ALTERNATIVES TO THE WAR ON DRUGS
(Legalization FAQ)
last update: Sept.3/96
i.
Introduction
1. Prioritizing Resources
2. Harm Reduction
3. The Dutch
Approach
4. Decriminalization
5. Marijuana Decriminalization, then Legalization
6.
Legalization
7. Full Legalization / the ‘Supermarket’ model
Appendix A:
Forfeiture and Mandatory Minimums
Appendix B: Industrial Hemp and Medical Marijuana
i. Introduction
It’s clear to many that the War on Drugs isn’t
working, but
the alternatives are often confusing. Legalization,
decriminalization,
and harm reduction aren’t widely-understood
concepts, so the whole thing’s usually assumed to
be a big
mess best left to experts. Inevitably, someone whips up
another drug scare,
and we’re stuck with the stalemate of
the War on Drugs for another decade.
This
file has been put together to help make clearer the
different ways that current American drug
policy could be
changed; please distribute it as widely as possible. If you have
suggestions, corrections, or additions, contact me at:
tpd@geocities.com This document will
reside on the
talk.politics.drugs FAQ site at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/4727
1. Prioritizing Resources
‘Because we live in a world of limited resources, it is not
possible to do everything. It is
therefore both logical and
necessary to make distinctions among things that are more or
1. drug use by children
(top priority) versus drug use by
adults (low priority);
2. marijuana smoking (low
priority) versus use of harder
drugs (higher priority);
3. public use of drugs (high
priority) versus private use of
drugs at home (low priority);
4. drug consumption (no
priority) versus drug impairment
(high priority);
5. occasional use (low priority)
versus chronic or dependent
use (higher priority).
‘From these general criteria for
drug policy, I would
commend to the National Commission five specific goals for an
effective, principled drug policy:
‘1._Protect the Children_. I think this priority is
self-evident
and needs no discussion. I would simply add that this is the
only domain
in which ‘zero tolerance’ makes any sense at all
and might even be feasible if enforcement
resources were
concentrated on this as a top priority.
‘2._Get Tough on the Legal
Drugs_. It is common
knowledge that alcohol (100,000 annual deaths) and tobacco
(360,000 annual deaths) far exceed the illegal drugs as sources
of death, disease, and
dysfunction in the U.S… I am not,
however, suggesting prohibition of these drugs. That is
wrong
in principle and impossible in practice, as experience teaches.
Nonetheless,
there are more restrictive measure that can and
should be undertaken…
‘3. _Public
Safety and Order_. Here we need policies
directed toward protection of the public from
accident and injury
on the highway, in the workplace and from unruly disruptions in
public streets, public transport, parks and other gathering places.
Programs specifically
tailored to accomplish this more focused
goal make a lot more sense than futile and counter
productive
‘zero tolerance’ approaches. Street-level law enforcement
practices need to
be reviewed to see to what extent they may
actually enourage hustling drugs in the street to
avoid arrests and
forfeitures that might follow from fixed points of sale…
‘4.
_Protect Public Health_. The emphasis here is on the
word ‘public’. Policy should be directed
toward 1. treatment of
addicts on a voluntary basis and 2. true epidemiological
concerns such as the use of drugs by pregnant women and the
potential for transmission of
AIDS by I.V. drug users.
Addiction treatment is now shamefully underfunded, with
months-long waiting lists in many cities. Purely individualized
risks are not in principle a
public health matter and are in any
case trivial in magnitude compared to those now accepted
from
alcohol and tobacco…
‘5. _Respect the Value of Individual Liberty and
Responsibility_. The current administration’s goal of a drug-
free America, except for
children, is both ridiculous — as absurd
as a liquor-free America — and wrong in principle.
This is not
fundamentalist Ayatollah Land after all. A democratic society
must respect
the decisions made by its adult citizens, even those
perceived to be foolish or risky… To
say that something is
‘dangerous’ does not automatically supply a reason to outlaw it.
Indeed, the general presumption in our society is that competent
adults, with access to
necessary information, are entitled to take
risks of this kind as part of the right to life,
liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.’
