Pubdate: Mon, 20 Jun 2011
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Page: A9
Copyright: 2011 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/
Website: http://www.tampabay.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419
Author: Jimmy Carter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/topic/Global+Commission+on+Drug+Policy
Cited: http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/

CALL OFF THE GLOBAL DRUG WAR

IN an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the 
Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and 
profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more 
effective control over the illicit drug trade.  The commission 
includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, 
a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights 
leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard 
Branson, George P.  Shultz and Paul A.  Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug 
effort, and in particular America's "war on drugs," which was 
declared 40 years ago today.  It notes that the global consumption of 
opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 
8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008.  Its primary recommendations are to 
substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do 
no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international 
effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than 
nonviolent, low-level offenders.

These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy 
from three decades ago.  In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the 
country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of 
marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts.  I also 
cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no 
threat to society, and summarized by saying: "Penalties against 
possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual 
than the use of the drug itself."  These ideas were widely accepted 
at the time.  But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress 
began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment 
and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug 
imports from foreign countries.

This approach entailed an enormous expenditure of resources and the 
dependence on police and military forces to reduce the foreign 
cultivation of marijuana, coca and opium poppy and the production of 
cocaine and heroin.  One result has been a terrible escalation in 
drug-related violence, corruption and gross violations of human 
rights in a growing number of Latin American countries.

The commission's facts and arguments are persuasive.  It recommends 
that governments be encouraged to experiment "with models of legal 
regulation of drugs ...  that are designed to undermine the power of 
organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their 
citizens." For effective examples, they can look to policies that 
have shown promising results in Europe, Australia and other places.

But they probably won't turn to the United States for advice.  Drug 
policies here are more punitive and counterproductive than in other 
democracies, and have brought about an explosion in prison 
populations.  At the end of 1980, just before I left office, 500,000 
people were incarcerated in America; at the end of 2009 the number 
was nearly 2.3 million.  There are 743 people in prison for every 
100,000 Americans, a higher portion than in any other country and 
seven times as great as in Europe.  Some 7.2 million people are 
either in prison or on probation or parole -- more than 3 percent of 
all American adults!

Some of this increase has been caused by mandatory minimum sentencing 
and "three strikes you're out" laws.  But about three-quarters of new 
admissions to state prisons are for nonviolent crimes.  And the 
single greatest cause of prison population growth has been the war on 
drugs, with the number of people incarcerated for nonviolent drug 
offenses increasing more than twelvefold since 1980.

Not only has this excessive punishment destroyed the lives of 
millions of young people and their families ( disproportionately 
minorities ), but it is wreaking havoc on state and local 
budgets.  Former California Gov.  Arnold Schwarzenegger pointed out 
that, in 1980, 10 percent of his state's budget went to higher 
education and 3 percent to prisons; in 2010, almost 11 percent went 
to prisons and only 7.5 percent to higher education.

Maybe the increased tax burden on wealthy citizens necessary to pay 
for the war on drugs will help to bring about a reform of America's 
drug policies.  At least the recommendations of the Global Commission 
will give some cover to political leaders who wish to do what is right.

A few years ago I worked side by side for four months with a group of 
prison inmates, who were learning the building trade, to renovate 
some public buildings in my hometown of Plains, Ga.  They were 
intelligent and dedicated young men, each preparing for a productive 
life after the completion of his sentence.  More than half of them 
were in prison for drug-related crimes, and would have been better 
off in college or trade school.

To help such men remain valuable members of society, and to make drug 
policies more humane and more effective, the American government 
should support and enact the reforms laid out by the Global 
Commission on Drug Policy.  
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom