Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote a special column for The Los Angeles Times that appeared in the Sunday paper. The column outlined his argument for legalizing drugs. Not just marijuana, all drugs. Here are a few excerpts:
I’ve never understood why adults shouldn’t enjoy the same right to use verboten drugs as they have to suck on a Marlboro or knock back a scotch and water.
Prohibition of alcohol fell flat on its face. The prohibition of other drugs rests on an equally wobbly foundation. Not until we choose to frame responsible drug use - not an oxymoron in my dictionary - as a civil liberty will we be able to recognize the abuse of drugs, including alcohol, for what it is: a medical, not a criminal, matter.
…
It’s not a stretch to conclude that our Draconian approach to drug use is the most injurious domestic policy since slavery. Want to cut back on prison overcrowding and save a bundle on the construction of new facilities? Open the doors, let the nonviolent drug offenders go. The huge increases in federal and state prison populations during the 1980s and ’90s (from 139 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 482 per 100,000 in 2003) were mainly for drug convictions. In 1980, 580,900 Americans were arrested on drug charges. By 2003, that figure had ballooned to 1,678,200. We’re making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel safer?
…
In declaring a war on drugs, we’ve declared war on our fellow citizens. War requires “hostiles” - enemies we can demonize, fear and loathe. This unfortunate categorization of millions of our citizens justifies treating them as dope fiends, less than human. That grants political license to ban the exchange or purchase of clean needles or to withhold methadone from heroin addicts motivated to kick the addiction.
…
How would “regulated legalization” work? It would:
- Permit private companies to compete for licenses to cultivate, harvest, manufacture, package and peddle drugs.
- Create a new federal regulatory agency (with no apologies to libertarians or paleo-conservatives).
- Set and enforce standards of sanitation, potency and purity.
- Ban advertising.
- Impose (with congressional approval) taxes, fees and fines to be used for drug-abuse prevention and treatment and to cover the costs of administering the new regulatory agency.
- Police the industry much as alcoholic-beverage-control agencies keep a watch on bars and liquor stores at the state level. Such reforms would in no way excuse drug users who commit crimes: driving while impaired, providing drugs to minors, stealing an iPod, assaulting one’s spouse, abusing one’s child. The message is simple. Get loaded, commit a crime, do the time.…
The demand for illicit drugs is as strong as the nation’s thirst for bootleg booze during Prohibition. It’s a demand that simply will not dry up. Whether to find God, heighten sex, relieve pain, drown one’s sorrows or simply feel good, people throughout the millenniums have turned to mood- and mind-altering substances.
They’re not about to stop, no matter what their government says or does. It’s time to accept drug use as a right of adult Americans, treat drug abuse as a public-health problem and end the madness of an unwinnable war.
I happen to agree with him. If drugs had been legalized many decades ago, we probably wouldn’t have the big problems we have now that are associated with very harmful, highly concentrated, extremely addictive, easily concealed drugs like meth and crack.
But, on the other hand, without the War on Drugs, would we have Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? Probably not, so I don’t think we would be able to laugh uncontrollably at this passage from pages 146-147:
“You’d never believe it,” said my attorney. “In L.A. it’s out of control. First it was drugs, now it’s witchcraft.”
Witchcraft? Shit, you can’t mean it!”
“Read the newspapers,” I said. “Man, you don’t know trouble until you have to face down a bunch of these addicts gone crazy for human sacrifice!”
“Naw!” he said. “That’s science fiction stuff!”
“Not where we operate,” said my attorney. “Hell, in Malibu alone, these goddamn Satan-worshipers kill six or eight people every day.” He paused to sip his drink. “And all they want is the blood,” he continued. “They’ll take people right off the street if they have to.” He nodded. “Hell, yes. Just the other day we had a case where they grabbed a girl right of a Mc Donald’s hamburger stand. She was a waitress. About sixteen years old… with a lot of people watching, too!”
“What happened?” said our friend. “What did they do to her?” He seemed very agitated by what he was hearing.
“Do?” said my attorney. “Jesus Christ man. They chopped her goddamn head off right there in the parking lot! Then they cut all kinds of holes in her head and sucked out the blood!”
“God almighty!” The Georgia man exclaimed… “And nobody did anything?”
“What could they do?” I said. “The guy that took the head was about six-seven and maybe three hundred pounds. He was packing two Lugers, and the others had M-16s. They were all veterans…”
“The big guy used to be a major in the Marines,” said my attorney. “We know where he lives, but we can’t get near the house.”
“Naw!” our friend shouted. “Not a major!”
“He wanted the pineal gland,” I said. “That’s how he got so big. When he quit the Marines he was just a little guy.”
“O my god!” said our friend. “That’s horrible!”
“It happens every day,” said my attorney. “Usually it’s whole families. During the night. Most of them don’t even wake up until they feel their head going-and then , of course, it’s too late.”
I agree the War on Drugs has failed.
But legalization Won’t Stop Junkies from existing. Junkies can’t hold down jobs. Junkies won’t be able to earn money to pay for legal drugs, just like alcoholics on the street can’t. They will still steal and commit other crimes for drugs. They will still be high on the street. They will defecate and urinate on the street. They will rant and rave. They will commit assault. They will be victimized by other criminals.
So: what do we do about the junkies? Seattle doesn’t allow the homeless to be forcibly removed from the streets–what will be done with the junkies?
Junkies destroy neighborhoods. They create social problems that we all have to pay for. Explain to me how legalization stops this problem when you can’t force people into rehab (and most would argue it wouldnt’ work anyway.)
To Anonymous:
You ask “What do we do about the junkies?� That’s a good question, but the junkies that inhabit our city now will be here regardless of whether drugs are legal or illegal. The question is, How can we afford to treat them or keep them from committing crimes to support their habits? Stamper argues that legalizing all drugs will free up billions of dollars spent fighting the War on Drugs —“about $69 billion a year, according to Jack Cole, founder and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.� It’s not clear to me if that figure includes the cost of incarcerating non-violent offenders, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
There’s also this quote from the article that I did not include in the post:
“Regulated legalization would soon dry up most stockpiles of currently illicit drugs — substances of uneven, often questionable quality (including “bunk,” i.e., fakes such as oregano, gypsum, baking powder or even poisons passed off as the genuine article). It would extract from today’s drug dealing the obscene profits that attract the needy and the greedy and fuel armed violence. And it would put most of those certifiably frightening crystal meth labs out of business once and for all.”
Stamper’s point is that the “bunk” would eventually go away, and the violence associated with illegal drug dealing would also go away. All drugs would be under state control and subject to taxation. The collected taxes and the savings from not fighting the futile War on Drugs could be used to rehabilitate those who want to be rehabilitated.
He doesn’t go much beyond that in his column, but the logical path leads to some sort of state-run safe houses or shelters to house those who are terminally addicted to drugs. Such facilities should be far less expensive than prisons.
All of the problems associate with addictive drugs will never go away. There will always be people who abuse drugs and end up unable to function in society. Stamper argues that we need to take a good long look at our current method of solving the problem and find a new way. His solution starts with legalizing drugs, it certainly doesn’t end there
Legalization and abuse are two different issues. Everyone is free to speculate what will happen if the war on drugs was called off and drugs were legalized. ABuse will still exist if drugs are legal. It all comes back to the richest country in the world not having some sort of mechanism in place where all people have health care at their disposal - health care that treats drug abuse and mental illnesses as illness that deserves treating. Health care that helps people and not bankrupts them, because you certainly don’t want to declare bankruptcy….
Brad, I think you and Norm need to put down your bongs, because the left turn signal on the vehicle that is the USA is broken. We’re only turning right now-a-days. Forget health care and legalizing drugs, lets go to War!