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The Controversy on Drug Prohibition: A Look at the Arguments

For roughly the past century there have been various laws in place restricting or prohibiting various psychoactive substances deemed dangerous or harmful in the U.S, but the War on Drugs as we know it today started with President Richard Nixon, who declared the “War on Drugs” after signing the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act into law in 1970. This act included the Controlled Substances Act which created the federal drug scheduling system under which drugs are classified from schedule I to V by their potential for abuse and accepted medical uses with schedule I being the most restricted. (1) This scheduling system has controversially placed marijuana and other drugs into schedule I, defined as having a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical usage.

The argument for this act, as stated by President Nixon at the time of signing it into law, (2) is that drugs are a national problem and major cause of street crime in the U.S. He links drug use to crime several times and makes the statement that a program against drug abuse can “save the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people who otherwise would become hooked on drugs and be physically, mentally, and morally destroyed.” Arguments for the war on drugs then and since use links between illegal drugs and crime (3) to present drugs as a danger that the public, especially young people, need to be protected from. Law enforcement and government officials have used their credibility to assert that enforcing our drug laws is necessary in order to avoid crime, health, and moral problems resulting from drug addiction and abuse.


Since the Controlled Substances Act, hundreds of new drugs have been invented, (4) many of which have been marketed on the street and added to the federal schedule. Often however, these drugs are left in a legal grey area depending on how the Analog Act, part of the Controlled Substances Act, is interpreted. The Analog Act places a drug that is “substantially similar” to a schedule I or II substance into schedule I. Until recently, many of these grey market drugs were available online to anyone with a computer and credit card. Cartels smuggle drugs into the US and other countries where drugs like cocaine fetch high prices, resulting in drug lords like Pablo Escobar becoming some of the world’s most wealthy in the illegal drug trade. (5)

As these developments have surfaced law enforcement has been given more and more funding and tools, with the DEA alone requesting over 2 billion dollars for 2009, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. (6) The U.S. coast guard and military also receive billions of dollars to battle the drug trade flowing into the U.S., often from areas such as Latin America or Afghanistan where drug money can fund political instability. In 2007, according to the UN office on drugs and crime, Afghanistan alone produced $4 billion worth of opiates, the production and distribution of which are controlled by insurgents and warlords. (7)

Supporters of the war on drugs argue, like President Bush in his 2008 National Drug Control Strategy message, that the war on drugs denies drug traffickers and terrorists funding for their efforts. (8) Based on the idea that drugs like heroin and cocaine are responsible for funding terrorism and causing crime and addiction, a common


view exemplified by Scott M. Burns in his press release statement on marijuana decriminalization efforts in New Hampshire argues that decriminalizing any drugs will give young people the message that drugs are not harmful and result in increased use. (9)

I don’t believe it is controversial to state that illegal drugs cause a society a lot of problems, but dividing the opinions of those in favor of continuing the war on drugs from those in favor of ending it is the controversy over whether the drugs or the illegality thereof is more harmful. Whether or not the war on drugs is necessary no one is arguing that drugs aren’t still available, so clearly a belief that the war on drugs is necessary goes hand in hand with a belief that we need to do more. Opposing the belief that we haven’t done enough to stamp out drugs is the centerpiece of the arguments against the war on drugs, that being that war on drugs is ineffective because ultimately its methods are flawed.

In contrast to the relatively monolithic ideology supporting the war on drugs, there are a wide range of different opinions against the war on drugs based on many different arguments. What these arguments have in common is raising one or more problems with the criminalization of drugs and contending that since the war on drugs has caused or contributed to this problem without achieving its objectives it should be abandoned. Although many of these arguments are usually only applied to marijuana, the reasoning that drug prohibition has high social costs for questionable benefit can be applied to the war on drugs as a whole.



One of the commonly raised objections to the war on drugs is that it disproportionately affects minorities who, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Criminal Offenders Statistics, face a far higher rate of incarceration than whites. (10) Another group that feels discriminated against is medical marijuana users, who are often arrested under federal law, which goes against popular opinion with a Time/CNN poll finding 80% of people OK with medical use, which is often legal already under state laws. (11) In addition to the medical use of marijuana other drugs such as MDMA have been placed in schedule one over the protests of the medical community. In the case of MDMA, there are lengthy transcripts archived at MAPS.org documenting the controversy over its medical use. (12)

Another class of arguments against the war on drugs is that it is or results in misuse of government power. There have been severe abuses of police power in the war on drugs like the scandal in Tulia, TX in which police simply fabricated testimony to send people, almost all minorities, to jail on drug charges. (13) As a result of incidents like this many people are uncomfortable with the methods and practices of law enforcement enforcing drug prohibition. Some people even believe that the government has no constitutional authority to prohibit drugs, and point out that it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol. Although this is a minority view it does raise the question of whether the government is undermining its moral authority in the view of the people by making crimes out of actions that many, especially medical marijuana users following state law, don’t see as criminal.


All of these points, and many more, do nothing more than raise a problem with the war on drugs if taken by themselves. However, if you combine any of them with the contention that criminalizing drugs is, like alcohol prohibition, a failed strategy they all lead to the conclusion that the criminalization of drugs should be abandoned. With the opposing argument being so diametrically opposed in calling for more enforcement of our drugs laws and the costs of the war on drugs rising, it is easy to see why the war on drugs has become so controversial.


References:

United States Drug Enforcement Administration. U.S. DEA History book, 1970-1975. (18 Oct. 2008) < www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/history/1970-1975.html>


Woolley, John T. and Peters, Gerhard. “Remarks [of President Nixon] on signing the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act” The American Presidency Project [online] Santa Barbara, CA: University of California (hosted) 27 Oct. 1970. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2767 >


United States Office of National Drug Control Policy. Drug Related Crime. White House Drug Policy Fact Sheet, Mar. 2000. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/crime/index.html >


Shulgin, Alexander and Shulgin, Ann. Pikhal, A Chemical Love Story. Transform Press Sept. 1991


"Deepest pockets." U.S. News & World Report 103 (Oct 5, 1987): 12(1). Academic OneFile. Gale. Auraria Library. 20 Oct. 2008
< http://0-find.galegroup.com.skyline.cudenver.edu:80/itx/start.do?prodId=AONE >.






United States. Office of National Drug Control Policy. Table 2: Drug Control Funding By Agency FY2007- FY2009. White House Drug Policy Publication, 2008. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/09budget/tbl_2.pdf >


United Nations. Office on Drugs and Crime. Opium Amounts to Half of Afghanistan’s GDP in 2007, Reports UNODC. 16 Nov. 2007. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/opium-amounts-to-half-of-afghanistans-gdp-in-2007,-reports-unodc.html >



Bush, George W. National Drug Control Strategy Annual Report: message from the president. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/ndcs08/message.html >


Burns, Scott M. Statement From Deputy “Drug Czar” Scott M. Burns on Marijuana Decriminalization Efforts in New Hampshire. White House Press Release, 19 Mar. 2008. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/press08/031908.html >


United States Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Offenders Statistics. Dept. of Justice Publication, 08 Aug 2007. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#prevalence >


Stein, Joel. “The New Politics of Pot”. Time Magazine 27 Oct. 2002. (18 Oct 2008) < http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101021104/story.html >


MAPS. Documents from the DEA Scheduling Hearing of MDMA, 1984-1988. (18 Oct 2008) < http://www.maps.org/dea-mdma/#conclusions >


“Pardons Granted in Drug Sting Case”. CNN. 23 Aug. 2003. (18 Oct. 2008) < http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/23/tulia.drug.busts/index.html >