"The War on Drugs has failed"

Deciphering the many layers of the 'War on Drugs' is complex, but this Nytimes video does an excellent job. Insatiable US demand for illegal drugs bankrolls violent Mexican drug cartels. Those cartels, or drug-trading organization (DTOs), then use that money to buy US weapons, buy off police and government officials, and support their foot soldiers, informants, and leaders on both sides of the border -- as well as many countries in Latin America and even parts of Africa. At the same time, the US government gives financial aid and legal training to the Mexican military, an institution that has been criticized of Human Rights violations during the War on Drugs. Still more, the US prison system and law enforcement benefit from the arrangement, as strict enforcement of anti-drug laws in the US continues to increase our prison population, drawing ever more money from the taxpayer's tab.  

Now on to the subject of this post, that "The War on Drugs has failed." This quote echoes the findings of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. The panel -- made up of, among others, "former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the former leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, and the entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson" -- recently released a report in June 2011. The report contends that current policies, which identify illegal drug use and abuse primarily as a crime issue, are not working. In fact, between the years of 1998 and 2008, during which time the U.S. significantly increased funding for 'The War on Drugs,' estimates of total annual drug consumption rose dramatically.    

These statistics make a strong case for a policy change. Increasingly, a school of thought recommends a new framework for dealing with drug problems, one that views drug use/abuse as a public health issue rather than a criminal one. Such a policy calls for the decriminalization, even legalization, of drugs, in order to shift the focus away from criminal punishment of users. Only then can our country begin to address the issue through a public health lens, using preventative medicine and regulation of drugs to ensure the safety of users and society as a whole. Fiscally, keeping nonviolent drug users of out of jail (the U.S. bureau of prisons 2011 budget is $6.8 billion and nearly 50% of all U.S. incarcerations are drug related) would probably more than fund this type of policy shift. And that doesn't even factor in the money that could be saved by the resultant scaling down of U.S. law enforcement.

Statistics on the 'War on Drugs' in Mexico:  

• 34,612 have died in Mexico since 2007, at least 12,000 were innocent civilians 
• At least 15,000 people were killed in 2010 in Mexico, the bloodiest year to-date and a 60% increase from 2009
• 80 journalists have been killed for publishing narco-related news. Mexico is now widely regarded as the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism
• As of 2010, Mexican drug cartels are increasingly targeting government officials and civilians
• 14 mayors and 11 journalists were killed in 2010

Statistics on the War on Drugs in the US:

• 90% of all guns seized in Mexico have been linked to American gun shops
• 50% of all criminal offenses are drug-related
• US prison population quadrupled from 1980-2003
• U.S. now has one fourth of global prison population
• US government spent over $15 billion on the War on Drugs in 2010
• 1 American is arrested for violating cannabis laws every 30 seconds

This Esquire article is especially interesting. A former commander in Maryland's DEA, Neill Franklin argues for legalization and regulation of drugs as a way of decreasing drug-related violence and overdoses: "You have to take the money out of it. Many people talk about legalization and decriminalize — it's still illegal, but you're just not sending as many people to jail, especially for the nonviolent offenses. However, the money is still being made in the illegal sales, so you still have the drug wars. It's prohibition that's killing our people. That's why people are dying."

"So," I ask, "you want to legalize everything?"

"Yes. But I like to put it like this: I want regulation of everything. Because right now, I think they're confusing prohibition with regulation. What I'm talking about is applying standards — quality control, just like alcohol. We should have learned our lesson during alcohol prohibitions — we repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and applied standards of sale and manufacture, so it has to be a certain quality and you can't sell it to just anybody, and you still go to jail if you sell it to the wrong people. So, among other things, you'll also reduce overdoses — the majority of the overdoses we have is people who don't know what they're getting or buying because the purity level fluctuates. In addition, people are afraid to get help because they don't want to go jail, so they let their friends die."

The article also argues that, when calculating drug-related homicides and overdoses in the US, as many as 15,000 American deaths per year are drug related. It is clear, then, that drugs are taking lives on both sides of the border. Although Mexican and American government officials deny it: The War on Drugs -- on inanimate objects -- is, without a doubt, failing.