[Vision2020] Drunks, drugs, and the empathy factor

[David M. Budge]

You'll get no argument out of me that the War on Drugs is a horrific 
waste of time, money and energy. You will find no one in greater 
opposition to national drug policy than in yours truly. Commenting on 
what Bush has or has not learned is beyond my, and dare I say your, 
ability to know.  But you bring up a particular hot button issue with 
me.  I am an anti-War on Drugs activist.

Some facts are required here just to uncast aspersions. The 
discriminatory drug laws you mention were signed into law by Bill 
Clinton. Mandatory sentencing imposed by congress was set in play in the 
1980's under Reagan, but one must concede that these laws were put on 
the books while the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress. 
Spending on drug treatment programs has increased under the Bush 
administration a total of 21% through his first term.  This compares 
with a 25% increase over the Clinton second term. The drug policy law 
enforcement budget increased 15% for Bush compared to a 25% increase for 
Clinton. It was also the Clinton administration that moved $30 billion 
in drug control money from Justice to Defense and Foreign Affairs 
budgets thereby minimizing the "costs" to the Justice Dept. budget - a 
shell game that Congress has a nasty habit of doing. Also noteworthy is 
the rate of sentences for drug crimes as a percentage of total sentences 
has fallen to around 55% from its high in 1995 of 60%.  Bush's 2006 
proposal includes proportional increases for, treatment, law enforcement 
and interdiction.  However, he has proposed eliminating the "Safe 
Schools" program (previously the funding for D.A.R.E.) that was enacted 
under Clinton and the efficacy of which is highly suspect  (beyond 
getting kids to turn in their pot growing parents to the local 
constabulary.) There is also a reduction in block grants for state drug 
law enforcement but that has no effect on treatment. Additionally, the 
Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP) has an official position to support 
alternative treatment programs in lieu of incarceration and "drug 
courts" at the state level. Under the proposed budget,  prevention 
research has been reduced, but that's after a 29% increase in Bush's 
first term.  If you can find different facts please share them, but I 
see nothing in the current dialogue to substantiate your claim of Bush's 
budget proposal. Ergo, the folly of U.S. drug policy is bipartisan and 
is supported by an overwhelming majority of both parties.

With all that though, federal drug enforcement policy is a minor part to 
the entire problem of drug policy.  For example, in 2003 about 80,000 
prisoners were held in federal prisons for drug crimes.  That compares 
with well over 250,000 held in state facilities.  Remember too, that 
Federal law enforcement rarely prosecutes anyone not subject to 
trafficking statutes.  Few federal prisoners are thus in the prime 
population for which rehabilitation programs would be targeted.  Hence, 
if complaints are to be made, they should more rightly be directed at 
the states rather than George Bush.  It is true, however, that under 
John Ashcroft there has been a concerted effort to arrest people 
otherwise complying with various state's medical marijuana statutes.  
This is wrong-headed and Bush deserves blame.

Greater context is in order at this point. Sometime around 1992, during 
the height of the crack epidemic, the TV show Nightline had a panel 
discussion that led to a national debate on drug policy.  If you'll 
recall, the then mayor of Baltimore (I think) had called for the 
decriminalization of illegal drugs.  The debate has hence fallen out of 
the public conscienceless as Americans tend to have the attention span 
of a gnat.  On the right were formidable conservative minds such as 
Buckley and Will.  On the left, an equally august group of notables 
including Jesse Jackson.  The conversation went against all conventional 
wisdom.  Conservatives were largely for the dismantling of the War on 
Drugs while the liberals insisted that the war needed to continue to be 
waged but the systemic racism was deleterious to minority communities.  
Importantly, this was the genesis of the debate over treatment v 
incarceration.

In 1994 William F. Buckley, Jr. gave a now famous speech on the failure 
of the War on Drugs to the New York Bar Association.  It was largely 
lauded by bar members but written off as political heresy by both the 
left and the right.  Politicians will not embrace a reduction in drug 
enforcement.  It makes them appear to be soft on crime.  In last years 
budget cycle Democrats and Republicans such as Carl Levin, Orin Hatch, 
Joe Biden and Jeff Sessions all called for higher dollars for drug 
enforcement. A few have encouraged greater spending on treatment, but 
that's political doublespeak as the vast majority of treatment programs 
are in the hands of the various states. Implementing such would decrease 
the need for federal funding as the costs to the states would ostensibly 
be reduced significantly.  From the vantage point of a non-partisan, it 
is difficult to lay blame on the administration without equally laying 
blame on the entire corpus politic. In following what remains of the 
national debate, conservatives are far more vocal in realizing the 
failure of the policy than are progressives.  The advocates of 
liberalized drug policy?;  Buckley, George Will, Milton Friedman, George 
Schultz, the Cato Institution, and the editorial boards of The National 
Review and Reason Magazine to name a few. 

Now let us think in terms of the economics.  The federal budget, with 
hidden expenditures in both the foreign relations and defense budgets, 
spends about $50 billion per year on drug control policy. The states 
cumulatively spend another $125 billion.  This does not include the cost 
of crime associated with the drug trade.  In Buckley's 1994 speech he 
estimated from various sources that the cost of crimes perpetrated on 
citizens was $330 billion a year.  That was in 1994.  Assuming for the 
sake of discussion that that value is true today, the total cost to 
society exceeds of the federal budget deficit by about $90 billion.  
Meanwhile, overall drug use remains at record levels.

