The national policy of drug prohibition has not appreciably reduced the supply of illegal drugs, but it has bred crime and violence on a mas-sive 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 mari-juana, 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 increas-ing 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 dan-gerous drugs, and continued erosion of civil liberties. There are alterna-tives to having a drug war forever. We urge the administration and Con-gress to appoint a national commission to evaluate the available options.

No serious alternative to prohibition would constitute abandon-ment 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 op-tions:

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

•    Reduction or elimination of criminal sanctions for drug pos-session and use, lessening the costs associated with prosecut-ing individuals who pose no immediate threat to others. Treat-ment 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 under-mined by statutory mandatory sentences and mandatory sen-tencing 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.