Alcohol misuse was causing so much pain across the nation in 1919 — alcoholism, domestic violence, saloon-based political corruption — that Congress decided to amend the Constitution to prohibit its manufacture, transportation and sale. So it wrote the Constitution’s 18th Amendment, 46 of the 48 states approved, and on Oct. 19,1919, Prohibition went into effect nationwide.
Prohibition temporarily slowed drinking, but people who want to drink will find a way regardless of what the Constitution says, and the result was that soon Prohibition was causing more problems than it was solving. Among the problems were bootlegging, speakeasies, gang violence and organized crime. The pain became so severe across the nation that on Dec. 5, 1933, just 14 years after they established Prohibition, they killed it with the 21st Amendment.
Nearly 40 years after that, on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon, proclaiming that drug abuse had become America’s “Public Enemy Number One,” declared a “War on Drugs.” That war continues today, more than a half century after it began, even though it has been and continues to be a total, abject, entire, absolute, dismal, indisputable, thorough, unalloyed, unarguable failure. When any high school kid anywhere can score a bag of marijuana easier than he/she can buy a can of beer, what else can you call it but a total, abject, etc. failure?
The “war” has not solved any problems that it was intended to solve because people who want to use drugs will find a way regardless of what the Constitution says, just as the people who wanted to drink alcohol did nearly a century ago.
But not only has the “war” failed to reduce drug use, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found it has predictably caused far more problems than it has solved – which, again, is zero. Since Nixon’s declaration of war, America has spent more than $1 trillion – that’s trillion with a t — on that war, and it has caused significant damage in various ways. It has led us to the highest incarceration rate in the world, disproportionately affecting Black people; resulted in record overdose deaths; exacerbated social and economic inequality, particularly affecting communities of color; led to a public health crisis rather than a reduction in drug use; created powerful drug cartels in Mexico that are a threat to everyone; and contributed to international conflicts, particularly in Latin America.
Yet, despite knowing all that, we are spending more on the “war” than we ever have, and more people are using illicit drugs than ever before.
Recently that “war” reached ludicrous levels when Donald Trump sent a naval battle group to Venezuela that includes our nation’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and at least one cruiser, two destroyers or frigates, 65 or more aircraft, a submarine, attached logistics ships, a supply ship and 7,500 people, all to prevent Venezuela from sending us drugs, which it barely does anyway. It supplies us with a tiny percentage of drugs that cross our borders from other countries.
Nevertheless, our government has blown up at least 21 of their boats because they were suspected of carrying drugs, which authorities in military war say probably constitute war crimes since we’re not at war with Venezuela (the “War on Drugs” doesn’t rise to the definition). The attacks have killed at least 82 people, which the authorities say were probably murders, and two of them almost certainly were.
All that to keep us safe from drugs entering America from Venezuela. Venezuela! for crying out loud. Venezuela!
Wouldn’t it be better to do what our forefathers did when they saw Prohibition was causing more problems than it was solving? They repealed it. Since prohibition of drugs is causing modern America even more pain and damage than Prohibition of alcohol ever did, wouldn’t it be better for us to end the war, just like they ended Prohibition? We wouldn’t even have to amend the Constitution.
In the early 2000s, several of us got together and formed South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform. Not to encourage drug use, but rather to make drug addiction a medical problem, not a legal problem. We would legalize the sale and use of such drugs such as heroin and cocaine, tax their sales, and use the income to thoroughly and honestly educate the public about drugs’ uses and abuses, and to operate hospitals for addicts. That way, addicts could pay in advance for their own treatment. (Imagine where we would be today if we had spent that $1 trillion on education and treatment rather than “war.”)
Our group’s effort never went anywhere, just as the idea hasn’t gained much traction on the national scale — until, maybe, now. Thanks largely to Donald Trump and his asinine and badly failing attempts to keep drugs out of our country (Venezuela?!), things may be changing. His incompetence in this matter may be shining a spotlight on drug prohibition’s colossal failure.
The single organization that is leading the way is an organization named Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP). LEAP began in the United States in 2002 when two police officers created it to bring common sense to dealing with drugs. The organization grew as active and retired police officers, judges, prosecutors and other criminal justice professionals joined in and dedicated themselves to legalized regulation of drugs. LEAP changed its name in 2017 and now it focuses on five key areas: ending the war on drugs, improving police-community relations, reducing and finding alternatives to incarceration, improving access to harm reduction services, and global issues. It also has grown into an international organization with thousands of members.
If you are interested in our nation’s drug policy, would like to peruse a treasure trove of useful drug war facts that fly in the face of accepted wisdom, check out
druglawfacts.org. It is compiled and regularly updated by Common Sense for Drug Policy (CommonSenseForDrugPolicy.org) and it is a veritable one-stop encyclopedia for drug information. It provides reliable information with applicable citations on important public health and criminal justice issues. Most of the information is from government sources, peer-reviewed journals, and, occasionally, newspapers.
And let’s get on with creating a drug policy in this nation that makes sense.
- The war on drugs was always a war on people — that’s why it doesn’t work
- Amid Trump threats, what has the US’s ‘war on drugs’ achieved in 50 years?
- Trump’s Boat Strikes Could Make the Cartel Problem Worse
- The Geopolitics of Trump’s War on Drugs
- Avoiding a new US “war on drugs”
- An effective and humane approach to drug policies