Next, we must address the efficacy of rehabilitation programs.  From a 
cursory view of its fiscal implications this seems like a no-brainer.  
The annual cost of incarceration is roughly $50,000 while a four week 
tour in a rehab center runs about $10,000.  However, according to the 
National Mental Health Association the rate of recidivism is roughly 
85%.  Thus the efficiency of funds spent on treatment is very low.  
Additionally, the NMHA concedes that clinical programs are no more 
successful than vanilla 12 step programs over the long term.  It appears 
then, that the push for treatment has an economic component for the 
mental health industry that does not pass impartiality.  After all, 
programs supported by the state will have an dramatic impact on 
increasing revenues for programs that are no more effective than the "$1 
per meeting toss in the basket" at  AA or NA.  The undeniable truth is 
that drunks and addicts don't change their behavior until they decide to 
and forced intervention is marginally effective at best.   As in 
Montana, if an offender fails a prescribed drug treatment program he is 
remanded to the prison system.  The issue of who defines success is 
problematic.  For instance, if a juvenile does not show appropriate 
progress in drug prevention classes as defined by the provider, the 
clinician will recommend to the court that additional intervention is 
needed.  Thus, there is an economic incentive for the program providers 
to keep juveniles in "the system."  This not only has economic 
implications but also removes jurisdiction of the offender from the 
courts to the health care system.  But if we are to approach the issue 
as a health problem, then why are we collectively maintaining it as a 
criminal affair?  The upshot is the artificial bloating of an industry 
that does not pass the edicts of supply and demand and produces a 
construct held in some economic purgatory that is neither effective or 
efficient.  Therefor, is treatment a panacea?  Not likely.

The answer to this conundrum is to legalize drugs and control them with 
a similar structure as we now do alcohol. Additionally, federal funds 
might be well spent on broad public education programs.  Now, don't get 
me wrong.  I think addiction is a cancer on society.  It destroys 
families and lives. But we must face the failure in our policy.  
Terrorism is substantially funded by profits from the drug trade.  Those 
profits are a direct consequence of black market economics. (So when you 
vote for drug laws you vote for terrorism.) Afghani farmers would likely 
grow food instead of opium and Colombians coffee instead of coca.  Gang 
related homicide would be greatly reduced and our prisons would expunge 
350,000 inmates.  Automatically the systemic racism of the current 
policy would be made null. That is not to say that liberalization would 
not have a downside.  Drug usage would increase for a time until society 
came to grips with the hazards.  This, however, would become reality as 
it has with the continual decrease in tobacco use.  But the current cure 
is far worse than the disease.

Why then, if the facts are so apparent, do we not make the jump?  
Because it is politically expedient for politicians to contend that they 
are looking out for the public and keeping their greater constituencies 
in the dark as to the costs and failures. With these huge dollars also 
come political power. Political expediency is not solely owned by George 
Bush and thinking so is sophistry.

I'll give W credit where credit is due and I'll criticize him when he's 
due as well.  It would serve the rest of us to lay blame in a far 
broader swath - all partisanship aside. 

Dave Budge

ps.  I also lay blame on the baby-boom generation (yes, it includes me) 
who has capitualted its idealism and ceded authority to government.  
Just mind boggling. (and Hunter Thompson- RIP-would agree.)



Joan Opyr wrote:

> Dave Budge writes:
>  
> "Bush quit drinking and he probably quit drugging as well.  That, is 
> his redeeming virtue. I can tell though that you may have difficulty 
> understanding the difference between virtues and values. You should 
> spend some time with that.  You're proselytizing from the cheap seats 
> on this issue."
>  
> I would agree with you, Dave, except for the fact that Mr. Bush 
> appears to have learned nothing from his experience as an alcoholic 
> and a drug user about tolerance, rehab, detox, and treatment rather 
> than incarceration for addicts.  The sentences for crack users (who 
> tend to be the poor and/or minorities) are still greater than for 
> upper class white coke users.  We put far too many impoverished, 
> black, native, and latino/latina addicts in jail, and the current Bush 
> budget will ensure that the already scarce dollars now available for 
> treatment become as rare as hen's teeth.
>  
> FYI, I am not proselytizing from the cheap seats.  Would that I were.  
> I grew up in a family of alcoholics.  My grandfather, with whom I 
> lived during my teenaged years, was an every-weekend binge drinker.  
> My father was a coke user, a pothead, and a small-time dealer.  I've 
> experienced the Al-Anon side of AA and the pacing-the-floor concerned 
> family members' side of detox.  Once your favorite resident drunk has 
> again A) punched his wife in the mouth; B) set fire to the dog; or C) 
> wrecked your birthday/Christmas/Hanukah/Thanksgiving/Easter/Fourth of 
> July by loading up the shotgun and threatening to shoot the first 
> bastard who dares to eat a deviled egg, I can only say that it's hard 
> to be sympathetic or supportive when he or she goes to AA to collect 
> that fourteenth white chip.  All is not forgiven, and the well of 
> sympathy does run dry.
>  
> And speaking of dry, dry drunks are often more annoying that wet 
> drunks.  The narcissism is still there, but it's channeled into 
> intolerance and sanctimony.  I'm sure you recall some years back when 
> Jeb Bush's daughter, Noelle, was arrested and placed in detox.  
> The Bush family asked that the press please respect Noelle's privacy 
> and that they be allowed to deal with her addiction as a family.  I 
> would be all for that, were it not for the fact that Jeb, the Governor 
> of Florida, and his brother, the President, did not and do not accord 
> that same degree of privilege to other users.  Other users are 
> incarcerated.  Other users can never again qualify for federal student 
> financial aid.  Any number of obstacles are thrown up in their paths 
> to ensure that they remain forever on the fringes of society, never 
> able to join that magical 15% who get clean and sober and build a 
> worthwhile life.  (Or, alternatively, get elected.)
>  
> Yes, it's remarkable that George W. Bush got sober.  It's horrible, 
> immoral, and tragic that he then chose to embrace hypocrisy for the 
> sake of political advancement.
>  
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment  
>
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