What's Wrong With the War on Drugs?

President Bush launched his administration's war against drugs just over two years ago on September 5, 1989. The strategy announced by the president and his first drug czar, William Bennett, rubber-stamped the Reagan drug control approach. In addition it promised more money, better coordination and a full commitment from the commander-in-chief.

President Bush has intensified the war, but recent National Institute on Drug Abuse statistics show that victory in the drug war is still far from a reality. Indeed, on many fronts the problems are getting worse. Meanwhile, the war on drugs is costing the states and federal government billions of dollars, overfilling our prisons, breeding crime and violence, and failing to treat those people who desperately want help.

Drug War at an Impasse

The drug war was the centerpiece of the administration's early domestic agenda. But as the months wore on, the drug czar became discouraged and abandoned his post, leaving the drug war adrift. Leadership at the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been slow to develop, and staff shake-ups have hampered coordination and progress. The issue has fallen from the headlines even as many of the social problems related to illegal drugs have increased.

Drug-related crime and violence have reached record levels today. In 1990, 23,438 Americans were murdered — a record figure fueled in part by drug trade-related violence. While final figures for 1991 are not available yet, all indications are that the homiciderecord will be broken again. This worsening of the highest priority drug-related problems is the paradoxical result of increased drug enforcement. As Nobel Laureate economist Milton Friedman has pointed out, the homicide rate has gone up in response to increased competition among drug sellers, much as it also climbed during alcohol Prohibition.

AIDS continues its deadly spread in our society, with close to one-third of all cases traceable to the use of infected needles by intravenous drug users. The worst aspect of this gruesome situation is that the spread of AIDS via dirty needles could have been prevented all along. Federal drug war policy makers have refused to consider the single measure that could undeniably and immediately reduce the number of people contracting the disease through infected needles: sterile needle exchange. By shutting down the spread of AIDS among addicts, we would also reduce the incidence of the disease among their sexual partners and children, thus helping curb the disease among the mainstream population.

Our courts and prisons are being flooded with drug cases, pushing federal, state and local courts to the breaking point. Over 1.2 million Americans now live behind bars, giving the United States the highest incarceration rate in the free world. In some cities, it is now virtually impossible to try a civil case because all the judges' dockets are filled with drug cases, many of which involve only small transactions or simple possession. What is worse, every drug dealer arrested is simply replaced the next day by someone else who needs money desperately enough to risk arrest by the police or death by competing traffickers.

Drug use-related problems continue to escalate. Drug-related deaths have not declined during the last decade. Emergency room mentions of illegal drugs have fluctuated, but the most recent government figures indicate drug emergencies are on the increase again. And according to both the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Senate Judiciary Committee, so-called "hard-core" drug use is also rising.

Poor and Minority Communities Have Been Disproportionately Affected by Enforcement Emphasis

Because the illegal drug business thrives where legitimate economic opportunities are limited, drug enforcement has inevitably become focused on poor and minority communities. The result is a striking disproportionality in arrest and incarceration figures, where minorities are represented at two to three times their percentage in the general population.

According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, blacks make up 12 to 15 percent of the nation's illegal drug users. Yet in 1989, 41 percent of those arrested on drug charges were black. According to the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, the United States has more young black men in jail than South Africa on a per capita basis. Blacks make up 46 percent of the U.S. prison population.

The long-term impact of disproportionate drug enforcement on the livelihood of minority communities is still not well understood. But with statistics showing that nearly one in four young black males is either in prison, on parole or on probation, common sense says employment prospects for many minorities will be hampered well into the next generation. Having thousands of fathers in jail also hinders the development of strong family values. So long as the illicit drug business continues to operate in these communities and enforcement efforts target them with the same vigor, the prognosis is grim.

Time for Change to Salvage the Future

The president's drug war is failing to achieve its stated, objectives, and is doing more harm than good. As our nation plans for the year 2000 and beyond, it is imperative that the mistaken approach to drugs that has dominated the last several decades be reconsidered seriously. It is time to turn the corner and focus on methods that work to reduce drug abuse and corollary social problems.

