George B. Reed, Jr.
Proponents of legalized marijuana make the point that it is not as harmful in its health and social consequences as alcohol, and they might be right. But that doesn’t mean its effects are benign or that legalization will eliminate all criminal activity associated with its manufacture, sale and usage. If alcohol and tobacco were new on the scene today and we were aware of their potential harmful, sometimes lethal, consequences, would we still legalize them?
Legalization advocates are sometimes long on rhetoric, but short on facts. They tend to rely on anecdotal nonsense such as, “Who ever heard of a guy high on pot going home and beating up his wife?” And as for legalizing drugs in general, we should go to school on someone who has already tried it.
I have been to Amsterdam, “The Drug Mecca of the Western World,” where prostitution is legal and soft drugs are tolerated. The city itself had a seedy aura about it, and many of the people whom we met in everyday situations were obviously high on something. I especially remember a druggy taxi driver who scared us out of our wits. And Dutch people we met there from other cities begged us not to judge their country by Amsterdam.
Amsterdam police estimate that 80 percent of property crimes there are committed by addicts. And while the Dutch get not one penny of tax revenue from drug sales, addicts account for 50 percent of their prison population. Although legalization advocates claim marijuana use has not increased in Amsterdam, the number of drug cafes there grew from 30 to 300 in one decade.
Switzerland tried a similar policy with similar results. Andres Oehler, a Zurich municipal spokesman stated, “It was felt that the situation got out of control in every case.” Switzerland abandoned its legalization experiment in 1992. After legalizing marijuana, cocaine and heroin use, Spain and Italy now have the most drug abuse and overdose cases in Europe.
No doubt, we have lost our own war on drugs. But, in my opinion, legalization or decriminalization isn’t the answer. So what is, better law enforcement?
Efforts to interdict the drug supply here have been largely futile. There is too much money in drug trafficking, and the corruption among low-paid Latin American law enforcement agents is epidemic. Cocaine is easy to grow and process, light in weight to ship and has a long shelf life. Compared to bananas, it’s a cup of tea to grow and export. In this country, growing pot and manufacturing meth is almost impossible to stop, and our prison systems are overflowing with convicted drug dealers.
“Just say no” doesn’t work either, and never has. We must attack the demand side of this equation with education and direct, rigorous action. Confronting drug abuse among America’s young people requires the efforts of parents, educators, law enforcement and justice officials, clergy and social workers working in concert. Parents, teachers and police must learn to be nosier and to recognize and report drug activity and behavior immediately when they suspect it. They must be more assertive, even aggressive, when necessary. Minors have few rights when it comes to the purchase, possession and use of illegal substances.
A tough legal, social and cultural offensive is worth trying.
Or shall it be Amsterdam, U.S.A.?
George B. Reed, Jr. is retired from AT&T and a former history teacher in the Hamilton County school system. He lives in Fort Oglethorpe and can be reached at reed1600@bellsouth.net or 706-858-3501.
Peter B. Lewis...
I have long believed that one of the absolute foundations to marijuana legalization in the U.S. is to provide law enforcement with the tools to punish impaired drivers (look at the success of the push in the past few decades against DWI by alcohol). Lo and behold, the research backing the legalization success in Washington state yielded the parameter of a concentration of 5 nanograms of active tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per milliliter of blood as proof of impaired driving. Backers of Initiative 502 say a marijuana smoker who lets several hours pass before getting behind the wheel should fall beneath that standard. Unfortunately, in most other states it's a zero-tolerance standard instead of sane public policy that would regulate the private usage of pot. Now, the whole enticing taxation question is a completely separate ball of hashish (with pros and cons galore)...
BTW, Malcolm is right about Needle Park. That has been gone more than 20 years now, replaced by a heroin maintenance program that the Swiss consider quite successful. The reason you still hear about Needle Park is because the US Government has had an openly admitted program of lying about drugs since at least 1925 (Google "Linder v. US").
As a teacher, I am sure you want to protect kids from the awful ravages of drugs. As it turns out, historically speaking, the biggest single cause of drug epidemics among US children is anti-drug campaigns.
You can read about the first one at http://druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm The biggest teen drinking epidemic we ever had came during alcohol prohibition.
You can find other examples in Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm
Happy reading. Do make it a point to write a new article about what you learned when you get done reading.
Glad to hear that you are a history teacher. You will love this stuff. It is stuff that you didn't learn in your own history classes.
Start with the short history of the marijuana laws at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm It is funny, fascinating, and not what you expected. As a historian, maybe you can tell me when the drug laws were anything but absolute lunacy.
Then read Licit and Illicit Drugs at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/cumenu.htm This is the best overall review of the drug problem ever written. It has been used as a basic college textbook for decades. You will find surprises on every page.
