The War on Drugs, the Economy and the Other Stuff

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Today, while visiting RealClearPolitics, my eyes were drawn to a piece by ABC journalist John Stossel, in which he makes the argument that the war on drugs is idiotic.

It is idiotic — and for many reasons.

Stossel touches on one of them — the insistence of law enforcement to interfere with transactions involving medical marijuana in states like California where it has been declared legal for that purpose.

A dozen other states also have declared medical marijuana legal.

The war on drugs is based, Stossel reports, on the fact that "U.S. law ludicrously calls marijuana a schedule I narcotic. That puts it in the same category as heroin."

Just to clarify, the word "narcotic" is applied pretty broadly to illegal substances — but many, like marijuana, are not considered narcotics in a medical sense, only in a legal sense.

Schedule I drugs have "a high tendency for abuse and have no accepted medical use." Pharmacies do not sell them, and they are not available with a prescription from a physician.

Schedule II drugs also have "a high tendency for abuse," but they may have an accepted medical use and can produce dependency or addiction with chronic use.

The likelihood of abuse or addiction declines significantly in schedules III-V. But it's worth pointing out that marijuana is the only schedule I drug of which I am aware that is not synthetically produced or enhanced.

And more and more people have concluded that marijuana does have medicinal value — for people who are suffering from cancer or AIDS or glaucoma or numerous other conditions.

But cigarettes contain a substance that is synthetically enhanced. The nicotine content in cigarettes has been manipulated by cigarette manufacturers to increase the likelihood that users will become addicted.

Cigarette addiction has been compared to heroin addiction.

But cigarettes are legal.

I don't think public health or the public's well-being ever figured into the equation, whether we're talking about legal substances like nicotine or alcohol or illegal substances like marijuana. Medical science has abundant proof that tobacco can cause a whole range of medical problems. So can alcohol — which was illegal during Prohibition.

During the days of Prohibition, a lot of people were killed because alcohol sales had been driven underground. The black market flourished. The cost of enforcing the law against alcohol was quite high, as was the loss of tax revenue (approximately $500 million annually).

Since Prohibition was repealed three–quarters of a century ago, very few deaths have been caused by clashes between law enforcement officers and alcohol manufacturers — except in a few pockets of the country where alcohol is still illegal. In 2006, U.S. tax revenue for alcoholic beverages was $5.3 billion. That's nearly 2½ times what it was 30 years earlier.

Today, we are seeing similar problems associated with the war on drugs.

Both Mexicans and Americans are dying by the thousands in an effort to keep illegal drugs from crossing the border. Many otherwise law–abiding citizens are being arrested and tried for possession of marijuana. Others are being denied job opportunities because drug screens have revealed the presence of traces of past drug use that in no way measure current impairment.

Stossel is blunt: "The war on drugs is idiotic. It deters few, drives drug use underground — making it more dangerous — and creates horrible crime."

Those reasons, apparently, aren't enough to persuade the president to revisit the issue. "I do not think that is a good strategy to grow our economy," Barack Obama said when asked about legalizing marijuana during his online town hall today.

It's worth pointing out that many of the internet participants voted for Obama and were motivated by their support for him to take part. They ranked the issues, and this was one of the major issues they wanted to address.

"I don't know what this says about the online audience," Obama joked. He might want to take it easy on that kind of thing. After all, that online audience played an important role in putting him where he is. If he's going to commit their money to bailouts for banks and corporations, he owes it to them to discuss the issues they care about.

They're paying their admission price.

Let's see. So far this year, more than $4.8 billion in federal funds and more than $7.3 billion in state funds has been spent on the "war on drugs." More than 400,000 people have been arrested for drug law offenses.

The war on drugs costs American taxpayers $40 billion a year, and the cost continues to rise. By the government's own standards, America is losing this war. Illegal drugs are cheaper and easier to obtain, and the beneficiaries of this war are organized crime, arms manufacturers, special interests and corrupt elements of law enforcement.

Joshua Green leaped into the conversation with an item at The Atlantic's website. "Legal pot sales in California generated $100 million in state tax revenue last year, a welcome infusion for a state facing a crippling budget deficit," Green writes. "Know anybody else whose budget projects red ink as far as the eye can see?"

Taxing and regulating a substance that millions continue to consume in spite of existing law wouldn't benefit the economy? Legalizing the industry — and, in the process, creating millions of jobs — wouldn't help the economy? Not spending billions of dollars to fight a losing war wouldn't be good for the economy? And not continuing to needlessly risk the lives of police officers and the citizens they are sworn to protect wouldn't be a good thing?

And the president dismisses the suggestion, making light of those who bring it up, while his secretary of state is in Mexico to discuss new strategies for a war on drugs that the United States was losing when Hillary Clinton was still the first lady of Arkansas.