It is time for drug czar Bob Martinez and President Bush to admit that our nation's drug policy needs a new focus, a new direction and a new conscience. To aid the development of a rational and humane alternative to the war against drugs, the Drug Policy Foundation hereby offers a reform agenda for 1992.

Purpose of this Strategy

As critics of the drug war, we have consistently been asked to produce a concrete, alternative plan to show our differences with administration policy. We have often made such proposals. This strategy represents a summary of those which could be immediately implemented.

Our agenda has been formulated with an eye towards achievability. Each of the policy recommendations urged herein could be implemented by the Bush administration without significant changes in the drug laws. Each idea, however, could go far toward bringing a needed dose of compassion and pragmatism into the national anti-drug effort.

Only slight statutory changes are recommended here. Some of the items would merely require voluntary reforms by the states. We at the Drug Policy Foundation have attempted to meet drug-war policy makers halfway by urging reforms that fit within the current legal framework.

We hasten to add, however, that we feel the war on drugs is the result of fundamentally flawed assumptions about drugs and drug users. The drug war provides our nation little more than a course for disaster, because like all prohibition policies it ignores basic rules of economics. One of the cruelest ironies of our attempts to suppress drugs is that such efforts actually expand the illegal market, enriching villains and creating incentives for people to "push" drugs on others.

Hence, the final recommendation that alternative policies be seriously examined. The Bush administration's strategy — stay the course — offers little hope of short- or long-term success.

To date, the administration has avoided an swering fundamental questions about long-term drugpolicy. We believe this great nation must now reform its current approach and consider finding new ways of thinking about drugs. We encourage all Americans to join us in helping develop a sensible and compassionate alternative to a permanent war, a war fought not to win but to prove the ideological zeal of those who fight it.

Reverse Drug Policy Funding Priorities

President Bush should eschew the course set by his first drug czar and give highest priority to drug education and treatment. Current drug control policy director Martinez should take the lead in this effort to refocus administration policy. Reversing the current 70-30 percent funding disparity favoring law enforcement over drug prevention is a moral imperative.

Priorities Are in the Numbers

When all is said and done, the Bush administration's drug-fighting priorities show clearly through the budgets it proposes each year. Since the first national strategy in 1989, the administration has consistently pushed for more than twice the money for drug law enforcement than it has asked for drug treatment, prevention and education combined. Yet administration spokesmen repeatedly claim that declines in reported drug use are the result of successful education efforts. If that is the case, why doesn't the administration put its money where its mouth is?

In a time of unprecedented budgetary crisis, the administration is still advocating that more than $7 billion a year go to dubious efforts at interdiction, crop eradication and other enforcement activities. Inverted priorities lead the administration to quibble with Congress over smaller drug-budget items, such as a $100 million dollar drug treatment program that was not fully funded last year. The massive waste represented by much of the drug enforcement budget could be averted and education and treatment programs fully funded if the administration reversed national anti-drug priorities. It is time to go with what works and stop wasting taxpayers' dollars.

Every Law Enforcement Dollar Guarantees Bigger Prison Budgets in the Future

Heavy funding of law enforcement, as urged by the administration, is truly a loser's game. It is like hiring people to chase the horse after it has left the barn, rather than closing the door to prevent the horse from escaping. Taxpayers will get a better return on their dollars if our nation's top drug control priorities are prevention, education and treatment.

Refocusing the drug war is not just the right idea, it is becoming a fiscal urgency as well. If we do not act now to de-emphasize law enforcement, it will soon be impossible to reduce that budget. Every dollar we spend now on drug enforcement is essentially an investment in the future — of our prisons.

In each of the last three years, more than a million Americans were arrested for drug violations. Thousands will be serving mandatory minimum sentences of five years, ten years and more. Our prisons and jails are already overflowing, making it necessary to build more and more prisons just to keep up. In 1991 the federal Bureau of Prisons estimated that construction costs could soon approach $100 million a week. Factoring in operating costs for completed prisons, the BOP estimates that total prison-related fiscal obligations could be almost double the current national deficit within five years.

Acknowledging the extent of the overcrowding problem, the Bush administration recently decided to fight court-ordered limits on prison populations. It takes little thought, however, to see that this barely qualifies as a band-aid solution. Indeed, it is a dangerous idea to run most prisons at more than one and a half times their designed capacities, as the administration would like.

The only real options are to fund massive new prison construction projects or to stop flooding the prison system with small-time drug offenders. Funding more prisons is impractical at this time, with all governmental budgets under a squeeze. Thus reducing the annual number of drug convictions is virtually inevitable. This is yet another reason to focus less on enforcement and more on non-punitive approaches to drugs where possible.

Curtail AIDS: Make Clean Needles Available to Intravenous Drug Addicts

The Bush administration and drug czar Martinez should heed the advice of the National Commission on AIDS, whose July 1991 report, "The Twin Epidemics of Substance Use and HIV," urged implementation of clean needle exchange and other programs targeting addicts. The report stated in part:

We must take immediate steps to curb the current spread of HIV infection among those who cannot get treatment or who cannot stop taking drugs. Outreach programs which operate needle exchanges and distribute bleach not only help to control the spread of HIV, but also refer many individuals to treatment programs. Legal sanctions on injection equipment do not reduce illicit drug use, but they do increase the sharing of injection equipment and hence the spread of HIV infection.

The AIDS Commission used figures from the Centers for Disease Control to calculate that 32 percent of known American AIDS cases began with a dirty needle. These cases do not just reflect drug-injecting addicts coming down with the disease, but also their sexual partners and children. Injecting addicts are a major vehicle for transmission of the HIV virus because their lack of access to clean needles forces them to share injecting equipment, which is tantamount to sharing blood.

Needle Exchange Is an Urgent Requirement for AIDS Policy

There is no excuse for delaying needle exchange any longer. The nation is facing a public health crisis in the form of AIDS, and all measures to curtail the spread of the disease are urgent requirements in public policy. Recent reports from needle exchanges in Takoma, Washington and New Haven, Conn. — as well as most of Europe and Australia — show clearly and convincingly that providing addicts with sterile needles in return for used needles reduces the prevalence of AIDS and gets addicts into drug treatment programs.

President Bush and drug czar Martinez have firmly opposed needle exchange, even in the wake of the National Commission on AIDS report. Like many Americans, they have a lingering fear that needle exchange might appear to condone drug use, and they would rather addicts stop using drugs than use them more safely with clean needles. This fear ignores the studies that show needle exchange programs increase the number of addicts seeking drug treatment. Such concerns argue forcefully for providing expanded treatment options, but are insufficient to override the immediate need for needle exchange. No one can avoid the underlying reality — drug addiction is rarely fatal, but AIDS always is. An addict who contracts AIDS is ultimately lost forever, as are all the people he or she infects.

It is time to end the posturing against clean needles that results in thousands of deaths every year, and will only add more casualties the longer it persists. Continuing the present course will sow the seeds for an even greater crisis in health care, as the cost of treating AIDS patients will help bankrupt the already strapped health care system. The administration must reverse its stand on needle exchange to send a clear and urgent signal to the states and cities.

Repeal Ban on Needle Exchange Research

In addition, the drug czar should work with Congress to repeal the federal ban on use of government funds to study needle exchange. U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) sponsored a successful amendment to a 1988 public health funding bill that prohibited many federal agencies and their contractors from associating with or studying needle exchange programs. After repeal of this cruel ban, studies can be commissioned looking at the experiences of several American and foreign cities with underground and legal needle exchanges. But such studies will be no substitute for action — they must be undertaken concurrently with wider use of legal clean needle programs.

Action Now Will Help Shut Down a Major Source of HIV Infections

he administration has the opportunity to take the lead in shutting down one major vehicle for transmission of HIV, one that has led to nearly one third of American AIDS cases. Failing to take action would be a dereliction of public health responsibility of the highest order.
Increase Drug Treatment Availability

•    Develop a Plan for Drug Treatment on Demand
•    Allow Medicaid to Pay for Treatment for the Poor
•    Expand the Variety of Treatment Options Available

The drug czar should take a comprehensive assessment of drug treatment availability nationwide, then propose a target date and plan of attack for achieving treatment on demand everywhere in the United States. Governor Martinez should also work with Congress on legislation allowing Medicaid to cover drug treatment expenses for our nation's poor.

Martinez Treatment Record Lacking

Drug czar Martinez claims to have changed his stripes since his one term as governor of Florida, where he strongly emphasized law enforcement and mass arrests to control drug abuse. Under his leadership, Florida lagged one-fifth behind the average state in per capita drug treatment funding and gave less than half what the average state gave to drug education and prevention. This poor record on treatment and education came despite Florida's desperate drug problem throughout the 1980s.

Mr. Martinez now admits the importance of drug treatment and has vowed to make it a focus of his tenure as drug czar. His commitment could not come at a more urgent time. Nationwide, waiting lists for treatment programs are months long. Recent figures from the NIDA Household Survey on Drug Abuse show a particularly acute need for treatment among hardcore drug-using populations in the inner cities. Too many Americans seeking help for their drug problems are finding it unavailable or finding they cannot afford it.

Make Treatment on Demand a Real Administration Commitment

Nineteen ninety-two must be the year that "drug treatment on demand" is transformed from a mere slogan to a comprehensive program. To this end, drug czar Martinez should order his office to undertake an assessment of drug treatment availability and needs state-by-state, then work with Congress to develop a plan to achieve treatment on demand by an agreed-upon target date. Failure of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to take the lead on such an initiative will indicate a purely rhetorical commitment to providing urgently needed drug treatment services.

Part of any plan to provide drug treatment more widely must be a commitment to diversity in treatment methods and funding options. The plan should include easier access to methadone programs, religious and non-religious-based treatment and research on new treatment methods, including other maintenance drugs. In light of evidence suggesting a resurgence in heroin imports and usage, we must learn from our national experience with heroin outbreaks in the 1960s and 1970s. Methadone programs are one of the effective legacies of that experience, and they must be strengthened in preparation for the new heroin surge.

Treatment should be non-coercive and user-friendly, not a new form of punishment. Coercive treatment is particularly inappropriate when people are waiting for treatment slots. In this regard we are especially concerned about children abused in drug treatment programs. President Bush should rescind his endorsement of Straight Inc., the confrontational youth treatment center found guilty of abuses and rights violations. Reports of abuse continue to flow out of its centers across the country.

Whether a program is federally sponsored, state-sponsored, a partnership or a private program, adequate funding should be made available by state and federal authorities, subject to appropriate conditions.

This approach is the quickest way to expand treatment availability without incurring great construction and startup costs, while helping the private treatment business flourish.

President Should Tell HCFA to Arrange Medicaid Coverage of Treatment

Members of Congress and the General Accounting Office have recently pointed out the great opportunities lost because Medicaid does not cover most drug treatment services in most states. Our nation's poor, the population which can least afford treatment and which contains many of the hardest-to-reach drug abusers, would be the immediate winners if the federal Medicaid guidelines were changed. The president and director Martinez should work with the Health Care Financing Administration and Congress now to develop a policy on the use of Medicaid funds for substance abuse treatment, especially for pregnant women. This work will also serve as a model for state health services departments to expand treatment availability.

Stop Prosecutions of Pregnant Drug Users

At least 20 states have resorted to prosecuting women for using drugs during pregnancy, often through convoluted interpretations of drug trafficking laws. But this law enforcement practice is counterproductive in the long run because it frightens drug-using women away from seeking treatment and prenatal care once they become pregnant. Drug czar Martinez should use his national pulpit to urge states to cease this practice, so that pregnant women can fully utilize prenatal care and drug treatment programs without fear.

Drug War is Bad for Medicine

In one of its most destructive intrusions, the drug war has moved into the realm of medicine. Putting police and prosecutors in charge of doctors has harmed health care in a number of ways. People are denied medicines of proven efficacy, drug users and addicts are afraid to seek medical treatment of any kind, and research on drugs with potential medical uses is stunted. Doctors are afraid to prescribe adequate amounts of powerful painkillers due to the threat of unwarranted prosecution. As a result hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans live and die in pain every year.

This recommendation focuses on one specific example of the perverse effects that arise when drug war tactics are used to handle medical problems. In short, the use of criminal prosecutions may have resulted in more drug-exposed babies being born than would have existed otherwise. It is now time to reverse this basic strategic error and reduce the damage caused by criminalizing pregnant women.

Prosecutions: A Counterproductive Reaction to the Crack Baby Problem

As the problem of crack babies has received wider national attention, many states have tried to use criminalization to reduce the number of babies born to drug-using mothers. Several women have been prosecuted under a bizarre legal doctrine: "drug trafficking through the umbilical cord." This theory holds that in the 30 to 60 seconds between birth and the severing of the umbilical cord, a mother passes illegal drugs to her baby, thereby trafficking drugs to a minor.

Several states have made pregnant drug use a violation of civil codes, with punishments ranging from fines to loss of custody of the mother's children. In 1991, according to the ACLU, efforts were made in at least seven states to create the new and separate crime of drug use during pregnancy.

The problem is that such laws and prosecutions — aimed at deterring pregnant women from using drugs — have the effect of discouraging drug-using mothers-to-be from entering drug treatment programs or seeking proper prenatal care. Thus laws targeting pregnant drug users risk increasing the incidence of the very problem they were designed to curtail. Surely the threat of law enforcement action contributes to the fact that less than 11 percent of pregnant women who need drug treatment actually get it, as estimated by the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD).

Drug Czar Should Support a Moratorium on Prosecutions

Drug czar Martinez can help reverse this trend by encouraging a moratorium on prosecutions of pregnant women. That would be an essential part of any genuine effort to reduce the crack baby problem. When women caught up in the cycle of drug use and addiction become pregnant, they must know they can get immediate help for themselves and for their babies without risk of jail time or other harsh repercussions. Otherwise they will avoid help or try, against all odds, to help themselves — with disastrous results.

Supporting a moratorium on state-level prosecutions of pregnant women should be consistent with stated administration views. In the 1991 National Drug Control Strategy (p. 53), the ONDCP wrote:

Some states have brought criminal prosecutions against pregnant addicts on the grounds of fetal endangerment. Such prosecutions, however, have generally been unsuccessful, and the administration views criminal incarceration of these women as a last resort.

From these words, it is not clear whether the administration merely considers prosecutions too blunt an instrument or if it sees the genuine dangers posed by a continuation of the criminal threat against women. But it should resolve any uncertainty now and make an effort to stop this trend. A message delivered by the drug czar to the National Association of Attorneys General and the National Association of District Attorneys could instantly halt the practice.
Until women get the message that a helping hand is available, the nation risks creating more crack babies by means of laws aimed at preventing them.

Make Medical Marijuana Available to the Seriously Ill

Doctors, cancer therapists, opthamologists, and the Drug Enforcement Administration's own chief administrative law judge agree that marijuana has medical value. President Bush should order the Food and Drug Administration and DEA to join in helping make marijuana available, by prescription, to the tens of thousands of seriously ill Americans who could benefit from its use. It is fully within the president's power to take this action. There is no reason to delay this compassionate step for one more day.

FDA Should Reinstate Its Medical Marijuana Program

Last July, the Public Health Service and FDA announced the shutdown of the so-called "compassionate IND (investigative new drug)" program, which provided government-grown marijuana to sufferers of glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis and AIDS. The cancellation — announced but not yet official — came at a time when even greater need for the program was showing. Hundreds of applications had begun to flow in from AIDS patients and their doctors, who understood the medical benefits marijuana has for symptoms such as the "wasting syndrome" faced by late-stage AIDS sufferers.

