Pubdate: Sat, 12 Jan 2013
Source: Reporter, The (PA)
Copyright: 2013 The Reporter
Contact:  http://www.thereporteronline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3468
Note: from The Orange County Register

DRUG WAR LOSES AGAIN AT THE BALLOT BOX

ONE OF THE most encouraging signs from the Nov. 6 election were the
decisions by voters in Colorado and Washington state to legalize the
recreational use of marijuana, just the latest examples of average
Americans having a better grasp of economics, the U.S. Constitution
and common sense than government officials.

Federal officials spend more than $40 billion a year prosecuting the
drug war, according to a recent Wall Street Journal column by
University of Chicago economists Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize winner,
and Kevin Murphy. That war does little more than enrich drug
traffickers, who benefit from the Prohibition-style policies that
drive up the cost of illicit drugs and, thus, increase profits and
reward the most ruthless cartels.

The time is right for the current administration to heed this reality
check.

Furthermore, drug-war policies have inflated both prison populations
and prison budgets, the economists explain. These policies also wreak
havoc on inner cities: "Many factors explain the high dropout rates,
especially bad schools and weak family support. But another important
factor in inner-city neighborhoods is the temptation to drop out of
school in order to profit from the drug trade."

The drug war also has resulted in increasingly militarized police
departments, with a resulting erosion of civil liberties as
authorities treat a social issue as if it were a military campaign.
Unfortunately, federal officials seem unlikely to follow any sensible
advice.

THE PRESIDENT is gearing up to fight the will of voters in Colorado
and Washington, just as he has been fighting California voters who
approved, overwhelmingly, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996
(Proposition 215). "Marijuana use in both states continues to be
illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act," reported the New
York Times. "One option is to sue the states on the grounds that any
effort to regulate marijuana is pre-empted by federal law."

This should confound liberal voters, who tend to support efforts to
decriminalize marijuana, and conservative voters, who want the federal
government to respect the states-rights provisions in the 10th Amendment.

Unfortunately, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have
stepped up the drug war, convinced that they can stamp out drug
addiction and its related ills by throwing government money at them.
But the "war on drugs" hasn't worked any better than the "war on
poverty" or any other government-sponsored war on social ills. It
hasn't worked any better than the original Prohibition, intended 90
years ago to stamp out alcohol use.

"A study published in 2010 in the British Journal of Criminology found
that, in Portugal, since decriminalization, imprisonment on
drug-related charges has gone down; drug use among young persons
appears to have increased only modestly, if at all; visits to clinics
that help with drug addictions and diseases from drug use have
increased; and opiate-related deaths have fallen," Becker and Murphy
wrote, rebutting the idea that ending the drug war will lead to
societal mayhem.

THE ECONOMISTS see the Colorado and Washington votes as baby steps
toward that more sensible decriminalization option. Let's hope that
they are right, regardless of how poorly the Obama administration
reacts to the most-recent votes. 
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D