Prepared Statement of Steven
Wisotsky,
Professor of Law, Nova University Law Center,
before the select committee on
Narcotics Abuse and
Control, House of Representatives,
Concerning: A New Beginning in
U.S. Drug Policy,
September 29th, 1988.
http://www.paranoia.com/drugs/war.on.drugs/debate/wisotsky1
http://www.paranoia.com/drugs/war.on.drugs/debate/wisotsky2
2. Harm Reduction
‘The theory of harm reduction emerges out of the community-
based, public health interventions that support substance users
and their communities in
reducing drug-related harm. It
challenges the traditional social service provision and
moral/criminal/disease models of drug use by focusing on
maximizing individual and community
health through
participation and ownership rather than repression and
incarceration.
Harm Reduction identifies the practices and beliefs
which endanger individuals and
communities, and works in a
collaborative manner. Practitioners of harm reduction distinguish
themselves from other service providers by their willingness to
engage
non-judgmentally with all people, regardless of personal
values, and to face with them the
harm done to and by them.’
Harm Reduction Coalition,
‘Harm Reduction: An
Introduction’,
http://www.cts.com:80/~habtsmrt/hrc/hrc.html
‘The harm reduction model upholds that abstinence is the
ideal goal for those using
illegal drugs. Abstinence from drugs
reduces drug-related harm completely. It is hoped that
all
individuals who use illicit substances will eventually come to
give them up
entirely. Proponents of Harm Reduction recognize,
however, that there will always be illicit
drug use (unless we can
successfully eliminate every psychoactive plant and synthetic
relative from the face of the planet) and that many people are
simply unwilling or unable to
give up drugs entirely but
nonetheless could benefit from intervention…
‘Working with
addicts from a harm reduction perspective
involves accepting that some people simply are not
going to give
up drugs at this time. Offering them services nonetheless, opens
the
door to helping these people reduce harm in some way–even
an infinitesimal way–that
wouldn’t otherwise occur. Small
reductions of harm are better than no reduction (and
definitely
better than exacerbation). An open door policy can result in a
harm
reduction snowball effect: small improvement can pave the
path for further reduction of drug
use and an improved lifestyle
in other ways. This snowball effect can continue, eventually to
the point of abstinence.’
Robert Westermeyer, Ph.D.,
‘Harm Reduction and
Illicit Drug Use’,
http://www.cts.com/~habtsmrt/drugs.html
3. The Dutch Approach
‘Dutch drug policy aims to maintain a separation between
the
market for soft drugs (cannabis products such as hashish and
marijuana) and the
market for harder substances (such as heroin
and cocaine). This is effectuated by allowing
some limited
freedom of movement for the retail trade and the possession of
small
quantities of soft drugs for individual consumption, and
by trying to combat the hard drug
trade in every possible way…
‘Penal provisions for soft drug delicts are considerably milder
than those for hard drugs. Moreover, a distinction is made
between drug users and
traffickers. The (border-crossing) drug
trade has a high priority and great efforts are made
to keep users
out of the illegal circuit. Possession of soft drugs and hard drugs
for
commercial purposes is therefore considered a more serious
offence than possession for
individual consumption…
‘Over the years the above mentioned legislation has lead to the
drugs on certain
conditions is not prosecuted. Trade in hard
drugs, however, is strictly prohibited. Thus the
cannabis
consumer is not dependent on multi-drug markets which reduces
the risk of
switching to harder substances…
‘The majority of the coffee shops adheres to nation-wide
criteria (’Regulations’). The closing down of a number of coffee
shops and a more
rigid police control in recent years have shown
that these criteria are strictly
maintained…
‘Prevention, information and education are a primary concern
of the
Dutch drug policy. In 1991 the project ‘Healthy schools
and stimulants’ was launched,
specifically aiming at the
Secundary School students. The project is carried out in
coperation with the Netherlands Institute for Alcohol and Drugs,
the local and provincial
Public Health Services and the
municipalities. The project provides information on
subsequently tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and gambling for
Secondary School students of an age
when they generally have
their first contacts with these items.’