The reasons given by the administration for closing down the program had little to do with science or medicine. PHS Director James O. Mason cited his concern that wider use of the compassionate IND program might undermine the administration's broader anti-drug effort. But such reasoning is fallacious. Most Americans can easily see the difference between medical uses of a drug and non-medical uses. Otherwise cocaine, morphine and other opium-derived drugs — all used medically — would be perceived much differently today.

DEA Urged to Transfer Marijuana to Schedule ll By Its Own Chief Judge

The DEA has used the same reasoning to fight the reclassification of marijuana for almost two decades. But at each critical juncture in the battle, the agency has faced defeat in objective forums. Among these was the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last April 26, where a three-judge panel unanimously agreed DEA was being "unreasonable" in its persistence in the medical prohibition. In 1988 the agency's own chief administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, had urged that marijuana be moved to DEA's Schedule II, allowing prescription of the drug by doctors.

The most flaccid argument against medical marijuana is that it is not medically effective, or that other drugs are as good or better. The administration and its defenders should try telling that to the doctors and patients who have found otherwise. Instead of taking the government's word, they are going out and purchasing the drug through illicit channels, risking arrest for relief. As a result, many have faced criminal prosecution. Sufferers of any disease should not be forced to buy their medicine on the street.

Every day tens of thousands of seriously ill Americans suffer needlessly because of the Bush administration's intrasigence on medical marijuana policy. Mr. Martinez can help eliminate the absurd stigma preventing marijuana's legitimate medical usage by assuring the nation that medical use and non-medical use of the drug are different. The president should then order the responsible federal agencies to do everything in their power to give patients with a demonstrated need access to the drug.

Appoint a Commission to Seriously Examine Alternatives to Prohibition
The national policy of drug prohibition has not appreciably reduced the supply of illegal drugs, but it has bred crime and violence on a massive scale. Education, prevention and treatment are going to be the keys to reducing drug use whether drugs can be purchased legally or only on the black market. It is time to look honestly at the experiences of other nations with illegal drugs and at our own experiences with legal drugs to develop new, health-based policies for reducing substance abuse. We must also look at effective new measures to reduce the incentives for crime, rather than focusing on punishment. Continued reliance on law enforcement as the centerpiece of drug policy would be absurd in light of its track record.

Prohibition's Failures Evident Everywhere

Efforts to stem the importation and distribution of illegal drugs have been boosted in the last decade. But little effect has been noted from these increasingly expensive and dangerous activities. The National Narcotics Intelligence Consumers Committee (NNICC), the leading federal interagency drug intelligence group, estimates that 30,000 tons of marijuana, 800 tons of cocaine and 350 tons of heroin were available to American drug users in 1990. Interdiction attempts still fail to catch anything more than 5 to 15 percent of all the drugs shipped to the United States. In short, prohibition is not preventing drugs from coming into the country, it is not preventing their distribution to all corners of the nation and it is not preventing those who wish to use drugs from doing so.
Meanwhile, drug-related violence, crime and homicide rates have reached record levels. The District of Columbia, once touted by drug czar William Bennett as a "test case" for the national strategy, broke its record for homicides for the third straight year with 489 citizens killed in 1991. Much of this violence in D.C. and in other major cities is traceable to fights among drug dealers and traffickers that would not occur without prohibition. Innocent victims caught in the crossfire comprise an increasing proportion of those killed. Many more Americans are victims of petty thefts and property crimes directly related to the high prices addicts pay for their black market drugs.

'Final Victory' Not Possible; Nation Needs a New Drug Policy Direction

It is interesting to note that only a few years into the Bush administration's anti-drug effort, we have ceased to hear talk of a "drug-free society." Perhaps this phrase — so popular in the 1988 campaign and during 1989 as President Bush prepared to launch his drug war — was never anything more than a rhetorical chimera. But its absence from the current drug debate leaves some question as to what the ultimate goal of prohibitionist drug policy really is. If no one believes illegal drugs can be completely eliminated, what will constitute the "final victory" drug czar Martinez recently said he is committed to achieving?

