Pubdate: Tue, 05 Sep 2000
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2000 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.thecapitaltimes.com/
Authors: Sylvester Salcedo and Jerry Epstein
Note: Lt. Cmdr. Sylvester Salcedo (ret.) served on the frontlines of the 
drug war while working for Joint Task Force 6 as an intelligence officer. 
Lt. Jerry Epstein (ret.) is President of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas. 
Both were among the founders of Veterans for More Effective Drug 
Strategies, http://www.VetsForMeds.org

NATION'S DRUG WAR POLICY PROMOTES WHAT IT AIMS TO DESTROY

The latest bull to be released in the china shop is Plan Colombia, more 
than a billion dollars to be spent to embroil us in a civil war and to 
destroy peasants, crops and rain forest alike. The justification revolves 
around illegal drugs, in this case, the claim that we can "save our 
children" and somehow reduce the flow of illegal drugs by pushing growth 
into some other country, following a well-established pattern of failure as 
old as alcohol Prohibition.

No one seems perturbed that we are violating the most basic tenet of a free 
market: Supply will always adjust to meet demand.

The more society tries to disrupt the supply of drugs to the major 
consumers [the 20% of adult users who use about 75% of the drugs] the more 
this interdiction will provoke surplus production and increase the 
availability of those drugs to children. As an opponent of alcohol 
Prohibition once said, "You can vote to repeal the law of gravity, but if 
you jump off the capitol to celebrate, we'll still have to scrape you up 
with a shovel."

In the specific case of the U.S., the world's largest drug consumer, 
efforts to stop supply also move the source of supply to within our 
borders, a process which has already occurred with marijuana, and with 
cocaine substitutes such as the amphetamines. In essence, stills and 
bathtub gin are back in fashion.

Our success in stopping supply is easily measured by the price of the drugs 
and the annual reports of teens about drug availability. Both measures 
testify to our failure: prices have plunged over 70% in 30 years and 
unparalleled availability to children are clear testaments to our failure. 
The Catch 22 nature of the drug war also means that "success" will drive up 
prices which will then create more crime to pay for the drugs and more 
innocent victims than the drugs themselves claim.

The availability of specific drugs to children could be limited if adult 
users needed a license to buy those drugs. Access by children would be even 
more limited if the quantities sold to adults were controlled by strictly 
regulated prescription.

Even with an illegal market, access by children could be sharply reduced by 
creating a wide differential in punishment between sale to adults and sale 
to children. Harsh punishment for sales to adults makes sellers less 
inclined to avoid sales to children and it provides an incentive for 
dealers to employ children. A system of fines for sales to adults would 
also generate revenue rather then drain resources to pay for more prisons.

There is an inexhaustible supply of drugs and the minor players who sell 
them. They are pawns that the illegal market can instantly replace as 
easily as your super market can replace a stolen box of corn flakes or the 
clerk at the check out counter.  Any "success" will be a two-edged sword 
that drives up the value of the jackpot being sought. We won't make 
progress in the real world by making problematic behavior more profitable. 
The real dilemma produced by the removal of low level dealers is that their 
replacements are often teens; a system that creates job openings for the 
young in crime's most profitable shadow economy is doomed to make the 
problem worse.

Again: Supply will always adjust to meet demand. This means that to reduce 
supply we must reduce demand. Nothing else matters. Reduced demand is 
partly a function of making multiple methods of treatment available, but 
more important is to replace propaganda with honest, trustworthy, education 
free of hypocrisy. The real key lies in the type of prevention that deals 
directly with helping children develop the personal responsibility and the 
positive orientation toward life that makes drug dependency repugnant.

If we genuinely want to help our children deal with drugs, we must stop the 
wasteful diversion of our money and energy into the supply side of the 
problem. A first step would be to steadily cut the funds for interdiction 
and incarceration and channel them into prevention.

Raising a curious or rebellious teen in a system that has harsher 
punishment for adult drug use is an open invitation to experimentation 
while still young. Yet we know statistically that youthful drug use delayed 
is adult drug abuse avoided.  Ultimately, we must work to find the most 
palatable alternatives to prohibition and eliminate the illegal market. 
This is the road to the least harm to society and the most effective 
protection for our children.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart