don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Years ago, I wrote an editorial in my Wellness Report reviewing the case for decriminalizing drug use, which included a self-management perspective on strategies that might have helped users to overcome their addictions. I recently re-read this editorial and concluded that all the arguments, witty asides and recommendations were truly on target and absolutely impeccably reasoned, morally superior and intellectually rock solid. Yet, for reasons I'll never understand, the editorial was ignored at the highest and lowest levels. Perhaps it is time to try again!

No matter one’s position on the drug war, everyone agrees that this nation needs to reduce the harm that drug use and abuse cause in our society. Among other implications, this means everyone has an interest in solutions to drug abuse that really work. We need to know, definitively, if the current drug control model is effective, that is, that is does substantially more good than harm. Most seem to favor an approach that would, in the best democratic tradition, allow cities and states greater flexibility to experiment with their own approaches to drug control. Beyond this point, disagreements increase exponentially.

Why decriminalize drugs? How is this a self-management issue? To paraphrase Browning, let me count the ways:

1. We're losing the drug war; greater spending, tougher penalties and all the rest have not stymied the flow of drugs into the country nor slowed drug usage. The drug war costs too much -- and it gets more expensive each year. The 1999 federal budget of $17.1 billion for fighting drugs is a record and is several times larger than the $3.6 billion appropriated in 1988. States and local governments spend an additional $20 billion annually on this war.
2. Too many people go to jail that don't belong there; in a truly free society, it is not for government to protect us from ourselves. Instead, we want the privacy and freedom to engage in any activity that does not interfere with the rights of others. There are over 1.7 million Americans behind bars. As of June 1996, 5.5 million Americans were under some form of control by the justice system. This translates into one out of every thirty-five adults in the nation. According to the Department of Justice, 85 percent of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 was due to drug convictions
3. At least fifty million Americans want to use these drugs, even though we don't approve of them. Most don't approve of professional wrestling either, but we don't make it illegal.
4. The popularity of or consensus for this war is waning; in some jurisdictions, forty percent of judges favor lifting restrictions on drug use.
5. Prohibition is a failed policy; education would be better. Prestigious groups such as the World Health Organization have rejected the ‘gateway’ theory. Separating the markets for marijuana and other illegal drugs may also be a wise approach because research shows that it is the black market that introduces youth to more harmful substances.
6. Legalization would eliminate the drug dealer's trade and give the military other things to do, such as downsizing!
7. Legalization would prevent future exercises in waste and incompetence like the taxpayer-sponsored reigns of federal drug czars. Even Dan Quayle considered this office a waste.
8. Harm to innocents would be reduced, as junkies would not have to commit crimes to obtain funds to satisfy their cravings. In 1991, at least 6,000 of the Nation's 24,703 reported homicides were drug-related, according to the Drug Policy Foundation. (If cigarettes were illegal, many nicotine addicts would be forced into criminal behaviors to obtain the means to get their fixes from black market sources.) In 1998, an estimated 61,000 convicted jail inmates said they had committed their offense to get money for drugs. Of convicted property and drug offenders, about one in four had committed their crimes to get money for drugs. A higher percentage of drug offenders in 1996 (twenty-four percent) than in 1989 (fourteen percent) were in jail for a crime committed to raise money for drugs.
9. Illegal drugs are actually less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, which, if invented today, would almost surely be classified as hazardous substances and banned from the market. (In 1992, seventy-one percent of drug-related deaths were connected with tobacco; another twenty-eight percent with alcohol. Illegal drugs, including cocaine, marijuana and heroin, accounted for less than one percent!) In fact, tobacco smoke has just been identified by the EPA as a Class A carcinogen and a hazard to non-smokers.
10. Resources no longer devoted to interdiction and punishment could be used for education and treatment -- for abuses of all drugs, including the two already noted that do serious damage.
11. The drug war has witnessed serious assaults on constitutional protections; forfeiture laws, mandatory sentences, "no-knock" drug raids and the rest are leading to greater police power and the diminution of personal liberties.
12. Ultimately, the justification for proscribing certain drugs is insulting, namely, that citizens are too irresponsible to take care of themselves, that without Big Brother, vast numbers, if not all of us, will become druggies.

In summary, the drug war is dreadfully bad policy, in my opinion. Of course, legalization is no panacea -- nothing is -- but, taking this route would save a fortune, protect our rights from unreasonable search and seizure, make drug use less devastating to those who choose it, cut revenue for organized crime, reduce corruption abroad (and here, too), boost the economy, cut the deficit, emasculate the drug cartels and discourage governmental intrusion on our personal freedoms. All of these reforms would serve the common good. All are surely framework wellness concerns. For these reasons, I think wellness supporters should support and promote the decriminalization of all drugs.

A top researcher at the Hoover Institution recently released a resolution signed by a variety of scholars that characterized the long drug war as a pitiful failure. The report noted that drug use and drug-related crime has increased and that the huge revenues generated by the illicit drug trade are undermining legitimate governments worldwide.

Making drugs illegal has not worked. It seems unlikely that it is ever going to work. Legalization is a wellness issue. It may sound ridiculous given the death and disease they breed, but I believe that even alcohol and tobacco should remain legal for the reasons noted above, and these two drugs are REALLY dangerous!

Drugs are like dynamite -- very dangerous but they have their purposes. Stay away from them, unless you have medically sound reasons to use one or more in a limited way for specific purposes under controlled conditions for as short a period of time as possible.

That’s my take on the matter. What do YOU think? Comments always welcomed and appreciated. Cheers.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the PHYSICAL DOMAIN under the skill area of lifestyle habits. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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