Pubdate: Mon, 1 Feb 2010
Source: Indianapolis Star (IN)
Copyright: 2010 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.
Contact: http://www2.indystar.com/help/letters.html
Website: http://www.indystar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/210
Author: Sheila Kennedy
Note: Kennedy is professor of law and public policy at the Indiana 
University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis.

DESPITE ALL THE EVIDENCE

I'll admit to being one of the multitude of fans who have made shows 
like "NCIS" and "CSI" such hits. It isn't that I don't recognize how 
unrealistic they are; no publicly financed lab could afford such 
cutting-edge equipment even if someone invented it. But I love 
watching the search for hard evidence, and the characters' 
willingness to abide by what that evidence shows even when the result 
is to exonerate some really unattractive suspect.

Wouldn't it be nice if those we elect to make policy were similarly 
devoted to evidence-based decision-making?

In the real world, unlike the televised version, policymakers 
routinely disregard research that doesn't match their ideological 
preferences. I'm not talking about a couple of studies where the 
results are ambiguous, or subject to conflicting interpretation. I'm 
talking about policies where the evidence is copious and expert 
consensus compelling. Global climate change is one such area; our 
incredibly expensive drug war is another.

Some years ago, I got a call from a teacher in Northern Indiana who 
wanted to arrange a public forum on the pros and cons of our punitive 
drug policies. In private conversations, the chief of police, a local 
judge and the prosecutor had all told him that prohibition simply 
doesn't work. Not one of them, however, would repeat those sentiments 
in public. My students who are police officers consistently tell me 
that alcohol, which is regulated but legal, is a much greater problem 
than marijuana, because people are more aggressive when they are 
boozed up than when they are zoned out.

The fiscal consequences of our current policies are staggering. In 
2005, an economics professor at Harvard reported that replacing 
marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation 
similar to that used for alcohol would produce combined savings and 
tax revenues between $10 billion and $14 billion per year. Estimates 
from a variety of sources are that marijuana prohibition costs U.S. 
taxpayers nearly $42 billion dollars a year in criminal justice costs 
and lost tax revenues. This is just from marijuana prohibition -- not 
efforts to control harder drugs.

It's estimated that the money spent annually on the drug war would 
pay for a million additional teachers.

Then there are the opportunity costs. Indiana used to have a robust 
hemp industry. Hemp is an enormously versatile and useful product 
that cannot be smoked or used as a recreational drug, but our 
indiscriminate policies outlaw its growth. They also prohibit use of 
marijuana to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy.

Other states have begun to rethink these policies. Fifteen states 
have legalized medical marijuana. Oakland, Calif., has begun 
assessing a sales tax on marijuana sold in marijuana dispensaries.

I recently had a call from a group hoping to convince the Indiana 
legislature to revisit policies on medical marijuana. The caller 
asked what the evidence showed.

I told him that the evidence conclusively demonstrated two things: 
that the drug war is costly and counterproductive, and that in 
politics -- unlike television -- evidence is irrelevant and ideology rules.
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