The War on
Drugs is no more successful than the War on Terror. Cocaine trafficking didn’t magically
stop when the CIA/DEA Centra Spike Team assassinated Pablo Escobar. That was a termination of
employment, not enforcement. Just like with any other management level
termination or assassination, another person simply took his place. The well-established fact that your government has been in bed with the Cartels with evidence going back to the Reagan Administration is not up for debate, but does lend to the idea that the
deck is stacked against you, whether you’re a drug user or not.
In 2010 the
Federal Government budgeted $15 billion dollars for drug war enforcement. Here
just three years later they are nearly doubling that amount with a 2013 budget of $26 billion to combat the ever growing menace, on which in 2009
it was estimated that Americans spend $64 billion on each year. The incongruity of the numbers alone means to me that
the nation’s policy is not one of enforcement so much as it is a regulation of
trade.
Currently
the United States is spending about $500 every second on fighting
the drug war. These costs are seen in specialized police and military deployed
here and abroad. A penal and judicial system that sees’s nearly half of its
cases being drug related. People, time, equipment, and money, spread across the
states through enforcement and judicial systems adds up to more than $36.7
trillion drain on the economy so far this year alone, as of this writing.
Where this
comes back to roost is when you consider that an estimate one of every 100
US adults is currently behind bars, although DoJ statistics
suggest that number is starting to plateau or even fall. While this number is
dropping, it does not change the fact that the Land of the Free has the highest incarceration rate in the world. While the plateau or drop could easily be
attributed to prison overcrowding that has resulted in early intervention and release programs, the fact remains that one in 31
adults are currently under some form of court supervision where they enjoy as
much as a 90% recidivism rate meaning that 90% of participants will be arrested again for
the same or related charges. That’s not success. That’s your money.
Given that
information, 52% of all drug arrests in the United States are marijuana related meaning 48%
are parsed out between harder drugs like your government subsidized cocaine and heroin
habits, healthcare subsidized abused medications, LSD, banana peels, whatever. In as much as the first two are exclusively manufactured
abroad, marijuana accounts for 60% of imported narcotics while domestically cultivated cannabis accounts for as much as 80% of marijuana consumed in the US. The point of course being that the policy of attacking
marijuana as a gateway drug is a fool’s errand as its popularity and
availability lends to its potential growth as a used and abused substance that
on its face has less of a negative impact than either tobacco or alcohol.
Using the
numbers provided by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, legalization in Colorado and Washington
alone can translate to as much as $46.2 billion dollars being retained in local
economies. Of the $114.2 billion spent annually on drug treatment, only 14% of persons being admitted listed marijuana which may only be as much since
18% of all admissions were for co-occurring addictions where one or more other substances
such as cocaine, heroin, or alcoholism were in play. Even if we disregard the co-occurring
factor, marijuana would only account for $16 billion in annual treatment costs.
By way of comparison in 2006 Americans spent $83.6 billion on tobacco related products. In the period leading up to those numbers, 2000 – 2004, cigarette
smoking alone was estimated to be responsible for $193 billion in annual health-related economic losses in the United States. The
economic costs of alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5 billion
while Americans are expected to account for around $120 billion in sales. Clearly the matter of regulation and enforcement is arbitrary
as it is not substantiated by matters of health, morality, or economy. So what
is it all about?
First of
course there is the money that goes into the states from the federal level to
subsidize drug control initiatives by way of grants from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
This program alone boasts of funding 17,000 state, local, and tribal officers,
analysts, and other representatives while removing a combined $32 billion from
the illicit drug trade while dismantling 2,925 drug trafficking organizations.
Funds from the individual seizures go directly back into the departments that
made the arrests. At the same time prisons are given state and federal money for each prison held that has given rise
to the private prison industry, many of which have a required occupancy rate. States will actually have to pay a penalty for not keeping
a set number of citizens in jail which disincentivizes rehabilitation. So long
as there’s more money to be had by enterprise, nothing will change.
In this
manner the transfer of taxpayer money into private hands is nothing new. The
early War on Drugs itself started as a matter of legislating in favor of
business beginning with the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act of 1932 of which Dow Chemical was a lobby
in the inclusion of Marijuana whose naturally insect resistant production competed
with the cotton industry that was dependent on Dow Chemical for pest
management. At that same time DuPont had also patented nylon of which hemp was a direct competitor, and William Randolph Hearst, whom had heavily invested himself in the deforestation of North
America found that hemp was a major competitor to wood-pulp paper production.
These same groups were also mentioned as co-conspirators to the Business Plot of 1933 in which
a group of American businessmen approached General Smedley Butler
for his help in overthrowing the United States government. None were ever
charged.
Up until
this time hemp production was a part of American life going back to the
Colonies when King James I in 1619, ordered every colonist to grow 100 plants specifically for
export that was used in the manufacture of rope and other textiles. Industrial
hemp had many uses in early America as at the time it was used in the
manufacture of textiles and even paper production where as much as 90% of the world’s paper was hemp until regulation began in 1883. The turning point
was two-fold in that the period coincided with the influx of Chinese immigrants
building the continental railroad that brought with them hashish parlors and
opium dens; complaints from soldiers that the drug didn’t provide a long-term
alternative to injury treatment; and that marijuana cigarettes were commonly
smoked by Mexican soldiers during the US-Mexican War. The latter argument was resurrected
in 1932 when the marijuana prohibition lobby put into the American psyche that
marijuana incited “Mexicans and negroes” to go on murderous rampages; innocent white women seduced into
ruin; and teenagers going instantly insane. It is from this period that we get
the movie, Reefer Madness.
Since that time much knowledge has come by way of legitimate
research into the field of cannabis that has seen its returning to medicinal use in a few states and
the recent legalization for recreational use in Washington and Colorado. With the exception of supporters, few recognize this as being
the will of the people suggesting that the majority doesn’t support the
measure, regardless that the majority of those that bothered to actually vote
did. While the two states wait for their cue from the Federal Government before creating a
control policy, the United Nations has begun pushing the federal Government for a fight on the issue
of state level legalization despite of Obama saying that the issue belonged to
the states.
The issue of
legalization has truly become an issue of states’ rights, once
the call of Reagan
that leading up to the 2012 election and immediately afterwards was the rallying cry of the GOP. They’ve been remarkably silent on this issue, so much to the point
that a Democrat
had to pick it up in seeking not to allow the Federal Government to usurp local
authority. The same as they were silent on the issue of raids inside California
and their legal dispensaries. This hypocrisy
is perhaps best exampled in laws in states like South Carolina and others that require employers to perform a mandatory check on
the residency status of immigrants unless they are employed as nannies or
groundskeepers, AKA employed by the affluent.
Clearly the
only right they care about is their right to do as they please. Otherwise Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t shut up about
it, even though he was caught up in substance abuse. Glen Beck would be on the television
drawing us pictures of some grand conspiracy to keep him from smoking pot. Bill O’Rielly would be screaming on Fox
News about this lapse in freedom. Rep. John Boehner would be standing at the speaker, crying about Obama ruining his
country. Sarah Palin would of course say something about how great Alaskan weed is. In
fact, I’m sure even Mitt Romney would
be seeking the endorsement of Snoop Dogg.
But none of that happens. They don’t have your interests at heart. They’re only
in it for themselves, and the sooner everyone recognizes whose interests they are working for, the better.
