Fighting The Drug War On The Emotional Front

TABLE OF CONTENTS (click on the section title)
• Introduction
• I want revenge for the death of my loved one!
• We should work towards reducing drug use!
  Legalization will cause millions of new users!
• And what do you do with the new abusers, who will hurt the rest of us?
• Crack users will still run amok on the streets and do violence to others!
• How would you get drugs off the streets, and away from kids?
• What do we do with drug dealers and other Bad Guys?
• But cocaine is dangerous!
• Conclusion

When will this "someday" come? I suspect it will begin during the next Presidential campaign or the one after that. If Clinton re-runs in 1996, he will try to avoid the drug issue whenever possible because his convoluted personal stance has hurt him so much. If Dan Quayle runs in 1996, he will certainly appeal to the moral benefits of drug prohibition, and Clinton will likely have to respond. If Al Gore runs in 2000 (or if Clinton does so poorly as to step down in 1996), he will likely appeal on a rational basis to end the Drug War (Gore has admitted using marijuana in a rational and non-defensive way). Someone like Quayle would address the Drug War on emotional grounds, and someone like Gore should be prepared to defend it by means other than a rational defense.

The basic rational defense of legalization is that the Drug War doesn't work:

• Billions in Drug War spending has not reduced the availability of drugs on the street.
• Maintaining an illegal market drives the price higher and hence attracts ever more smugglers and dealers.
• The violence associated with drug use is primarily due to their illegality, not due to something inherent in drug use itself.
• Personal drug use causes fewer deaths than personal tobacco use or personal alcohol use, and marijuana use has never directly caused a single death.
• Drug cases, the majority for simple possession, clog our courts and over-burden our prisons.
• Drug arrests are racially imbalanced, disproportionately convicting black males.

These are demonstrable facts. They are hardly worthy of debate, except that prohibition continues. But the prohibitionist argument against demonstrable facts will crumble, as all arguments against facts do, and they will turn to other arguments.

The basic emotional defense of prohibition is generally that drug use degrades the moral fiber of society, and specifically that drug use destroys families. Prohibitionists will trot out people who have had family members killed by drug abuse or by drug-related violence, and they will attest to how drugs killed their loved ones and permanently damaged their families. This will be a heart-felt appeal on their part and hence will be emotionally effective. Let's discuss how to avoid making that politically effective, by thinking about how to counter their heart-felt appeals.

Heart-felt appeal: I want revenge for the death of my loved one!

• You want to invade Colombia and bomb Medellin? Turning Colombia into a desert of glass will just move drug growing to Venezuela.
• You want the army to interdict imports? Turning our coasts into patrolled fortresses will just raise the price of drugs and, even if effective, would move production to northern California.
• You want to make daily police sweeps of drug-infested areas? Turning city slums into police states will force ever more clever evasion.
• You want capital punishment for all drug offenders? Turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals will make minor offenders disdain the law, and will make major offenders defend themselves with ever-heavier weaponry.

But, yes, we've got to do something to avenge the deaths of loved ones. Getting rid of the cause of your loved one's death will prevent the deaths of others' loved ones. You can't bring them back, but you can avenge their death by doing what you can to prevent the same thing happening again.

• Was the cause of death an overdose? Then remove the cause of accidental overdosing by labeling drugs with strengths and usages.
• Was the cause intentional overdose? Then give addicts a place to go for rehabilitation before they get to the point of despair.
• Was the cause drug-sale violence? Then remove the need for violence by selling drugs over the counter.
• Was the cause the result of someone else acting under the influence of drugs? Then prosecute harshly for acting under the influence of substances and push for strict legislation against irresponsible substance abuse when it hurts others.

We should work towards reducing drug use! Legalization will cause millions of new users!

The government cannot be a credible source of information as long as prohibition is in force, since the current absolutist attitude precludes anything but propaganda. If there were credible facts presented on drug use, most people would listen; credibility would occur only after prohibition ended. If you want to reduce drug use, persuade people rather than force people.