Netherlands
Institute for Alcohol and Drugs (NIAD),
Dutch Cannabis Policy Factsheet,
http://www.niad.nl/fc1uk.htm
4. Decriminalization
decriminalization involves freeing
the drug user/possessor from
criminal status, and limits the punishment for drug possession
(under a certain amount) to a citation and minimal fine. As
passed in eleven U.S.
states (Alaska, Oregon, Colorado,
California, New York, Nebraska, Maine, Mississippi, Ohio,
Minnesota, and North Carolina), decriminalization maintains the
felony status of
cultivating, distributing, and trafficking
marijuana, but eliminates the incarceration of
possessors of
small amounts of drug for personal use.’
NASRO Issue Brief, Spring
1995 vol. 1, no.1,
‘Rethinking the War on Drugs and Crime: New Approaches to Local Policy’.
5. Marijuana
Decriminalization, then Legalization
‘A. Step One
‘Decriminalizing the use of
marijuana amounts to what can be
described as a half-law — it is on the ‘books’ but not
enforced.
Several states have realized the futility of enforcement as well as
the
exorbitant demand for the drug and, as a result, have
decriminalized marijuana on that basis.
The time has come for a
federal recognition of those facts. A law which labels 18 million
‘B. Step Two
‘Following the inevitable success of the
decriminalization
experiment should be the complete legalization of marijuana.
This
stage would act as the real test. Distribution and taxation of
the drug would be handled the
same way alcohol is dispensed —
through licensed sellers. Restrictions on time, place, and
manner of sale would also apply, just as with alcohol. Public
ingestion would be
strictly prohibited, as would the sale of
marijuana in places of public accomodation.
Furthermore, stiff
penalties for driving while under the influence of marijuana
would
be strictly enforced.
Todd Austin Brenner,
‘The Legalization of Drugs: Why
Prolong the Inevitable?’
_Capital University Law Review_, vol.18, 1989
6. Legalization
‘_Legalization_ - Some activists in the drug reform movement
call themselves ‘legalizers,’ implying they support freer
distribution of currently
illegal drugs. Legalization of drugs,
however, could take many forms. The libertarian
approach to
legalization advocates free-market distribution of all drugs,
including
cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. This is perhaps the
most common popular conception of
legalization, yet most
‘legalizers’ favor a more controlled distribution. Some legalizers
which implies licensing
and taxation, controls on advertising and
places of use, and a prohibition of sales to
minors. Others
believe marijuana-and not cocaine, heroin, LSD, and other
‘hard’
drugs-be made legal. Finally, others advocate a regulated
distribution of drugs through
public health facilities, whereby
drugs would be legal but monitored, and addicts would have
regular contact with public health professionals.’
NASRO Issue Brief, Spring
1995 vol. 1, no.1,
‘Rethinking the War on Drugs and Crime: New Approaches to Local Policy’.
7. Full Legalization / the
‘Supermarket’ model
‘Imagine… that Congress passed a law granting the freedom
of drug consumption and even production and distribution the
same legal protections as the
rights of freedom of speech, press,
religion and assembly. And imagine that ’supermarkets’
existed
all around the country in which drugs of every variety could be
purchased at
prices reflecting nothing more than retailers’ costs
plus reasonable profit margins and sales
taxes. This is, of
course, the nightmare scenario portrayed by the opponents of
legalization-even if it is not the policy favored by virtually any of
those identified as
proponents of legalization apart from the most
hardcore libertarians…
‘The great
advantage of this model is that it eliminates
virtually all of the direct and indirect costs
of drug prohibition:
the many billions of dollars spent each year on arresting,
prosecuting and incarcerating hundreds of thousands of
Americans, the diversion of scarce
governmental resources from
dealing with other, more immediately harmful, criminal
activities, the tens of billions earned each year by organized and
unorganized criminals,
much of the violence, corruption and
other criminal activity associated with the illicit drug
markets, the
distortion of economic incentives for inner city residents, the
severe
problems posed by adulterated and otherwise unregulated
drugs, the inadequate prescription of
drugs for the treatment of
pain, the abundant infringements on Americans’ civil liberties,
and all the other costs detailed in the extant literature on drug
prohibition and
legalization.
