The folly of alcohol prohibition closely mirrors the futility of the U.S. drug war, declares Jack Cole, a former police officer. In the second part of our Celebrity Guest Writer series, Cole explains why drugs should be legally regulated.
This is the second article in a series of Celebrity Guest Writers offering their insight into issues close to their experiences. Check out tomorrow’s DigitalJournal.com to see what other topics will be investigated and discussed by some of the world’s leading thinkers and leaders.
See part one, by Lieutenant Governor David Onley, at this link.
by Jack A. Cole
The war on drugs is a futile gesture. As a cop, I knew when I arrested a rapist or robber, the number of rapes and robberies in our communities decreased. But when I arrested any level of drug dealer (and I arrested about a thousand of them), I just created a job opportunity — quickly filled.
What do we get for our $70 billion which we invest each year in prosecuting the drug war? A good feeling?
On December 5, 2008, the U.S. celebrated (yes, celebrated) the 75th anniversary of the end of the terribly dysfunctional policy of our first prohibition—that of alcohol. The outcomes of that prohibition are strikingly similar to those of the new prohibition which created the war on drugs by banning the use of certain drugs.
Crime and Some Punishment
Alcohol prohibition created organized crime providing criminal entrepreneurs with prospects of super-inflated profit motives which had never before existed.
Also, drug prohibition has created international cartels and funded terrorist organizations next to which smugglers like Al Capone pale by comparison.
Alcohol prohibition led to a symbiotic relationship between law-enforcers and criminals. Harsher laws and more law enforcement simply meant criminals could charge more for their illegal products. The subsequent expansion of their business led to the hiring of more law-enforcers, each receiving higher pay for doing more dangerous jobs.
Drug prohibition expanded membership in local and state police narcotic units by up to 700 percent in the first year causing drug prices to soar, therefore more people joined the ranks of suppliers and dealers. The outcome was supplies of drugs increased so dramatically that law-enforcers went from making individual seizures of pounds of hard drugs in 1970 to individual seizures of tons of hard drugs by 2002. The DEA’s budget went from $65 million in 1972 to $2.14 billion in 2006, an increase of 3,300 per cent.
Looking at the Prohibition era, the murder rate and corruption of public officials increased to the highest levels ever recorded up to that period of US history. But the year after alcohol prohibition ended both murder and corruption rates dropped dramatically and stayed low until implementation of the new prohibition in 1970.
The murder rate in the US under the new prohibition fluctuates greatly; much higher rates than those seen during alcohol prohibition can be found. When those skyrocketing rates do drop, it is because criminals struggling for the upper layers of the drug dealers’ pyramid have come to an understanding through force of arms. What dislodges this temporary peace is the occasional success in arresting or killing a chief gangster. Suddenly the murder rate increases as everyone below the recently created opening fights for that lucrative position. This is most obvious currently in Northern Mexico where more than 5,000 people have been murdered in the last year alone as drug barons fight for supremacy.
If You Ban It, They Will Come
Alcohol use increased under prohibition — the year before it was implemented New York City had 15,000 saloons but five years into prohibition it had 32,000 speakeasies.
According to DEA at the start of the war on drugs there were 4 million people in the US above the age of 12 who had used an illegal drug (2 per cent of that population) but the DEA tells us we now have 112 million people who have used an illegal drug (46 per cent of the current population above the age of 12).
In the new prohibition, our children are being killed, caught by crossfire and drive-by shootings. According to government research the war on drugs hasn’t prevented youthful drug use; it just provides the monetary incentive for some of our youth to hook others. Around 900,000 of our teenagers are selling drugs to other teens—but not one is selling the legalized drugs, beer and cigarettes.
Also, according to the DEA, 900,000 of our teenagers have illegally carried a gun on at least one occasion. Under prohibition everybody’s got a gun. How else do they protect themselves and their illegal products from robbery? How to they discipline their subordinates and customers if not at the point of a gun? They can hardly call on police for protection. They can’t tell interlopers into their business turf, “I have a contract for this territory and I’m going to take you to court if you don’t leave.”
Alcohol prohibition ended in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression when citizens realized they could no longer afford to continue dumping tax money into trying to end alcohol use and also realized how much money the government could obtain regulating it and applying tax revenue laws to the sale of that alcohol, which was obviously going to be sold by someone.
The Wrong War to Start
The Prohibition on drugs (cleverly declared a “war” by President Nixon in 1970) has failed to meet a single one of its stated goals. After four decades and a trillion tax dollars, after 39-million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, after quadrupling our prison population to 2.3 million, drugs today are cheaper, more widely used and more potent than they were when I began buying them as an undercover officer at the beginning of this fruitless effort. Most ominously, it is now easier for our children to buy illegal drugs than it is to buy beer or cigarettes. In a time when the US economy is tanking, when my local police force is being cut back by 9 per cent because of national and state deficits, Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron has just published a study at www.WeCanDoItAgain.com, which finds that ending drug prohibition would boost America’s economy by $76.8 billion a year.
Our police and prison system should protect us from one another, not from our own flawed choices. Drug use, as dangerous, shortsighted, and self-destructive as it is, does not necessarily make a person evil, threatening or in need of forced “treatment.” The idea that we can create drug-free national borders, states or schools when we can’t keep drugs out of maximum security prisons should end this debate; but some people, especially those whose livelihoods depend on the prohibition approach, can’t get enough of this “fix.”
Any prohibition on desired (and sometimes medicinally necessary) substances not only fails to prevent their use over time but also distorts users, making countless “criminals” out of otherwise law-abiding individuals. Police involvement actually creates the threat that is then used to justify more police involvement or forced treatment. It is a self-feeding, self-justifying circle not amenable to tinkering.
It needs to be replaced by a system of controlled regulation.
Instead of being demonized, these dangerous drugs need to be legalized so we can take control away from the sales-hungry street dealers, international cartels, and terrorists that control them. These parasitic creations of Prohibition will dry up when we end the war on drugs.
In 1994, the Swiss decided to help their young people by treating heroin addiction as a health matter rather than a crime problem. They set up a pilot program of clinics where heroin users could inject that drug up to three times a day under medical supervision — government issued and on a sliding scale but free for those with no money.
The amazing outcomes of that policy were reported in a 10-year study published by the medical journal, The Lancet: not a single overdose death; rates of AIDS and hepatitis dropped to the lowest in Europe; crime was cut by 60 per cent; and projected cases of new heroin users in Zurich declined by 82 per cent.
A policy that reduces death, disease, crime and addiction—what could be better?
At the end of 2008 the citizens of Switzerland agreed in a referendum vote to make this a permanent policy.
I represent Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (leap.cc), a 10,000-member, educational nonprofit created and lead by former drug-warriors who call for legalized regulation of all drugs. The police, judges, and prosecutors of LEAP don’t want to see one additional drug abuser in the world but we understand this simple fact: the more dangerous the drug, the more important it is to legalize it, because nothing can be regulated and controlled when it is illegal.
Jack A. Cole retired as a Detective Lieutenant after a 26-year career with the New Jersey State Police. For 12 of those years Cole worked as an undercover narcotics officer. His investigations spanned the spectrum of possible cases, from street drug users and mid-level drug dealers in New Jersey to international “billion-dollar” drug trafficking organizations. A national and international speaker, Cole has taught courses to police recruits and veteran officers on ethics, integrity, moral decision-making, and the detrimental effects of racial profiling. He is cofounder and executive director of LEAP.
