WAGING WAR ON AMERICA'S DRUG WAR

THERE IS a scene in the recent Oscar-nominated film, "Traffic," in which a
Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a convicted drug dealer discuss
his upcoming trial.

The exasperated drug dealer asks the cop, "Can't you for a second imagine
none of this had happened? That my drugs had gone through. What would have
been the harm? A few people get high who are getting high anyway. Your
partner is still alive."

The cop looks at him for a second, and shrugs. It never occurred to him
that the war on drugs could be misguided. He had always assumed that
fighting drug traffic was simply the right thing to do.

Before seeing this film, I had always been aware of the war on drugs. The
U. S. government wastes more than $19 billion a year in this ludicrous
effort -- how could I not be aware?

But "Traffic" simply blew me away.

Although I always had a sneaking suspicion that the war on drugs was flawed,
never before had I seen anything that demonstrated, in such stark terms,
all of the drug war's many problems. I began to realize that numerous
problems in the United States and beyond -- the lack of funds for Social
Security and Medicare, the huge black prison populations, the disastrous
civil war in Colombia -- are all consequences of the U.S. government's
policy on drugs.

Right now, as the Bush administration prepares to spend more money on the
drug war than ever before, the message of "Traffic" must not be ignored.

The war on drugs is plagued by many problems, not the least of which is the
ridiculously high rate of incarceration.

The rate of incarceration in the United States is 690 inmates per 100,000
residents, which is the highest in the world after Rwanda. With less than 5
percent of the world's population, the United States now has more than 25
percent of the world's prisoners. Placing drug users in prison is neither
cost-efficient nor effective.

It is estimated that placing the estimated 4 million American drug addicts
in treatment programs would cost a maximum of $60 billion annually, while
putting them in jail would cost $100 billion.

Furthermore, treatment is far superior to imprisonment as a long-term
solution to drug addiction. If drug addicts were forced to enroll in
12-step treatment programs rather than receive mandatory minimum prison
sentences, they would be far more likely to overcome their addictions.

As a result, the repeat-offender rate in this country would drop
significantly. Perhaps the most destructive aspect of the war on drugs is
its negative impact on minorities, primarily African Americans. Although
African Americans reportedly comprise only 13 percent of the nation's drug
users, they make up almost 60 percent of those in state prisons for drug
felonies.

Many factors are responsible for this disparity: police officers who
practice racial profiling, African Americans' inability to afford good lawyers,
and racist court judges, to name a few.

One of the primary causes of this disparity is the vastly unequal penalties
for crack ******* (popular in black inner-city neighborhoods) and powder
******* (popular in white suburban areas).

Currently, a person caught with 5 grams of crack ******* receives the same
five-year sentence as a person caught with 50 grams of powder *******, a
10-to- 1 ratio.

As a result, nearly one-third of African American males between the ages of
19 and 29 are either in prison or on parole. Recently on the "Larry King
Live" show on CNN, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft declared: "Well, I
want to escalate the war on drugs. I want to renew it, relaunch it if you
will."


Newshawk: Drug Policy Forum of Wisconsin www.drugsense.org/dpfwi/
Pubdate: Thu, 21 Jun 2001
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact: letters@sfchronicle.com
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Ian Faerstein
Note: Ian Faerstein is a 17-year-old high school student entering his
senior year at the Branson School in Ross. He is the opinions editor of the
Branson Blazer and the editor-in-chief of Branson's alternative newspaper,
the Renegade.