Toward a Rational Drug Policy

My thinking about the War on Drugs has changed. I used to think it was just a counterproductive policy that merely had the effect of imprisoning poor people - particularly those of color - while also enriching international thugs and gangs. Now I recognize it is far more destructive and counterproductive than that.

The War on Drugs may be the worst policy to achieve a bipartisan consensus. For decades, since Nixon - of all people, NIXON - declared the war on drugs, Democrats and Republicans have made the punishments more draconian while drugs took a larger toll on society. Around the world, our policies have greatly enriched the worst people while effectively impoverishing many countries - due to the wacky incentives that are produced by our inability to deal intelligently with mind altering chemicals.

We imprison far more people than any other country. Our police and courts spend far too much of their time focusing on non-violent crimes like pot-smoking, which results in greater freedom for violent criminals. We lock up non-violent drug addicts with violent criminals while underfunding treatment centers (you don't want to reward a criminal by helping them to kick the habit, do you??). Non-violent addicts are then pushed into a life of crime when they are released, embittered by the experience and unemployable because of the record.

This is no solution. There is a better way.

The funny thing is, whenever I talk to anyone - and I mean anyone - about the need to stop wasting our tax dollars and police energy on punishing pot-smokers, the conversation boils down to the same question: Do I think smoking pot is good? Do I think pot is not addictive? What about the kids?

I don't think pot is good but I certainly can't remember anyone proposing that NBC run PSA's that encourage people to smoke pot either. Smoking anything harms your health. Drinking is bad for you in many ways. Yet we discovered that trying to arrest and imprison people for doing these things created more problems than it solved. This is our problem with marijuana: marijuana is not something our society should encourage anyone to use (in fact, we must prevent kids and teens from using it altogether) but our current harsh anti-pot policies have created considerably more problems than they have solved.

On a daily basis, most of us have no sense whatsoever of the Drug War toll on parts of America, indeed, the whole world. The Wire - perhaps the most critically acclaimed television show ever - examines this question among others and I cannot recommend it enough.

To get a sense of how the War on Drugs is impacted the rest of the world, I recommend Wasted: The American Prohibition on Thinking Smart in the Drug War - a short essay by Moises Naim of Foreign Policy Magazine.