We fear the reality is that the administration has chosen a path favoring drug war forever, without regard to its impact on our society. This path will unquestionably lead to greater financial costs, greater violence, diminished health protection, creation of more potent and dangerous drugs, and continued erosion of civil liberties. There are alternatives to having a drug war forever. We urge the administration and Congress to appoint a national commission to evaluate the available options.

No serious alternative to prohibition would constitute abandonment of the anti-drug mission. After decades of drug war, however, we ought to be sensible enough to recognize which strategies work and which exacerbate the problems they target. With this knowledge, we can reorient our national drug policy to make it more cost-effective and less socially harmful. Alternatives considered should span the following range of options:

•    A treatment and prevention emphasis aimed at reducing the demand for drugs while imposing less of a burden on the criminal justice system.

•    Reduction or elimination of criminal sanctions for drug possession and use, lessening the costs associated with prosecuting individuals who pose no immediate threat to others. Treatment offerings could be combined with civil fines toward this end. Reducing reliance on penalties would include returning sentencing discretion to judges, whose role has been undermined by statutory mandatory sentences and mandatory sentencing guidelines.

•    Eliminating the federal monopoly on drug policy and leaving the states to decide which drugs, if any, to prohibit. States would have maximum choice to tailor drug policy in various cities and counties, as problems warranted. This model is based on the repeal of Prohibition, which returned control over the drug alcohol to state legislatures.

•    Allowing some physicians to prescribe currently illegal drugs to their addicted patients as part of a privatized treatment regime. This strategy could ultimately bring more people into treatment at less cost to taxpayers.

•    Conversion of the unregulated black market in drugs to a legal free market with moderate government regulation. This would be part of a strategy to eliminate drug-trade-related crime and thefts related to high prohibition-era drug prices. Such a change would require us to look carefully at our current policies toward legal drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, where success has been mixed.

Develop New, More Comprehensive Measures of Progress

While looking at alternatives to current policy, the commission should also develop new standards for gauging drug policy progress. At present, our nation's overall drug policy tends to be analyzed mainly in terms of changes in the rates of drug use among various populations. If certain rates go up, the drug war is viewed by some as a failure. If other rates go down, drug policies are touted as a success.

More specific standards would help make a cost-benefit analysis of drug policy possible. A cost-benefit framework based on hard numbers — including better figures on drug usage levels, crime and homicide rates, drug emergencies, data from the AIDS front, and treatment availability — could help to drive wiser policy choices. With such a framework in place, Americans will be assured that they are receiving the best possible return on their tax dollars while effectively managing drugs. New standards would also permit analysts to take all aspects of the drug situation into account in producing an informed judgment on the nation's overall drug policy.

Conclusion

We suspect — as many Americans do — that drugs are here to stay. Drugs including everything from alcohol to Xanex, coffee to cocaine, tea to cannabis, and tobacco to LSD have been around for years. They only diminish or disappear when people lose interest in them, not when governments decide to eradicate them. Given this most basic reality of the drug situation, a sane drug policy must be one which focuses on steering people away from harmful substances and harmful behaviors, and toward productive lives. Government's primary concerns in the drug policy realm should be protecting citizens from unnecessary crimes and facilitating recovery from drug dependency.

For once, it would be good to see America's leaders attack a problem without using the language and tactics of war. War tends to rally the public passions and to equip the soldiers well, but too often at the expense of not dealing with the root causes of problems.

The drug war is an unconventional war being fought against an unconventional enemy — ourselves. It is time now for all Americans to come to a solemn realization: we cannot help our neighbor by fighting our neighbor.

Drug czar Martinez, President Bush and the Congress have a historic opportunity to learn from the last two decades of intense but failed drug war. We can then make necessary changes in drug policy to help create a safer, healthier America.

Or the administration can persist in repeating the mistakes of the past.

National Drug Reform Strate' was originally published by the Drug Policy Foundation in February 1992.
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