The War on Drugs

1
The War on Drugs

• Presented by
• Shawn Rodgers
• John Bebe
• Qiana Mullen
• Grace Hamilton
• Kellyjoy Engle

2
Hundred Years War

• Term first used by Richard Nixon in 1969
• 1880 treaty with China includes an absolute
  prohibition on opium shipments
• Three distinct phases
• 18801949
• 1950-1968
• 1969-Present

3
Early Phase (1880 1949)

• Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
• purity requirements, transport restrictions
• Smoking Opium Exclusion Act (1909)
• Banned non-medical uses
• Foster Anti-Narcotics Bill (1910-1911)
• 1st attempt to tax opium, failed to pass
• Harrison Narcotics Control Act (1914)
• Revival of Foster, required licenses for sale,
  purchase, use

4
1880-1949 (cont.)

• Prohibition (1920 1933)
• 18th Amendment
• Not a total failure
• Major decreases in
• Public drunkenness
• Alcohol related disease
• Domestic violence
• Violent crime
• But failed to prevent drinking
• Fueled rise of organized crime

5
Early phase (cont.)

• Marijuana Tax Act (1937)
• Similar to Harrison
• Previously, cannabis had been legal for personal
  use
• Also had industrial uses

6
Second phase

• 1951 Boggs Act
• Quadrupled penalties for drug offenses
• 1956 Narcotic Control Act (Daniel Act)
• Doubled sentences already increased by Boggs
• 1965 Drug Abuse Control Amendments
• Allowed for warrant-less searches in some
  instances

7
The modern era

• Nixon declares war
• Originally targets heroin
• Innovative beginnings
• Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention
• First and only time in WOD that treatment gets
  more funding than enforcement
• Operation Intercept
• Shuts down U.S.-Mexican Border.
• 1978 amendment to Comprehensive Drug Abuse
  Prevention and Control Act
• Allows for asset forfeiture

8
Modern era (cont.)

• Pace of law-making speeds up
• 1982
• U.S. ratifies extradition treaty with Colombia
• Formation of the South Florida Drug Task Force
• 1984
• Comprehensive Crime Control Act
• 1986
• Anti-Drug Abuse Act
• Controlled Substance Analogue Enforcement Act
• 1988
• Office of National Drug Control Policy
• 1989
• Invasion of Panama

9
Modern Era (cont.)

• Just Say No
• Public information campaign
• Aimed at children

10
Modern Era (Cont)

• 1990s
• 1990 - Bush I proposes increasing WOD budget by
  50
• 1993 - NAFTA
• Makes national borders harder to police
• 1995 - Congress overrides Sentencing Commission
• 1998 - Operation Casablanca
• Indictments/arrests of foreign businesses and
  individuals

11
21st Century

• RAVE Act (2003)
• Reducing Americans Vulnerability to Ecstasy
• Meth
• A growing challenge
• Regulation of pre-cursor chemicals

12

Arguments for continuing the current War on Drugs
Policy
Learning from past mistakes and successes, a work
in progress
13

• A growing awareness of effectiveness of Treatment
  and ineffectiveness of Interdiction

14
Financial allocation shift toward treatment

• The ratio between military/law enforcement and
  treatment would be closer to even- 53/47 versus
  the current 70/30 split

15

• ...a 10 reduction in expenditures on
  enforcement would be associated with a long-run
  reduction of over 20 in the number of deaths.
  This would imply that close to 3000 deaths a year
  might be avoided with a shift away from
  enforcement (about 1 billion dollars by the late
  1990s) approaches to drug control. Adding the
  billion dollars to education and treatment would
  represent an 18 increase in 1998. The estimated
  elasticity of 1.59 implies a reduction of close
  to 5000 drug-induced deaths per year as a result.
  Thus, the underlying estimates suggest that very
  substantial improvements in public health may be
  achieved by emphasizing education and treatment
  over enforcement and interdiction. Journal of
  Drug Issues, Vol. 34, No. 4, Fall 2004

16
Seizure and Assets
17

• Using a basic bureaucratic budget-maximization
  argument, Benson, Rasmussen, and Sollars have
  argued that police make use of asset forfeiture,
  particularly with respect to drug offenses, to
  increase their own resources
• Criminal Justice Policy Review, Vol 16, Number 3,
  September 2005

18
Success of the Drug Courts
19

• In targeting predominantly nonviolent,
  drug-abusing offenders, drug treatment court
  programs use the authority of the court system to
  change the behavior of the drug offenders through
  multiphase treatments, frequent drug screening
  and monitoring, job placement and education,
  judicial status hearings, and immediate formal
  sanctions and rewards
• International Journal of Offender Therapy and
  Comparative Criminology, 49(3), 2005

20
Making the sacrifices count
21
War On Drugs The Social Consequences
22
Are You Red, Yellow, Brown, Black, or Blue?

• U.S. Census Bureau (2004) estimates
• European American 75.6
• African American 12.2
• American Indian and Alaskan Native 0.8
• Asian American 4.2
• Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander 0.1
• Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 14.2
• (Source www.census.gov)