‘The great disadvantage of the ’supermarket’ model is its
invitation to
substantial increases in both the amount and the
diversity of psychoactive drug consumption.
What needs to be
determined as best as possible are the magnitude and nature of
that
increase as well as its consequences. Among the more
explicit assumptions of the legalization
analysis is that the vast
majority of Americans do not need drug prohibition laws to
prevent them from becoming drug abusers. Prohibitionists
typically assume, by contrast, that
most Americans, and at the
very least a substantial minority, do in fact need such laws-that
but for drug prohibition, tens of millions more Americans would
surely become drug
abusers.’
Ethan A. Nadelmann,
‘Thinking seriously about alternatives to the drug
prohibition’,
_Daedalus_ v.123:3,
http://www.calyx.com/~mariolap/debate/ethan1.html
Appendix A: Forfeiture and Mandatory Minimums
The War on
Drugs has required dehumanizing drug-users and
drug-sellers, and that has led to the ‘drug
exception to
the Bill of Rights’. Two of these excesses permitted in the name
of
‘getting tough on drugs’ are the forfeiture laws and the
mandatory minimum laws. Modifying
them to a civilized
level would not require the substantial change in policy that
many
of the previously mentioned ideas would; for that reason,
they are presented separately.
I. Forfeiture
‘It’s a strange twist of justice in the land of freedom.
A law
designed to give cops the right to confiscate and keep the
luxurious possessions
of major drug dealers mostly ensnares the
modest homes, cars and cash of ordinary,
law-abiding people.
They step off a plane or answer their front door and suddenly
lose
everything they’ve worked for. They are not arrested or
tried for any crime. But there is
punishment, and it’s severe….
‘In their zeal to curb drugs and sometimes to fill their
coffers
with the proceeds of what they take, local cops, federal agents
and the courts
have curbed innocent Americans’ civil rights.
From Maine to Hawaii, people who are never
charged with a
crime have had cars, boats, money and homes taken away.
‘In fact, 80
percent of the people who lost property to the
federal government were never charged. And
most of the seized
items weren’t the luxurious playthings of drug barons, but
modest
homes and simple cars and hard-earned savings of
ordinary people.
‘But those goods
generated $2 billion for the police
departments that took them.
‘The owners’
only crime in many of these cases: They
‘looked’ like drug dealers. They were black, Hispanic
or
flashily dressed…
‘Says Eric Sterling, who helped write the law a decade ago as
a lawyer on a congressional committee: ‘The innocent-until-
proven guilty concept is
gone out the window.’
‘_The Law: Guilt Doesn’t Matter_
‘Rooted in English common law,
forfeiture has surfaced just
twice in the United States since Colonial times.
‘In 1862,
Congress permitted the president to seize estates of
Confederate soldiers. Then, in 1970, it
resurrected forfeiture for
the civil war on drugs with the passage of racketeering laws that
targeted the assets of convicted criminals.
‘In 1984, however, the nature of the law
was radically
changed to allow the government to take possessions with- out
first
charging, let alone convicting, the owner. That was done in
an effort to make it easier to
strike at the heart of the major drug
dealers…
‘And there was a bonus in the law. The
proceeds would flow
back to law enforcement to finance more investigations. It was
to
be the ultimate poetic justice, with criminals financing their
own undoing.
‘But
eliminating the necessity of charging or proving a crime
has moved most of the action to
civil court, where the
government accuses the item - not the owner - of being tainted
by crime.
‘This oddity has court dockets looking like purchase orders:
United States of
America vs. 9.6 acres of land and lake; U.S.
vs. 667 bottles of wine. But it’s more than just
a labeling
change. Because money and property are at stake instead of life
and
liberty, the constitutional safeguards in criminal proceedings
do not apply.
‘The
result is that ‘jury trials can be refused; illegal searches
condoned; rules of evidence
ignored,’ says Louisville, Ky.,
defense lawyer Donald Heavrin. The ‘frenzied quest for cash,’
he says, is ‘destroying the judicial system.’
