II. The Costs Of Current Drug Policy

A. The Economic Costs

Whether viewed in isolation or on balance with the benefits derived, there can be no question that the economic costs of contemporary drug policy, as employed on the federal and state levels, have proved unacceptably high. Indeed, as we face a future of increasingly limited resources, the continuation of present policy, with overwhelming emphasis on the arrest, prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders, will produce exponential growth in expenditures required to accommodate and maintain this policy. (7)

As a result of the stepped up incarceration of "drug offenders" during the past three decades, since the early 1970's, our nation has seen an alarming increase in the number of individuals incarcerated within its borders. (8) Meanwhile, in addition to all other resources utilized, the need for additional prison beds and increased correctional budgets has also grown exponentially, on both state and federal levels. (9)

Other unacceptably high costs in the present "penal-based" model of drug policy have been: court budgets strained beyond capacity, affecting the ability of our court systems to adequately address both criminal and civil cases coming within their respective jurisdictions; large portions of federal, state and local law enforcement resources devoted to drug interdiction, arrest and prosecution; large portions of federal and state prosecutors' budgets devoted to drug cases; increased costs for court appointed public defenders; and growing budgets for other national and international drug enforcement efforts -- all exacting a substantial drain on the increasingly limited financial resources of the nation.

Further, the exponential growth in the number of individuals incarcerated throughout the nation has already, and will increasingly, cause incalculable economic costs in terms of: lost productivity of those individuals incarcerated; state support of families deprived of breadwinners; and the economic decline of impoverished communities through incarceration of great numbers of those in the prime of their productive lives, and their reduced earning capacity upon release from prison.

B. The Social Costs

The adverse effects of current drug policy have been felt most profoundly in the urban centers of our nation. The imposition of penal sanctions for drug possession and sale has proven a woefully ineffective and otherwise harmful means of attempting to control substance abuse in communities where, for some, drugs are often the only escape from the harsh realities of poverty. In a climate where there is no treatment on demand, criminalizing the substance abuser may be viewed as profoundly inhumane and counterproductive.

Imprisoning individuals for drug use causes further detriment to those individuals and their families, destroying family cohesion and undermining rehabilitation efforts. (10) The increase in fatherless and motherless homes, which the current policy of emphasis on incarceration causes, is extraordinarily disruptive to the family unit, where often, those harmed the most are the children. The separation of children from their primary caretakers due to long term imprisonment, often results in a marked decline in the quality of shelter, nutrition, medical assistance and emotional nurturing. Studies have shown that children whose primary caretakers have spent significant amounts of time in prison are more likely to manifest symptoms of anxiety, depression, behavioral difficulties and juvenile delinquency, which may often be followed by adult criminal activity. (11) Many of these children, often left in the care of less able caretakers, have turned to peer relationships with gangs, seeking to establish a family substitute. (12)

The criminalization and consequent stigmatization of drug users, whether or not accompanied by a period of incarceration, "marginalizes" users, since a criminal record decreases the likelihood of successful employment and complete rehabilitation, while continuing to impact upon family finances. This, in turn, exacerbates financial and social instability in households, and financial and emotional instability in neighborhoods, while burdening otherwise stretched resources of public assistance programs.

Moreover, the increased enforcement of civil forfeiture laws has further undermined the security and stability of families. Recognizing a growing trend of evictions and asset forfeiture as a further weapon employed in the "war on drugs," entire families have lost and continue to lose homes and other substantial assets for the acts of a single household member, thereby punishing even drug-free members of the community. (13)

The black market created by drug prohibition turns neighborhoods into war zones -- through turf wars over the huge profits to be made in the illicit drug industry, violent altercations over drug transactions gone bad, and battles between local drug dealers and law-enforcement officers. The increase in violent street crime which this situation engenders, aggravated by the experience of violent prison culture which incarcerated offenders bring back to their neighborhoods upon release, creates a dangerous situation for all members of inner city communities.

Moreover, the street culture of guns and violence spawned by the drug trade spills over into other social interaction in urban neighborhoods, with violence becoming a commonly accepted mode of conflict resolution. Community residents live in fear of the violent street culture generated, in large part, by the black-market drug trade, and the increased incidence of innocent pedestrians struck in the cross-fires or by stray bullets from battles involving participants in the drug trade. (14)

History has shown us that even in an atmosphere of prohibition and criminalization of drug dealing, participation in the drug trade will continue to be widespread, since it indisputably provides the greatest entrepreneurial opportunity to many in poorer communities. There is a strong economic motivation for young people and those who might otherwise be legally employed and law-abiding to engage in the sale of drugs, due to the high profits generated by the illicit industry in an environment of drug prohibition, and the dearth of opportunities for poor, uneducated youth in the legitimate job market.

Harsh sentencing laws themselves lead to the active recruitment of children and first time offenders (frequently women - "drug mules") into the drug trade, so that dealers themselves can escape such penalties. (15) Evidence further reveals, that due to the great economic incentives represented by the illicit drug trade, when one street dealer is temporarily incapacitated by incarceration, there is a ready supply of others waiting in the wings to fill the gap in the market. As such, not only does the widespread incarceration of low-level drug dealers fail to deter others from entering into the drug trade, it arguably draws more individuals into the illegal trade than would otherwise occur without the periodic removal of many of its participants. (16)

Moreover, the deterrence rationale of harsh sentencing does not necessarily operate among the drug dealing community as might be anticipated, where many assume the extraordinary risks already involved in the violent but lucrative illicit drug trade. As one observer has noted:

"Apprehended dealers are replaced from a seemingly bottomless pool, for jail is not a deterrent to those who daily risk death in the drug trade." (17)

Additionally, with respect to users of certain controlled substances, it appears questionable that conventional deterrence theory can be meaningfully applied where substance abuse may be accompanied by physical addiction.

Finally, a social byproduct of the misplaced allocation of financial resources which concentrates huge expenditures on the apprehension and imposition of penal sanctions on drug users and local drug dealers, is a clogged criminal justice system unable to focus on society's larger crime problems. Courts jammed with drug cases inevitably results in insufficient resources available to properly attend to these and other more serious crimes appearing on overburdened court dockets. This logjam leads to instances of "revolving door" justice even for violent criminals, since the system simply cannot handle the overload. (18) A further result of these conditions is a perceived trivialization of violent crime itself, reinforced by a penal scheme which punishes drug crimes as severely or more severely than many criminal acts of violence.