Pubdate: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 Source: Brown Daily Herald (RI) Copyright: 2001 The Brown Daily Herald Contact: herald@browndailyherald.com Website: http://www.browndailyherald.com/ Author: Daniel Brody, Herald Opinions Columnist

CRIMINALIZATION OF DRUGS CAUSES MORE HARM THAN GOOD

America spends at least $20 billion each year to fight the war on illegal drugs. Conservative pundit William F. Buckley Jr. estimates the total direct and indirect costs of the drug war annually at $200 billion.

A number of laws and policies have been enacted by the government in its efforts to curb the usage of illegal drugs, but these have all been dismal failures. Before 1920, all narcotics were legal; cocaine could even be bought in a Sears Roebuck catalog.

Despite the availability of all these drugs, the percentage of addicts in the United States steadily declined for two decades prior to prohibition. Now, by the government's own calculations, under prohibition the amount has quadrupled. Drug-trade-related crime infects our streets, and we cannot even keep drugs out of the prisons in which we keep drug offenders.

In much the same way that alcohol prohibition gave rise to higher alcohol consumption and organized crime associated with its trafficking, so it is with illegal drugs. The social costs of the drug war, including excessively harsh punishments, blatant constitutional violations and the flourishing of a criminal drug trade in our inner cities, are piling up. For a number of reasons, legalization is the wisest solution to drug problem.

In 1970 President Richard Nixon appointed a commission to study the health effects, legal status and social impact of marijuana use. After more than a year of research, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Use concluded that marijuana should be decriminalized. Nixon did not expect to get these results and rejected these findings.

Ten years later the National Academy of Sciences investigated the health effects of marijuana and also concluded that marijuana should be decriminalized. President Ronald Reagan rejected these results as well. I bring these examples up because it shows how little of the war on drugs is based on research or health concerns.

It is a war taken up by politicians to look uncompromising on drugs because if anyone questions the severity of drug laws, his or her opportunistic opponent will capitalize on it and criticize him or her as soft on drugs, a phrase that would terrify any voter with children.

A proliferation of zero-tolerance laws have sprung up recently to continue the government's image as tough on drugs.

Politicians claim these laws are aimed to lock up kingpins, but often low-level users bear the brunt of these punishments. The laws proclaim a mandatory minimum sentence for any drug offense and sweep the little fish right along with the big fish into jail. At least 15 states have automatic life sentences for certain marijuana offenses, and under federal law the death penalty can be imposed for growing or selling a large amount of marijuana, even if it is a first time offense.

All of these laws remain on the books despite the fact that there seems to be little relation between the severity of drug laws and the rate at which drugs are used by teenagers.

The United Kingdom, whose strict drug laws rival our own, has a marijuana usage rate among teenagers one and a half times higher than the Netherlands, where marijuana has been decriminalized.

The idea of harsh excessive penalties for drug use brings the Constitution into the debate.

The Eighth Amendment visibly states that "cruel and unusual punishments" could not be inflicted, yet life sentences for drug crimes sound fairly cruel -- especially if the only person you are harming with a drug is yourself.

The Eighth Amendment is not the only part of the Constitution flouted in the war on drugs.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right in "all criminal prosecutions" for the accused to enjoy "assistance for counsel of his defense." Often in the war on drugs, lawyers have their wires tapped and their offices searched.

The government has legally been allowed to subpoena lawyers for all the information they know about the accused drug offender they represent, compromising lawyer-client privilege along the way.

The Fourth Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizure, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This is a very clear statement, yet it is hardly followed in the fight against illegal drugs.

Police can obtain warrants on the flimsiest suspicions -- even the word of an anonymous informer is often enough.

Many other informers, who lie to cut better legal deals for themselves, are being used more and more as the drug war becomes more futile and frustrating to fight.

Also, courts have legally upheld most of these searches when they involve students, especially searches of lockers and university dormitories.

The most disgusting abuse of constitutional authority in the war on drugs is the proliferation of civil forfeiture statutes Congress passed in the 1980s. Under these statutes, the federal government has the right to seize any property at all connected to a drug offense.

For instance, a farm can be seized if one marijuana plant is found growing there.

When the property is seized, the legal title for the land is passed to the government. Amazingly, eighty percent of those whose property is seized are never even charged with a crime.

The Fifth Amendment declares that a person cannot "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation". It is interesting to note that when Congress prohibited alcohol, they felt it necessary to make a new amendment to the Constitution, since they found no way to justify it otherwise.

Drugs are unmentioned in the Constitution, and federal statutes are now enough to imprison drug offenders for many years.

Experts say that worldwide, the drug trade generates revenues as high as $500 billion annually.

This is an industry that is here to stay and not going anywhere.

To correct the erosion of personal liberty and lessen the destruction that drugs cause to people's lives, it is prudent that they be legalized. To legalize them does not mean to endorse them, as most people who choose to abstain from drugs do so for health reasons, not because the government says they are bad. I also do not advocate lawlessness; drugs should not be done in public, nor should one drive under their influence. But when a drug user is only affecting himself, he should not be subject to any criminal penalties.

Law enforcement agencies estimate that half of all crime is drug-related offenses, an incredible waste of the police's time and money.

The illicit drug industry provides an economic incentive for poor inner-city kids to drop out of school and earn quick money.

Jails are overcrowded as well. In 1980 there were almost twice as many violent offenders in federal prison as drug offenders.

Today more people are now incarcerated in the nation's prisons for marijuana than for manslaughter or rape. The drug war is a waste of time, tax money, resources and manpower.

It has been allowed to trample our constitutional freedoms and makes young people resentful and disrespectful of the law. It is a cancer on our government, and instead of treating drugs as a legal problem, we must look at them rationally from a health-based perspective, otherwise the hysteria surrounding drugs will spiral out of control even more than it does already.

Daniel Brody '04 hails from Long Island. He hates when the government tells him what to do.