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Jared Mergener Mrs. Petty ENG 102 December 1, 2013

Surrounded by Change, but Unwilling to Move: A Look at Drug Policy Within the United States

Todays current standard of drug policy and reform within the United States began back in the 1930s when Harry Anslinger was appointed the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Since then other countries around the world have gone through a metamorphosis in terms of their policy and reform, the U.S. has only increased its aggressive ways showing no signs of change. Every year over one million people are arrested, mostly at the state and local level, for minor drug related offences (Nicholas, 595). These efforts cost tax payers billions of dollars every year, and the only result is a massive overcrowding within our prison system that creates an even larger drain on tax payer dollars. Black markets continue to flourish and people are making meth in their bath tubs, outright aggression hasnt changed anything because there is still a demand. If the United States wants to alleviate its growing drug problem, they need to start treating their addicts like people too. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was originally formed in 1930, though it was not until the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 when Harry Anslinger set the tone for future politics. With heavy support from legislators and organizations that would benefit from strong drug laws,

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Anslinger became the most powerful man in policymaking throughout his time with the FBN (Nicholas, 601). These policies advocated long prison sentences, as they were believed to be the best way of ending trafficking and addiction. The Federal Government did not have the resources at the time to properly enforce Anslingers aggressive approach, so he turned to state and local law enforcement encouraging them to pass stricter drug laws. By the mid-1950s states had begun to invest more heavily in narcotic enforcement and began to use mass arrests as a way to address the problem. From 1932 to 1965 state and local government drug related arrests increased by nearly nine times, these dates mark the shift that lead to modern drug policy. Decades later and the United States has since launched an all-out war on drugs. Drug related crimes carry some of the most severe sentences in the U.S. legal system; based on federal surveys and current laws, more than fifty percent of all high-school seniors are criminals who should be imprisoned (Cherry, 216). Under the current system, drug laws are too strict and out dated. Simply arresting away the problem does not work; addiction is a disease of the brain that needs to be treated and not ignored. Then with a large percent of the population in prison, it goes without being said that poverty will slowly move into city centers. The global HIV/AIDS pandemic has added to the list of harms associated with unsafe drug use and provided further evidence that the dominant, prohibitionist approach to illicit drugs is not only ineffective but also counter-productive.(Richard, 1) Not only do these methods aid in the spread of HIV/AIDS, they also promote the attitude of denying users access to education on how to avoid overdose and treat addiction. In combination with the lack of universal health care access and low income addicts creates a public health nightmare that was avoided back in the 1970s when there was a backlash against the punitive policies. At this time the U.S. was going through a welfare expansion causing a shift from criminalization to caring about the health and

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well-being of drug users, U.S. policy went back to its old ways within the decade (Ellen, 270). Even with constant appeals for better treatment programs, a serve shortage of any aid from the government is still seen to this day. The Unites States has a long history trying to ban items of an intoxicating nature, the only country in the western world to alter their nation Constitution to ban the use of alcohol. Yet people still drank to their hearts content for fourteen years until the ban was eventually lifted. This should put forth the precedent that outright prohibition does not work as long as there is still a demand. Libertarian reformers like Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman or conservatives like William F. Buckley, Jr., call for outright legalization of all drugs. And others call for a public health or "harm reduction" approach, dangerous drugs will always be in the public space and it would be most important to learn how to live with them in a way that minimizes their adverse health and social consequences.(Ernest, 16) The search for users today has now reached into public school systems and childrens personal belongings. Principals around the U.S. are authorizing random and cause related drug searches on students in an attempt to reduce the amount of illicit substances on campus. Not only do these infringe on constitutional rights they havent been shown to work all that well. Searches based on suspicion have proven to be unproductive while the effectiveness of random searches is reduced by its high monetary costs (Ryoko, 340). It is clear that the United States is stuck in the past, almost every current policy has its roots in decades old debate and alternatives need to start being considered. The rest of the world has either begun to evolve or got there years ago. Switzerland is one of the leaders in new drug policy; its citizens have voted multiple times to keep out any major anti-drug laws, bringing about some very interesting results. The Swiss government began to adopt more diverse drug politics based on a harm reduction model. Drug related penalties were reduced and a new