Regarding the millions of new users: Yes, lots of people would try legal pot. Some would even try an acid trip if they knew the stuff was safe and legal. And, yes, some people would get addicted. But we have to distinguish between millions of people experimenting a few times versus the few who will become addicts. Experimentation isn't bad for society (being open to new experiences is generally a positive trait) and those who are morally opposed will just say no.

Substance abuse is bad for society. Will there be millions of new substance abusers? No, not unless you believe that we're all weak-willed, that we're self-indulgent to self-destruction, and that we only avoid things which are illegal. If you believe all that, then you should promote an authoritarian police state as the answer to all of humanity's foibles. I have more faith in humanity than that -- the vast majority of people will behave responsibly and will not become abusers.

And what do you do with the new abusers, who will hurt the rest of us?

• Drug rehabilitation centers (and alcohol rehabilitation centers).
• Quit-pot clinics (and quit-tobacco clinics).
• Credible research and factual information on drug addiction (and on caffeine addiction).

Because of the moral implications of drug prohibition, drug clinics and rehabilitation centers are chronically under-funded. Addicts willing to undergo treatment typically must wait for weeks or months. Drug researchers are always in danger of political ostracization or criminal prosecution. Government information is viewed as propagandistic (à la "Reefer Madness," a hokey anti-pot film paid for by your taxes and laughed at by millions of tokers).

Personal drug use isn't the real problem -- the real problem is the societal damage from what drug abuse does to addicts and from what addicts to the rest of us. The real societal damage of substance abuse can be addressed much more effectively when we stop focusing on drug use and start focusing on substance abuse.

Crack users will still run amok on the streets and do violence to others!

The flip-side of the coin of freedom is responsibility. People who behave irresponsibly, and cause damage to others as a result, should be punished for it. Using drugs responsibly, like using alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine responsibly, might damage your health, but it doesn't damage society. If we stop bothering responsible users of drugs, we could focus on the irresponsible users.

How would you get drugs off the streets, and away from kids?

• Safety inspections to assure lack of contaminants and consistency of drug strength.
• Licensure (like liquor producers and liquor stores) to assure following the regulations.
• Taxes on drug sales to pay for inspections and licensure.
• Restrictions against selling to minors or to obviously incapacitated persons (as with alcohol).
• Regulations on advertising (as with cigarettes).

Yeah, kids will still get drugs, like they get cigarettes and booze today, despite their illegality. We can deal with kids and drugs the same way we deal with kids and alcohol or kids and tobacco.

What do we do with drug dealers and other Bad Guys?

The presidents of Seagram's, R. J. Reynolds, and Nescafé act much more socially responsibly than the heads of comparably sized drug organizations. Lobbying by the tobacco industry is considered by many to be in bad taste or poor judgment. But it's of a different magnitude of corruption than Capone's Chicago, where politicians were "owned," or Escobar's Colombia, where judges are assassinated on the bench.

What do we do with the Bad Guys who are already out there? Well, Al Capone's cohorts faded away with the repeal of alcohol Prohibition. Pablo Escobar's cohorts will fade away too. Either they'll become legitimate drug importers, or they'll go on to other criminally prohibited activities. The real problem is that drug prohibition has made some of them so wealthy that they will be hard to stop when they move to other illegal fields. We'll have to deal with that legacy of the Drug War whether we end prohibition or not. But the source of their wealth is drug prohibition -- and we can take that away from them.

But cocaine is dangerous!

Families of people who have committed suicide by hanging themselves don't advocate the prohibition of rope nor the banning of books describing how to tie a noose. We should sympathize with the families of suicide victims, whether by rope or by cocaine. We feel bad about the suicide, but banning the instrument of suicide is not an issue.

We do have a responsibility to make reasonably sure that people who don't mean to kill themselves don't do so accidentally. We should address the safety of recreational drugs by requiring rigorous safety inspections, clear warnings about its use (à la "Smoking causes cancer" on cigarette packages) and strict labeling standards.

Conclusion

We'll never win over the "Just Say No" crowd, who base their policy on morality. But most Americans care primarily about the practical implications of drug abuse, like how it has hurt their family or how it hurts society. Addressing the practical cares of most Americans is the way to answer emotional arguments. Legalization is not the moral solution -- but it is the solution to the real problems of drugs in America.