23
Who me? Couldnt Be

• Myths and Stereotypes
• Political leaders often perpetuate the myth that
  American violence is largely the product of
  illegal drugs and inner-city gangs.
• Let the truth be known Most drug offenders are
  non-violent, and many are low-level offenders
  with no prior criminal record.
• What they dont want you to know is that the
  legal drug, we all know as alcohol, is the drug
  most linked to violence and death.
• Alcohol is associated with many more homicides
  nationally than illicit drugs (Sklar, 1995)

24
War On Drugs A New Kind Of Jim Crow

• Incarceration Rates
• There are two million Americans doing time behind
  bars. Our country now imprisons roughly 500,000
  men and women on drug-related charges, at an
  annual cost of 9.4 billion
• African Americans are the most overrepresented
  ethnic group in the prison system At only 12.2
  of the national population African Americans made
  up 58 of the state prison population in 2000
  doing time for drug-related offenses
• Drug offenses account for nearly two out of five
  African Americans sent to state prison
• (Source www.alternet.org)

25
War On Drugs A New Kind Of Jim Crow

• Incarceration Rates (continued)
• The Hispanic/Latino populations are also being
  overrepresented within our prison system. In
  1999, almost half of men and women charged with a
  federal drug offense were Latino
• Of the 246,100 state prison inmates serving time
  for drug offenses in 2001, 139,700 (56.7) were
  African American, 47,000 (19) were Hispanic, and
  57,300 (23.3) were European American (Source
  www.drugwarfacts.org).
• (Source www.alternet.org)

26
War On Drugs A New Kind Of Jim Crow

• Incarceration Rates War On Women
• Similarities across the racial/ethnic lines
• At yearend 2004, 104,846 women were in prison
  (sourcedrugwarfacts.org)
• Nationwide, 42.2 of all African American women
  and 36.1 of European American women admitted to
  prison in 1996 were convicted of drug offenses.
• Drug offenses accounted for more than two in five
  women admitted to state prisons nationwide
• The Three states with the highest percentages of
  women sent to prison on drug charges were New
  York (68), Washington (54), and New Jersey
  (49)
• Source www.hrw.org

27
Why Are The Incarceration Rates So High?

• Contributing Factors
• According to Human Rights Watch (2000), Drug law
  enforcement is concentrated in large urban areas.
• Since African Americans and Hispanic/Latino
  Americans live in these areas they are at greater
  risk of arrest than European American offenders
• The European American majority in the U.S.
  Identify both crime and drugs with the dangerous
  classes, for instance being poor, a person of
  color, and urban.
• (Source www.hrw.org)

28
Living In Misery No Hope, No Help

• Convicted felons unfortunately have nothing to
  look forward to once they are out of prison
• Many are disenfranchised
• Limited employment opportunities
• Limited housing resources
• Lose eligibility for federal assistance for both
  higher education and public housing
• 1996 Welfare Reform Act denies convicted drug
  felons food stamps and Temporary Aid to Needy
  Families (TANF)
• (Source http//www.alternet.org)

29
Action Jackson

• A Call For Some Action
• Drug Policy Alliance
• Is the nations leading organization promoting
  alternatives to the War on Drugs
• Goals
• Repealing mandatory minimum sentences for non
  violent drug offenses and ending incarceration
  for simple drug possession
• Ending racially discriminatory drug policies and
  enforcement measures
• Ending discrimination against people with past
  drug abuse problems or offenses
• (Source http//www.drugpolicy.org)

30
War on Drugs The Cost

• The federal government spends approximately 17
  billion per year on the War on Drugs
• Approximately 30 is directed toward treatment
  and prevention programs
• But thats not all!
• Dont forget about state and local costs? about
  10 billion
• There are other costs too, which are not
  mentioned on the federal WOD budget

Source http//www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n667/a0
1.html
31
What does the War on Drugs Budget Look Like?
Source http//www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov
32
Actual Costs

• Incarceration
• It costs approximately 3 billion annually to
  imprison drug offenders

33
Actual Costs

• Work-related (Estimated 160 billion in 2000)
• Loss of productivity
• Increased medical costs
• Increased legal costs
• Medical
• HIV infections/STDS
• Cancer, diseases
• Accidents
• Source Inaba

34
Actual Costs

• Social Services
• Children in foster care
• Welfare and other services
• Countless other social and economical costs

35
So What About the War on Drugs Policy?

• Is it as effective as the government would like
  it to be?

36
If No War, Then What??

• Shift Budget Priorities
• Pursuit Education
• Prosecution Treatment
• Incarceration Research

37
Education

• Schools, Psycho-education and Parenting Groups

Age Appropriate Education Factual
Information Grounded in Research De-stigmatizing
38
Treatment

• Harm Reduction
• Pragmatism
• Humanistic Values
• Focus on Negativity of Drug Use
• Collaborative Treatment with User
• Prioritizing Feasible Goals

39
Treatment

• Harm Reduction Continued
• Needle Exchange
• Education
• Counseling
• Employment
• Housing Services

40
Research

• Sociological Factors
• Poverty, mental/physical health issues, sexual
  abuse, etc.
• Methods of Treatment
• Nutritional, Psychiatric Medications, Safer
  Drugs, Counseling

41
Pursuit, Prosecution, Incarceration

• Legalize and tax marijuana.
• End civil forfeiture
• Establish more drug treatment and education for
  those in prison.

42
And for the World

• End the finance of Anti-Drug Campaigns in South
  and Central America