WAR ON DRUGS

THIS SEMINAR WILL DISCUSS

THE 30 YEAR WAR ON DRUGS IN THE U.S.

WE WILL EXPLORE PAST AN CURRENT LEGISLATION INTENDED TO STEM THE FLOW OF ILLEGAL DRUGS

WE WILL ADDRESS ISSUES INVOLVING MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES,THREE STRIKE LAWS, AND A RISING PRISON POPULATION OF DRUG OFFENDERS.

JUST THE FACTS

DID YOU KNOW?

Estimates of the total overall costs of substance abuse in the United States—including health- and crime-related costs as well as losses in productivity—exceed half a trillion dollars annually. This includes approximately $181 billion for illicit drugs, $168 billion for tobacco, and $185 billion for alcohol. Deleterious public health..implications include family disintegration, loss of employment, failure in school, domestic violence, child abuse, and other crimes(NIDA)

AND

HIV/AIDS: Approximately one-third of AIDS cases reported in 2000 (11,635) and most cases of hepatitis C (approximately 25,000 in 2001) in the United States are associated with injection drug use.

Approximately half of pediatric AIDS cases (4,700 reported through 2002) result from injection drug use or sex with injection drug users by the child's mother.

AND AS WE ALREADY SAID!

Among 17 nations surveyed by the World Health Organization, the United States ranks first in lifetime use of three substances—cocaine, cannabis, and tobacco—and is in sixth place for alcohol use. The five highest rates of use in each drug category appear in red. Rates are reported as percentages.

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

THE EARLIEST WAR AGAINST DRUGS WAS IN RESPONSE TO OPIUM, AN ANALGESIC PAIN RELIEVER AND CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM DEPRESSANT.

DOCTORS IN THE 187O’S

COMMONLY PRESCRIBED MORPHINE FOR ANY COMPLAINT FROM A TOOTHACHE TO CONSUMPTION.

UNTIL THIS TIME THE CONCEPT OF ADDICTION WAS NOT WIDELY KNOWN OR UNDERSTOOD.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

AT A TIME WHEN THE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE WAS QUITE PRIMITIVE, OPIUM BECAME THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT IN INNUMERABLE REMEDIES DISPENSED IN

EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES.

IN 19TH CENTURY U.S.

THE TYPICAL AMERICAN OPIATE ADDICT WAS A MIDDLE AGED WHITE WOMAN OF THE MIDDLE OR UPPER CLASS.

THIS ADDICT DID NOT SMOKE OPIUM BUT RATHER INGESTED IT AS A MEDICINE.

AS OPPOSED TO TODAY

WHILE OPIUM USE MAY HAVE BEEN FROWNED UPON BY SOME AS IMMORAL

EMPLOYEES WERE NOT FIRED FOR ADDICTION.

CHILDREN WERE NOT TAKEN FROM THEIR HOMES AND LODGED IN FOSTER HOMES OR INSTITUTIONS, BECAUSE ONE OR BOTH PARENTS WERE ADDICTED.

THE 19TH CENTURY AVOIDED ONE OF THE MOST DISASTEROUS EFFECTS OF CURRENT NARCOTIC LAWS AND ATTITUDES-THE RISE OF A DEVIANT ADDICT SUBCULTURE, CUT OFF FROM RESPECTABLE SOCIETY AND WITHOUT A ROAD BACK.

THE HARRISON ACT(1914)

PERSONS IN THE BUSINESS OF DEALING IN DRUGS(INCLUDES OPIUM DERIVATIVES AND COCAINE) WERE REQUIRED TO REGISTER YEARLY AND TO PAY A SPECIAL ANNUAL TAX OF $1.

THE STATUTE MADE IT ILLEGAL TO SELL OR GIVE AWAY OPIUM OR ITS DERIVATIVES WITHOUT A WRITTEN ORDER ON A FORM ISSUED THE COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE.

DEALING WITH DRUG ABUSE?

CONCERN OVER FEDERALISM-CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS ON THE POLICE POWERS OF THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

LED CONGRESS TO USE THE TAXING AUTHORITY RATHER THAN THE POLICE AUTHORITY OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO RESPOND TO THE PROBLEM OF DRUG CONTROL

COCAINE IN THE U.S.

FROM THE 1930’S TO THE 1960’S COCAINE THERE WAS LIMITED DEMAND FOR COCAINE, AND ACCORDINGLY LIMITED SUPPLY.

COCAINE USE WAS ASSOCIATED WITH DEVIANTS.

AND THEN DURING THE LATE

1960’S AND EARLY 1970’S ATTITUDES TOWARDS DRUG USE BECAME MORE RELAXED

MANY PEOPLE WERE TAUGHT TO PERCEIVE COCAINE AS CHIC,EXCLUSIVE, DARING, AND NON-ADDICTING.

SOCIETAL ATTITUDES??

COCAINE BECAME ASSOCIATED WITH A PRIVILEGED ELITE.

THE NEW DEMAND WAS SUFFICIENT TO GENERATE NEW SOURCES,REFINING, AND MARKETING NETWORKS.

MARIJUANA THE BIGGEST INFLUENCE

ON MARIJUANA LEGISLATION HAS BEEN RACISM.

