Pubdate: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Contact: http://www.seattle-pi.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408 Author: Andrew Brunette WE ALREADY KNOW THAT PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, was quoted in the Saturday P-I as saying, "Americans must confront drug use -- and therefore drug users, honestly and directly." I agree. Thoughtful people have agreed for years. In 1980 the Drug Abuse Council reported that "to state it plainly, the challenge facing America regarding drugs is to determine how best to live with the inevitable availability of psychoactive drugs while mitigating the harmful aspects of their misuse." Drug prohibition has had the same effects as alcohol prohibition had in the past century. Alcohol prohibition caused a rise in violent crime, injury to the population due to contaminated products, corruption of law enforcement and a breakdown of general respect for the law. Prohibition of alcohol caused a temporary drop in alcohol usage for the first five years, and then usage increased steadily every year after that until Prohibition was ended. When Prohibition was ended, violent crime dropped 65 percent in the following year. Drug usage has risen steadily during the past 10 years. The number of citizens who reported use of an illicit drug in the past month rose 11 percent in 2001, from 6.3 percent of all citizens over the age of 12 to 7.1 percent. Twenty percent of young adults regularly use an illicit drug, mostly marijuana. Eighty-eight percent of high school seniors report that it is easy to get drugs in their school. Our current approach does not prevent usage of drugs or access to drugs by schoolchildren. Rather, it is a waste of $40 billion a year. We need to ask ourselves if the ONDCP is being honest and direct with us when it insists that prohibition is an approach that works. Andrew Brunette Bellevue - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom