if someone has already posted this, please disregard.......... January 13, 2001 Make Drugs Legal for Adults, Says Former Cop by David Klinger David Klinger is professor of criminology at the University of Missouri. This article is adapted from his chapter in the new Cato Institute book, "After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century." ST. LOUIS--When I joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1980, I was a strong supporter of the notion that illegal drugs should stay that way and that the enforcement of drug laws should be a top priority. But my views quickly changed once I hit the streets. Assigned to the rugged 77th Street Division in the heart of South Central, I saw firsthand the social problems one could find in any community awash in the trafficking and use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other controlled substances. During my first months on patrol, after handling hundreds of drug calls and arresting scores of people for possessing various illegal substances, I began to doubt what my peers and I were doing. I saw violent criminals walking the streets because the jail space they rightfully deserved was occupied by nonviolent drug offenders. When we carted small-time drug dealers off to prison, I saw other sellers quickly step in to fill the void. I started to view most people involved with drugs either as broken souls who made self-destructive choices or as harmless people who indulged their appetites in moderation—not as crooks who needed to be punished. I tried to reconcile what I saw with my views about firmly enforcing drug laws. At first I accepted the arguments of politicians, policy wonks and my peers who asserted that ever harsher laws and firmer enforcement would turn back the tide of illegal drugs. But by the end of my tenure with the LAPD I came to believe that marijuana--a drug I had never seen anyone overdose on or influence anyone to do anything more violent than attack a bag of potato chips--should be legalized. I held a bifurcated stance toward illicit drugs--legalize pot but strictly enforce existing laws against the rest of the stuff--through my time with the Redmond, Wash., police department and into my graduate studies. As the years passed, however, I saw a nation fighting harder, devoting more money and jailing increasing numbers of individuals--all the while falling further behind in the war on drugs. The price of the drugs didn't rise with increased interdiction, usage rates didn't fall and the number of lives damaged or destroyed by chronic use, overdose and drug-related criminal activity mounted. No matter how much I disliked the idea, I became convinced the United States should legalize illicit drugs. Ever since I concluded we should call off the hounds, I have discussed my ideas with people in many walks of life. Interestingly, both my hardiest supporters and my harshest critics come from the same group: my law enforcement associates. Many of them on both sides of the debate share my views about the futility of the drug war and agree it carries a substantial downside. What generally separates those who agree with me from those who don't is their take on a question they almost invariably put to me: Won't legalizing drugs lead more people to take them and thus make things worse? I do not know whether legalizing drugs will increase their popularity. But I suspect that if we approach legalization thoughtfully and pursue a sensible post-legalization strategy, then the drug rolls will not swell. They may in fact decline. But even if more people do take drugs in the wake of legalization, we would live in a society where citizens suffer far less from the predatory crimes spawned by the illicit drug trade. In the end, we cannot protect free adults from their own poor choices, and we should not use the force of law to try. In a free society negative consequences befall people who use their freedom to do foolish things. Victimless self-destructive behavior is its own punishment, not the business of the legal system. Index of Daily Commentaries | Cato Institute Home | © 2001 Cato Institute After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century Edited by Timothy Lynch More than 10 years ago, federal officials boldly claimed that they would create a 'drug-free America by 1995.' To reach that objective, Congress spent billions on police, prosecutors, drug courts, and prisons. Despite millions of arrests and countless seizures, America is not drug free. Illegal drugs are as readily available today as ever before. Drug prohibition has proven to be a costly failure. Like alcohol prohibition, drug prohibition has created more problems than it has solved. The drug war has destroyed the lives of inner-city residents, corrupted law enforcement, and distorted our foreign policy. Yet drug prohibition is still seen as a viable strategy by our political leaders. Paradoxically, alternative drug policies—such as legalization—fall outside of the parameters of serious debate in our nation's capital. No one maintains that drug legalization would be a panacea. There is no question that drug abuse would continue to be a problem even in the face of legalization. But drug prohibition is a blunderbuss approach that treats Americans with very little respect. It treats them like children. It is time to deal with adult drug use in a more open, honest, and mature manner. The drug war has been given a chance to work, but it has failed miserably. Timothy Lynch is associate director of the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies and a graduate of Marquette University School of Law. He is a member of the Wisconsin and District of Columbia bars and writes frequently on legal issues. "You cannot read this book without recognizing the social tragedy that has resulted from the attempt to prohibit people from ingesting an arbitrary list of substances designated 'illegal drugs.' . . . Not since the collapse of the attempt to prohibit the ingestion of alcohol has our liberty been in such danger as it now is from the misnamed 'war on drugs.'" -Milton Friedman "The nation is crying for an honest weighing of the dollar and societal costs of the drug war against its limited accomplishments in reducing the admittedly serious problem of drug abuse. This volume addresses the many ways in which America is paying for its drug war‹many billions of dollars spent, encroachment on individual constitutional rights, distortion and corruption of policing, and incarceration of over 400,000 people in a futile attempt to keep the drug market from responding to domestic demand." -Alfred Blumstein University Professor, H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University Contributors Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. Steven Duke is professor of law at Yale University. Gary Johnson is governor of New Mexico. David Klinger is professor of criminology at the University of Missouri. David B. Kopel is director of research at the Independence Institute. Michael Levine is a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Daniel Lungren is a former attorney general of California. Timothy Lynch is director of the Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice. Joseph McNamara is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Roger Pilon is vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute. Daniel Polsby is professor of law at George Mason University. Julie Stewart is president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Qty. After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century (2000/193pp.) - $18.95 cloth ISBN 1-882577-93-0 Qty. After Prohibition: An Adult Approach to Drug Policies in the 21st Century (2000/193pp.) - $9.95 paper ISBN 1-882577-94-9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © 1999 The Cato Institute _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com Please let us stay on topic and be civil. To unsubscribe please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs -Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org OM Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