BY 1930 SIXTEEN STATES WITH RELATIVELY LARGE MEXICAN POPULATIONS HAD ENACTED ANTI-MARIJUANA LEGISLATION.

DESPITE BEING OUTLAWED, MARIJUANA WAS NEVER AN IMPORTANT ISSUE IN THE UNITED STATES UNTIL THE 1960S

A TURBULENT TIME WITH RAPID CHANGE!!

SO IN 1970

THE COMPREHENSIVE DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION AND CONTROL ACT IS PASSED BY CONGRESS, BASED ON FEDERAL AUTHORITY OVER INTERSTATE COMMERCE.

FIRST FEDERAL LEGISLATION SINCE THE HARRISON ACT!!

THE ACT SET THE STAGE FOR AN INNOVATION IN THE FEDERAL DRUG LAW ENFORCEMENT TECHNIQUES.

THE INNOVATION WAS THE ASSIGNMENT OF LARGE NUMBERS OF FEDERAL NARCOTICS AGENTS TO WORK IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES.

AND IN THE 1980’S

THE COMPREHENSIVE CRIME CONTROL ACT OF 1984 SUPPLEMENTED THE 1970 DRUG STATUTE BY AUTHORIZING THE DOUBLING OF A SENTENCE FOR DRUG OFFENDERS WITH PRIOR DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN FELONY DRUG CONVICTIONS.

THE ANTI-DRUG ABUSE OF 1986 IMPOSES MANDATORY PRISON SENTENCES FOR CERTAIN DRUG OFFENSES.

AND THE RESULTS??

In his Senate floor speech introducing the legislation, Senator Jim Webb tackles another thorny political issue, U.S. drug policy, "The elephant in the bedroom in many discussions on the criminal justice system is the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200%." It has been 37 years since President Nixon first declared a "War on Drugs" and Senator Webb is not it's only critic. The U.S. now spends close to $40 billion a year at home and abroad trying to stop the flow and use of drugs. At home, youth drug use has declined, but hard drugs are cheaper than ever. Abroad, drug profits fund terrorists, drug lords and other dangerous non-state actors. (pbs)

TIRED OF WAGING WAR?

In a 2001 Pew Center poll, 74% of Americans said they thought the U.S. was losing the drug war and could never stop drug use. What is less clear is where to go next. While polls indicate little desire among Americans for the legalization of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin, a growing minority support legalizing and regulating marijuana.

OTHER STRATEGIES HAVE TO BE LOOKED AT!

OTHER POINTS OF VIEW SHOULD BE EXAMINED (BUT BE CAREFUL)

Since December 31, 1995, the U.S. prison population has grown an average of 43,266 inmates per year. About 25 per cent are sentenced for drug law violations.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics

  DRUG SENSE.ORG

HOWEVER!!

The U.S. prison population grew at the slowest rate (0.8%) since 2000, reaching 1,610,446 sentenced prisoners at year end 2008.

Growth of the prison population since 2000 (1.8% per year on average) was less than a third of the average annual rate during the 1990s (6.5% per year on average). (DOJ)

TREATMENT IS A NECESSITY

Scientific research since the mid-1970s shows that drug abuse treatment can help many drug abusing offenders change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors towards drug abuse…and successfully remove themselves from a life of substance abuse and crime. It is true that legal pressure might be needed to get a person into treatment and help them stay there. Once in a treatment program, however, even those who are not motivated to change at first can eventually become engaged in a continuing treatment process.(NIDA)

THE ALTERNATIVE IS THAT

Untreated substance abuse adds significant costs to communities, including violent and property crimes, prison expenses, court and criminal costs, emergency room visits, child abuse and neglect, lost child support, foster care and welfare costs, reduced productivity, unemployment, and victimization. The cost to society of drug abuse in 2002 was estimated at $181 billion, $107 billion of which was associated with drug-related crime.(nida)

DRUG COURTS ARE AN AVENUE TO ADDRESS THIS

In 1989, the Dade County Circuit Court developed an intensive, community-based, treatment, rehabilitation, and supervision program for felony drug defendants to address rapidly increasing recidivism rates. Less than twenty years later, there are more than 2,140 drug courts in operation with another 284 being planned or developed.

WHAT THEY DO!

Drug court diverts non-violent, substance abusing offenders from prison and jail into treatment. A decade of research indicates that drug court reduces crime by lowering re-arrest and conviction rates, improv ing substance abuse treatment outcomes, and reuniting families, and also produces measurable cost benefits.

Courts are operating or being planned in 50 States, the District of Columbia, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, two Federal Districts, and more than 70 tribal locations(Office of National Drug Control Policy)

A FEW CLOSING THOUGHTS

THE COST OF DRUG ABUSE IS DEVASTATING TO THIS COUNTRY

ANY APPROACH WITHOUT A STRONG TREATMENT PLAN IS LIKELY TO FAIL. WE JUST CANT LOCK EVERYONE UP!

HOW MANY DRUG TREATMENT CENTERS ARE PRO-LEGALIZATION??

HAS LEGALIZED GAMBLING REDUCED THIS VICE?