step in the right direction. The 60% of offenders now in prisons could be held accountable in community-based correction/treatment options. Cali leads the nation on this, and we should. Our state prison system is a giant corrupt monster running amok.
These developments symbolize a step forward in terms of fairness for law-abiding ex-offenders, who are often barred from entire occupations because of draconian drug laws and minor crimes committed in the distant past. It should be clear to all of us by now that confining those people to the ranks of the unemployed makes it more likely that they will commit new crimes, return to prison and become a permanent burden to society.
And finally for this Report, another little_discussed aspect of the drug wars: Voting and the ex-offender.
"The right to vote should never be curtailed in a way that disenfranchises a whole class of people. This view is gaining traction even in the Deep South, which pioneered the shameful state laws that barred nearly four million ex-felons, parolees and probationers from voting in the last national election. It's heartening to see those laws being modified or repealed across the country. Many men and women who have paid their debts to society remain disenfranchised, even in states that guarantee them the right to vote." [NY Times]I didn't know this myself and did not vote for years after my own incarceration. Fortunately, I coincidentally met a get-out-the-vote worker at a local supermarket who recognized me as a musician and he took the time to explain the law to me. No one ever went over this with me and I had no idea that I could vote again. I re-registered to vote that day and have voted ever since. I would vote every day if they would let me.
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