{"id":172,"date":"2018-09-21T18:03:16","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T18:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-socialproblems\/chapter\/7-5-drug-policy-and-the-war-on-illegal-drugs\/"},"modified":"2019-07-02T13:22:01","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T13:22:01","slug":"7-5-drug-policy-and-the-war-on-illegal-drugs","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-socialproblems\/chapter\/7-5-drug-policy-and-the-war-on-illegal-drugs\/","title":{"raw":"7.5 Drug Policy and the War on Illegal Drugs","rendered":"7.5 Drug Policy and the War on Illegal Drugs"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n
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  1. Explain whether the DARE program is effective.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Outline the goals and examples of a harm reduction approach to drug use.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. List the problems arising from the current legal war on illegal drugs.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    For many decades, the United States has used several strategies to try to deal with drugs. These strategies generally fall into four categories: treatment, prevention, harm reduction, and, for certain drugs, criminalization and the use of the criminal justice system, or, as we will call it, the war on illegal drugs. We now turn to these strategies.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Treatment<\/h2>\r\n

    Treatment programs are intended for people who already are using drugs, perceive they have a drug problem, and want to reduce or eliminate their drug use. This strategy is probably familiar to most readers, even if they have not used drugs themselves or at least have not had the benefit of a treatment program. Treatment programs often involve a group setting, but many drug users also receive individual treatment from a psychiatrist, psychologist, or drug counselor. Perhaps the most famous treatment program is Alcoholics Anonymous, a program that involves alcoholics meeting in a group setting, acknowledging their drinking problem and its effects on family members and other loved ones, and listening to each other talk about their situations. Other group settings are residential settings, sometimes called detox units<\/em>. In these settings, people check themselves into an institution and stay there for several weeks until they and the professionals who treat them are satisfied. Perhaps the most famous residential treatment program is the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California; this center was established by and named after an acknowledged alcoholic who was the wife of President Gerald Ford.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1500\"]\"Betty The Betty Ford Center is a residential detox unit for people with alcohol and other drug problems.[\/caption]\r\n

    In addition to or in conjunction with group treatment programs, individual treatment for drug addiction may involve the use of \u201cgood\u201d drugs designed to help wean addicts off the drug to which they are addicted. For example, nicotine gum, patches, and other products are designed to help cigarette smokers stop smoking.<\/p>\r\n

    The various forms of treatment can be very effective for some addicts and less effective or not effective at all for other addicts; most treatment programs have a high failure rate (Goode, 2012). A sociological perspective suggests that however effective treatment might be for some people, the origins of drug use ultimately lie in the larger society\u2014its social structure, social interaction, and the drug culture\u2014and that these roots must be addressed for serious reductions in drug use to occur.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Prevention<\/h2>\r\n

    Because it is always best to try to prevent a problem before it begins, an important strategy to deal with drug use involves prevention. The major prevention strategies involve drug education or drug testing (Faupel et al., 2010). Many education-based prevention programs focus on children and adolescents. This focus reflects the fact that use of most drugs begins during adolescence, and that if adolescents do not begin using drugs during this period of their lives, they are much less likely to do so when they become adults. Some education strategies follow what is called an informational model<\/em>: they involve public-service advertising, the distribution of drug pamphlets in medical offices, and other such efforts. Several studies question the effectiveness of strategies based on this model (Faupel et al., 2010).<\/p>\r\n

    Other education programs take place in the secondary school system and on college campuses. The most famous such program is almost certainly DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), which involves police officers speaking to middle-school children. DARE programs have been carried out in more than 7,000 schools across the nation. However, several studies find that DARE programs do not generally reduce subsequent drug use among the children who attend them compared to children who do not attend them (Faupel et al., 2010).<\/p>\r\n

    Drug testing is very common in today\u2019s society, and you may well have been required to have a drug test as part of an application for a job, involvement in a school sport, or other activity. At least half of US workplaces now perform required drug tests. Drug testing is expensive, and many critics say it is not cost-effective in view of the low prevalence of illegal drug use in the United States (Faupel et al., 2010).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Harm Reduction<\/h2>\r\n

    A third strategy involves harm reduction<\/a><\/span>. As this term implies, this strategy attempts to minimize the harm caused by drugs. It recognizes that many people will use drugs despite efforts to prevent or persuade them from doing so and despite any punishment they might receive for using illegal drugs. Our nation is currently using a harm reduction approach with regard to alcohol and tobacco. It recognizes that tens of millions of people use these products, and designated-driving programs and other efforts try to minimize the considerable harm these two drugs cause.<\/p>\r\n

    A specific harm reduction strategy with regard to illegal drugs is the provision of clean, sterile needles for people who inject themselves with heroin, cocaine\/crack, or other drugs. Many of these users share needles, and this sharing spreads HIV, hepatitis, and other diseases. If they have a supply to sterile needles, the reasoning goes, the transmission of these diseases will be reduced even if use of the drugs with the aid of the needles does not reduce. Critics say the provision of sterile needles in effect says that drug use is OK and may even encourage drug use. Proponents reply that needle-based drug use will occur whether or not sterile needles are provided, and that the provision of sterile needles does more good than harm. Other nations have adopted this type of harm reduction much more extensively than the United States.<\/p>\r\n

    Another harm reduction strategy involves the use of drug courts<\/a><\/span>, which began in the 1990s and now number more than 2,500 across the United States. In these courts, drug offenders who have been arrested and found guilty are sentenced to drug treatment and counseling rather than to jail or prison. Evaluation studies show that the courts save much money compared to imprisoning drug offenders and that they are more effective than imprisonment in reducing the offenders\u2019 drug habit (Stinchcomb, 2010).<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    People Making a Difference<\/h4>\r\n

    Law Enforcement against Prohibition<\/p>\r\n

    Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is an organization of current and former police and other criminal justice professionals, including prosecutors, judges, and FBI agents, who advocate for the legalization of illegal drugs. Because many of these professionals were on the front lines in the war against drugs and often put their lives in danger, their views about drug policy cannot be dismissed lightly.<\/p>\r\n

    One of their members is MacKenzie Allen, a 65-year-old deputy sheriff who worked in Los Angeles and Seattle, including time as an undercover agent who bought illegal drugs and made countless arrests for drug offenses. Although Allen strongly disapproves of drug use, his many years in law enforcement led him to realize that the drug problem is best understood as a public health problem, not a legal problem. He notes that the United States has lowered cigarette use through public education and without outlawing cigarettes. \u201cCan you imagine the mayhem had we outlawed cigarettes?\u201d he writes. \u201cCan you envision the \u2018cigarette cartels\u2019 and the bloodbath that would follow? Yet, thanks to a public awareness campaign we\u2019ve made a huge dent in tobacco use without arresting a single cigarette smoker.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

    Allen adds that most of the problems associated with illegal drug use are actually the result of the laws against drugs. These laws create a huge illegal market, much of it involving violent cartels, he says, that promises strong profits for the manufacturers and sellers of illegal drugs. He is also critical of other aspects of the war on drugs:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\nIf the colloquial definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, what does that say about our \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d? We\u2019ve been pursuing this strategy for forty years. It has cost a trillion taxpayer dollars, thousands of lives (both law enforcement and civilians) and destroyed hundreds of thousands more by incarceration. Moreover, it undermines the safety of our communities by overcrowding our jails and prisons, forcing them to give early release to truly violent offenders.\r\n

    Another LEAP member is Joseph D. McNamara, the former police chief of San Jose, California. McNamara also criticizes the violence resulting from the laws against drugs. \u201cLike an increasing number of law enforcers,\u201d he writes specifically about marijuana, \u201cI have learned that most bad things about marijuana\u2014especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market\u2014are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant.\u201d He continues, \u201cAl Capone and his rivals made machine-gun battles a staple of 1920s city street life when they fought to control the illegal alcohol market. No one today shoots up the local neighborhood to compete in the beer market\u2026How much did the [Mexican] cartels make last year dealing in Budweiser, Corona or Dos Equis? Legalization would seriously cripple their operations.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

    As these statements indicate, the legal war on drugs has had many costs. It is difficult to know what to do about illegal drugs, but in bringing these costs to the attention of elected officials and the American public, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is making a difference. For further information about LEAP, visit copssaylegalizedrugs.com.<\/p>\r\n

    Sources:<\/em> Allen, 2001; Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, 2011; McNamara, 2010<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    The War on Illegal Drugs<\/h2>\r\n

    The most controversial drug strategy involves the criminalization of many drugs and the use of the police and the rest of the criminal justice system to apprehend and punish the users, manufacturers, and sellers of illegal drugs. As the brief history of drug use at the beginning of this chapter indicated, the United States has banned certain drugs since the late nineteenth century, and it accelerated this effort during the 1970s and 1980s as concern grew about heroin, crack, and other drugs.<\/p>\r\n

    In judging the war on illegal drugs, two considerations should be kept in mind (Meier & Geis, 2007). One consideration is the philosophical<\/em> question of the extent to which the government in a free society should outlaw behaviors that may be harmful even if people (let\u2019s assume we are talking about legal adults) want to engage in them. Americans do all kinds of things that may harm themselves and that may directly or indirectly harm other people. For example, many Americans eat high amounts of candy, ice cream, potato chips, hamburgers, and other \u201cfat food\u201d that causes obesity, great harm to individual health, premature death and bereavement, and tens of billions of dollars in health costs and lost productivity annually. Although obesity almost certainly causes more harm overall than illegal drugs, no one is about to say that the use of \u201cfat food\u201d should be banned or restricted, although some schools and workplaces have removed candy and soda machines. Americans also engage in many other activities that can be very harmful, including downhill skiing, contact sports, skydiving, and any number of other activities, but no one is about to say that we should be prohibited from engaging in these efforts. Where is the logic, then, in allowing all these behaviors and in not allowing the use of certain drugs? A philosophical argument can be made that all drug use should, in fact, be allowed in a free society (Husak, 2002), and perhaps this is an issue that you and your classmates will want to discuss.<\/p>\r\n

    The second consideration is the social science<\/em> question of whether laws against drugs do more good than harm, or more harm than good. In a rational society, if a law or policy does more good than harm, then we should have the law or policy. However, if it does more harm than good, however much good it might do, then we should not have it, because the harm outweighs the good.<\/p>\r\n

    In considering this issue, critics of drug laws say they do much more harm than good, and they often cite Prohibition as an example of this dynamic. Prohibition was repealed because our society decided it was doing much more harm than good and was thus a \u201ctriumphant failure,\u201d as one author has called this period of our history (Okrent, 2011, p. 67). Prohibition caused several harms: (1) the rise of organized crime to earn illegal profits from the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol; (2) the violence and murder among organized crime gangs that fought each other over drug \u201cturf\u201d; (3) the wounding and death of innocent bystanders from gunfights between organized crime gangs; (4) the wounding and murder of police officers who enforced Prohibition; (5) rampant corruption among police officers and political officials who took money from organized crime to ignore violations of Prohibition; and (6) the expenditure of much time, money, and energy by the criminal justice system to enforce Prohibition.<\/p>\r\n

    Prohibition did reduce drinking and the violence associated with drinking. But some scholars say that the organized crime violence caused by Prohibition was so common and deadly that the homicide rate grew during Prohibition rather than lessening (Jensen, 2000), though other scholars dispute this finding (Owens, 2011). In yet another problem, many people during Prohibition became sick and\/or died from drinking tainted liquor. Because alcohol was no longer regulated, illegal alcohol often contained, by accident or design, dangerous substances. As an example, 15,000 people in the Midwest became sick with a severe neurological problem after drinking an illegal alcohol laced with a paint thinner chemical (Genzlinger, 2011).<\/p>\r\n

    Critics of today\u2019s war on illegal drugs say that it has reproduced the same problems that Prohibition produced. Among these problems are the following:<\/p>\r\n\r\n