The read The Drug Hang-Up at http://druglibrary.org/special/king/dhu/dhumenu.htm This is an excellent history, written by a former president of the American Bar Association. He once formed a joint committee with the American Medical Association to study US drug policy. He found out that was a BIG mistake. It turns out the the Federal Government really doesn't like anyone doing an objective analysis of US drug policy.
That brings us to the report of the US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm This is the largest study of the drug laws ever done. It was commissioned by President Nixon and staffed by his hand-picked law-and-order conservative friends. After two years of study, they concluded that the real drug problem was not marijuana, or heroin, or cocaine. The real drug problem, they said, was the ignorance of our public officials who have never bothered to read the most basic research. In a perfect illustration of their point, Nixon refused to read his own commission's report.
If you are really interested in the history, you can find the congressional transcripts for the hearings for the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/taxact.htm The ignorance displayed throughout the hearings is absolutely astounding. The representative of the American Medical Association said there was no evidence that marijuana was a dangerous drug, and no reason for the law. He pointed out that it was used in hundreds of common medicines, with no significant problems. In response, the committee told him that, if he wasn't going to cooperate, he should shut up and leave.
The only other "expert" to testify was James C. Munch. His sole claim to fame was that he had injected marijuana directly into the brains of 300 dogs and two of them died. When they asked him what he concluded from this, he said he didn't know what to conclude because he wasn't a dog psychologist.
Mr. Munch also testified in court, under oath, that marijuana would make your fangs grow six inches long and drip with blood. He also said that, when he tried it, it turned him into a bat. He was the only "expert" in the US who thought marijuana should be illegal, so he was appointed US Official Expert on marijuana, where he served -- and guided policy -- for 25 years.
That is just the tip of the iceberg on this story. It was absolute lunacy, passed by lunatics, with no real awareness by Congress of what the stuff even was, from Day One.You can find additional histories by other authors, as well as the full text of hundreds of original historical documents. A history buff like you ought to have a lot of laughs when you read it.
If you get done with all that and just want to read what all the major government commission reports have said, you can find the full text of every major study of drug policy from around the world over the last 100 years at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer under Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy. I put the full text up there so you won't have to take anyone's word for what they say.
Do some reading and try your essay again. The history of our drug laws is a ridiculous story. It will give you lots of little tales to keep your friends laughing for hours.
In November 2008, 68 percent of Swiss voters approved the legalized regulation of heroin.
Results
In many cases, patients’ physical and mental health has improved, their housing situation has become considerably more stable, and they have gradually managed to find employment. Numerous participants have managed to reduce their debts. In most cases, contacts with addicts and the drug scene have decreased. Consumption of non-prescribed substances declined significantly in the course of treatment.
Dramatic changes have been seen in the situation regarding crime. While the proportion of patients who obtained their income from illegal or borderline activities at the time of enrollment was 70%, the figure after 18 months of HAT was only 10%.
Each year, between 180 and 200 patients discontinue HAT. Of these patients, 35-45% are transferred to methadone maintenance, and 23-27% to abstinence-based treatment.
The average costs per patient-day at outpatient treatment centers in 1998 came to CHF 51. The overall economic benefit – based on savings in criminal investigations and prison terms and on improvements in health – was calculated to be CHF 96. After deduction of costs, the net benefit is CHF 45 per patient-day.
http://worldradio.ch/wrs/news/video/switzerland-embraces-heroin-assisted-treatment.shtml?12825
Cannabis-coffee-shops are not only restricted to the Capital of Holland, Amsterdam. They can be found in more than 50 cities and towns across the country. At present, only the retail sale of five grams is tolerated, so production remains criminalized. The mayors of a majority of the cities with coffeeshops have long urged the national government to also decriminalize the supply side.
A poll taken in 2010 indicated that some 50% of the Dutch population thinks cannabis should be fully legalized while only 25% wanted a complete ban. Even though 62% of the voters said they had never taken cannabis. An earlier poll also indicated 80% opposing coffee shop closures.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/02/public_split_on_cannabis_legal.php
According to the World Health Organization only 19.8 percent of the Dutch have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.
In Holland 9.7% of young adults (aged 15 to 24) consume soft drugs once a month, comparable to the level in Italy (10.9%) and Germany (9.9%) and less than in the UK (15.8%) and Spain (16.4%). Few transcend to becoming problem drug users (0.44%), well below the average (0.52%) of the compared countries.
The WHO survey of 17 countries finds that the United States has the highest usage rates for nearly all illegal substances.
In the U.S. 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the U.S. again leading the world by a large margin.
Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the U.S. led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in Holland, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 -- roughly one-third of the U.S. figure.
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/90295/
In 1998, the US Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey claimed that the U.S. had less than half the murder rate of the Netherlands. That’s drugs, he explained. The Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics immediately issued a special press release explaining that the actual Dutch murder rate is 1.8 per 100,000 people, or less than one-quarter the U.S. murder rate.