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program providing prescriptions for medical heroin was introduced in 1994. To register for this program an addict needs to fit certain categories and upon being reviewed will receive their legal dose of heroin upon their doctors suggestion. These addicts activities were monitored to keep an eye on criminal involvement, those in the program showed noticeable drops in crime at all levels (Cherry, 198). Experts believe this is because the addicts only got into crime because of their addiction. Although the Swiss on the their way, the Dutch have been one the track of harm reduction for so long they have become the prime example for any other nation considering the philosophy. In 1979, despite diplomatic pressure from the United States, the Dutch parliament pushed Hollands drug policy into its own world. The sale of cannabis was made legal to the public, though under some restrictions and they also adopted much more lenient legislation towards all forms of drug use (150 global view). Advocates of this approach believe that providing soft drug users a safe commercial place to buy their products, it removes the power from organized crime and keeps the public away from dealers that push the harder drugs. Twenty years after these laws were put into place, and drug addiction has remained stable causing fewer deaths per year than alcohol related disorders. Relations between the U.S. and its neighbors to the north have been rough over the past decade due to Canadians supporting drug policy that doesnt agree with their friends in the south. Similar to the United States, the majority of drug related arrests involve cannabis. While sentences for these crimes are severe in both countries at least half of the cases in Canada are either withdrawn or dismissed, while very few of the cases that go through receiving any jail time (Mosher, 374). Appeal Justice Mary Southin was once quoted as saying, In my years on the bench. I have sat on over 40 cases which had something to do with this substance [marijuana]

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which appears to be of no greater danger to society than alcohol. She further noted that marijuana laws made criminals of those who are no better or worse, morally or physically, than people who like a martini. Another major step in harm reduction was Mayor Larry Campbell establishing the first safe injection for intravenous drug uses in the city of Vancouver. The location, known as Insite, provides users with clean needles, water and an area to shoot up in. A detoxification and rehab clinic are also on location to manage any overdoses and try to reach out to help those looking to quit their habit. All of these changes have led to some radical actions being proposed by American officials. The tightening of borders and increased scrutiny of its citizens who want to cross the border have all been suggested or put into action. In the summer of 2005 the United States ignored all diplomacy and put out an arrest warrant for a well-known supporter of marijuana policy reform in British Colombia. Marc Emery, also known as the Prince of Pot, is a Canadian citizen and was arrested by American officials and sent to a prison in Seattle, Washington. This arrest shocked Canadian citizens; their government watched as a foreign power walked in and removed one of its own people without any extradition procedures being acknowledged. Since then, relations between the two nations have been tense at best. Aggressive, arrest every one possible, tactics are becoming a thing of the past with more and more evidence coming out to support a more relaxed or harm reduction focused policy on drug use. With many states beginning to legalize medical marijuana and even a couple legalizing the plant for recreational use, even though these practices are still considered against the law on a federal level. Only this year, 2013, have polls come out showing that a majority of Americans are in favor of total legalization of recreation cannabis use.

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Some extremists have come out to support total legalization of all drug relation products within U.S. borders. As crazy as this may sound, it has some merit. First of all billions of dollars would be saved every year, instead of going to arresting and prosecuting hundreds of thousands of users every year. Not to mention the income the federal government would receive by taxing each new product entering the market. The fear then would be massive outbreaks of overdose and death across the nation, but the more open drug market of nineteenth-century America had way less drug related issues than we do today (Ethan, 97). Even if legalization isnt achieved, any step towards harm prevention is a step towards the future of drug politics.

Works Cited

Cherry, Andrew L., Mary E. Dillon, and Douglas Rugh. Substance Abuse: A Global View. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002. Print. Ellen Benoit, Not Just a Matter of Criminal Justice: States, Institutions, and North American Drug Policy, Sociological Forum , Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 2003), pp. 269-294, Published by: Springer Ernest Drucker, Drug Prohibition and Public Health: 25 Years of Evidence, Public Health Reports (1974-), Vol. 114, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1999), pp. 14-29 Published by: Association of Schools of Public Health

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Ethan A. Nadelmann, Thinking Seriously about Alternatives to Drug Prohibition, Daedalus , Vol. 121, No.3, Political Pharmacology: Thinking about Drugs (Summer, 1992), pp. 85-132, Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences FISH, JEFFERSON M. "Rethinking Drug Policy Assumptions." Humanist 73.2 (2013): 12-15. AcademicSearch Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. Mosher, Clayton J. "Convergence Or Divergence? Recent Developments In Drug Policies In Canada And The United States." American Review Of Canadian Studies 41.4 (2011): 370-386. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. NICHOLAS, PHIL, and ANDREW CHURCHILL. "The Federal Bureau Of Narcotics, The States, And The Origins Of Modern Drug Enforcement In The United States, 1950-1962." Contemporary Drug Problems 39.4 (2012): 595-640. Academic Search Premier. Web. 25 Nov. 2013 Richard Elliott, Joanne Csete, Evan Wood and Thomas Kerr, Harm Reduction, HIV/AIDS, and the Human Rights Challenge to Global Drug Control Policy, Health and Human Rights , Vol. 8, No. 2, Emerging Issues in HIV/AIDS (2005), pp. 104-138, Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College , on behalf of Harvard School of Public Health/Franois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health Ryoko Yamaguchi, Patrick M. O'Malley and Lloyd D. Johnston, Relationships between School

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Drug Searches and Student Substance Use in U.S. Schools, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis , Vol. 26, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 329-341, Published by: American Educational Research Association