Andrew Schneider & Mary Pat
Flaherty,
_Presumed Guilty: The Law’s Victims In The War On Drugs_,
Pittsburgh (PA)
Press, August 11, 1991
http://www.fear.org/pittpres.html
II.
Mandatory Minimums
‘In 1986, Congress passed laws that impose mandatory
sentences for drug and firearm offenses. These sentences
require an offender to serve a
predetermined number of years in
prison based solely on the weight of a drug or the presence
of a
firearm. The offender is not eligible for parole and must serve
the full term of
his or her sentence. Many states have adopted
similar laws….
_What is wrong with
Mandatory Minimum Sentencing?_
[1] These laws cause prison overcrowding.
-In 1990, the
number of people sent to state and federal
prisons for drug offenses exceeded the number of
offenders sent
to prison for violent crimes… In fact, sentence lengths for first
time, nonviolent drug offenses often exceed sentence lengths for
violent offenders.
-With 1.3 million Americans behind bars, the U.S. rate of
incarceration is 519 per 100,000
people. The U.S. rate has
increased by 22 percent since 1989, and is generally 5-8 times
-Drug offenders currently make up 62 percent of
the federal
inmate population, up from 22 percent in 1980.
-In 1990, more than half of
the federal inmates serving
mandatory minimum sentences were first offenders…
[2]
They tear apart families.
*Young men and women locked up for 5, 10, 15, 20 years
and
more, leave behind children with one caretaker and in some
cases, no caretaker.
*According to the Governor of Kansas, one-third of today’s
inmates are children of offenders.
In the next decade one half of
all inmates will be children of inmates. Mandatory minimums
are
sowing the seeds of the next generation’s prison population.
*Inmates with elderly
parents may not get out in time to see
their parents alive.
*Others are incarcerated so
far from home that their families
can rarely afford to travel the distance to visit
them…
[3] They cost a lot of money…
*The department of Justice budget has grown 162
percent
since the enactment of mandatory minimums in 1987, compared
to the Department
of Education of only 77 percent.(Bureau of
Justice Statistics, 1995)…
*States spend
more of their budgets on justice programs
(6.4%) than on housing and the
enviroment (3.8%)…
*Each day, American taxpayers are spending $3.4 million
to
guard, clothe, feed, and house the 60,140 drug law violators in
federal prison.
drug offenders in
federal prison.
Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM)
http://www.famm.org/
Appendix B: Industrial Hemp and Medical
Marijuana
A sign of the failure of current drug policy is that the economic
opportunities of non-intoxicating industrial hemp and the
medical potential of marijuana have
so far been neglected.
Most opposition to these uses of marijuana seem to be based on
fears of their being part of a conspiracy to legalize marijuana in a
wider sense. It may be
necessary, then, to discuss the non-
recreational issues of marijuana separately from
recreational
ones, if only for the sake of the resources that could be
conserved and
the suffering that could be alleviated.
I. Industrial Hemp
‘Growing
hemp for fibre makes sound economic and
environmental sense. It is superior to all other
fibres, lasts
longer, and requires little or no chemical treatment.
‘Growing hemp for
fuel makes sound economic and
environmental sense. Methanol bio-gas can run vehicles,
provide cooking and heating fuel. Henry Ford proved its
viability with his all-Hemp car of
1940 which ran on hemp bio-
gas, and had a hemp plastic chassis (stronger than steel) - the
hemp products coming from his own plantations.
‘Growing hemp for pulp paper makes
sound economic and
environmental sense. It takes 4 times more timber to produce
the
same quantity of pulp for paper than it does using hemp.
Hemp is a renewable resource and can
be grown, harvested and
processed without the need for environmentally-damaging
chemicals. Rain forests can be preserved for generations to
come rather than be sacrificed as
pulp for tabloid reading. Hemp
for pulp and paper today means forests for our childrens
‘Growing hemp for food makes sound economic and
nutritional
sense. Hemp seed has a higher percentage of useable
protein than soya beans, sunflower and
sesame. Richer in
Essential Fatty Acids than flax, evening primrose or any other
seed
oil, it is being called ‘Nature’s most perfectly balanced
oil’. Hemp seed oil is beneficial
for cholestoral reduction and
conditions the arteries and heart muscles.’
QDC
Solutions — Agroforestry
http://www.om.com.au/qdc/forest/hemp.html
‘Cannabis is the most durable of the hemp plants, and it
produces the toughest
cloth, called `canvass.’ (Canvass was
widely used as sails in the early shipping industry, as
it was the
only cloth which would not rot on contact with sea spray.)…
‘The pulp is
used as fuel, and to make paper. The seed is
suitable for both human and animal foods. The
oil from the seed
can be used in as a base for paints and varnishes….
‘Today in the
U.S., hemp (meaning the roots, stalk, and
stems of the cannabis plant) is legal to possess.
No one can
arrest you for wearing a hemp shirt, or using hemp paper.
Marijuana (The
flowers, buds, or leaves of the cannabis plant) is
not legal to possess, and there are stiff
fines and possible jail
terms for having any marijuana in your possession. The seeds
are legal to possess and eat, but only if they are sterilized (will
not grow to maturity.)
in possession of marijuana,
the United States does not produce
any industrial hemp products, and must import them or,
more
often, substitute others.’
alt.hemp Frequently Asked Questions,
http://www.paranoia.com/drugs/marijuana/hemp/FAQ-alt.hemp
II. Medical
Marijuana
‘In the 100 years prior to marijuana prohibition, more than
100
European and American medical journal stories were
published regarding the therapeutic use of
the drug known as
cannabis indica, now known as marijuana.
‘Today, the 5000 year
history of medical marijuana has been
revisited by thousands of medical patients and by
doctors such
as Lester Grinspoon and Tod Mikuriya.
‘In 1988, DEA Administrative Law
Judge Francis L. Young
stated that marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active
fulfilled the legal
requirement of currently accepted medical use
in the United States. (Docket 86-22)
‘The DEA refused to accept the findings of this court and
continues to list marijuana as a
schedule one controlled
substance, meaning the use of marijuana is strictly forbidden.
Instead, the DEA encourages the use of dronabinol (Marinol)
which has has only minor levels
of success in some patients.
Dronabinol is a synthetic form of THC, the therapeutically
active
substance in marijuana.
‘Marijuana has been proven useful for in the treatment
of:
Glaucoma
Relieves intraocular pressure
Cancer chemotherapy
Relieves nausea
Stimulates appetite
Improves attitude
AIDS
Reduces or
eliminates ‘wasting syndrome’
Multiple Sclerosis
Relieves muscular spasms
Post
Traumatic Stress Syndrome
Helps reduce stress and anxiety in many war veterans
Menstrual discomfort and PMS relief
Chronic Fatigue Stress Syndrome aka CFIDS’
Americans for Compassionate Use
http://www.acu.org/~acu/
‘Physicians have both a right and a duty to be skeptical about
therapeutic claims
for any substance, but only after putting aside
fears and doubts connected with the stigma of
illicit nonmedical
drug use. Advocates of medical use of marihuana are sometimes
charged with using medicine as a wedge to open a way for
‘recreational’ use. The accusation
is false as applied to its target,
but expresses in a distorted form a truth about some
opponents
of medical marihuana; they will not admit that it can be a safe
and
effective medicine largely because they are stubbornly
committed to exaggerating its dangers
when used for nonmedical
purposes.
‘We are not asking readers for immediate agreement
with our
affirmation that marihuana is medically useful, but we hope they
will do more
to encourage open and legal exploration of its
potential. The ostensible indifference of
physicians should no
longer be used as a justification for keeping this medicine in the
Lester Grinspoon, MD, James B. Bakalar, JD,
‘Marijuana as Medicine:
a Plea for Reconsideration’,
1876 _Journal of the America Medical Association_,
June
21, 1995 — Vol. 273, No. 23,
http://www.calyx.com/~olsen/MEDICAL/lester.html
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