War on Drugs: Nixon and 40 Years of Failure By: Sir Gawain the GreenKnightBlogger (420Petition.

com)

The War on Drugs was declared 40 years ago this week, June 17th, 1971, with President Nixons Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control. Reading Nixons message today, it comes across as a well-meaning attempt to address a massive social problem. The president hits a compassionate note by declaring that the War on Drugs programs cannot be judged on the fulfillment of quotas and other bureaucratic indexes of accomplishment. They must be judged by the number of human beings who are brought out of the hell of addiction, and by the number of human beings who are dissuaded from entering that hell. But over the last 40 years, the War on Drugs has been another historical example that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. The Global Commission on Drug Policy recently published a headline-grabbing report on how The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. According to the report, annual cannabis consumption in the United States increased by 8.5% between 1998 and 2008. The Global Commission also cites the 2008 Report of the Cannabis Commission which concludes that U.S. states which introduced [marijuana decriminalization] reforms did not experience greater increases in cannabis use among adults or adolescents. In other words, marijuana use has grown in America, despite continuing federal criminalization in the War on Drugs, and the growth in marijuana use cannot be blamed on state decriminalization. These are just two examples of the mounting evidence that massive criminalization and militarization not only do not solve the drug problem, but help keep it going. According to the Global Commission report, consumption of opiates in the U.S. increased by 34.5% between 1998 and 2008, and cocaine consumption increased by 27%. This is after 40 years of failure in the War on Drugs. In 1971, President Nixon concluded his Message to the Congress with the wishful hope that The final issue is not whether we will conquer drug abuse, but how soon. How soon, indeed. The War on Drugs treats a massive social problem like a conventional enemy of war that can be conquered. But in reality, there is no definite enemy in the War on Drugs. Even drug cartels, although they are a threat, are not enemies in the conventional sense. Bringing down the cartels is not like bringing down Hitler. It wont end the war. The War on Drugs, like the War on Terrorism, is a vague kind of war that has no real enemy and no real conclusion. It is a perpetual state of war. In his 1971 Message, Nixon tells the American people that It is impossible to say that the enforcement legislation I have asked for here will be conclusivethat we will not need further legislation. We cannot fully know at this

time what further steps will be necessary. As those steps define themselves, we will be prepared to seek further legislation to take any action and every action necessary to wipe out the menace of drug addiction in America. Translation: the War on Drugs will escalate, but we have no idea how much, and since the government has your best interests in mind, you should trust us to wage this open-ended war. After 40 years of failure, the war is still being waged with no end in sight. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, the United States spends more than $51 billion every year on the War on Drugs, and in 2009 the United States arrested about 1.6 million people on nonviolent drug charges. America has the highest overall incarceration rate in the world. Lets face it, says Ethan Nadelmann, JD, PhD, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Whats going on in Mexico today with all the organized crime, violence, corruption, loss of respect, innocent people being killed; it reminds me of the alcohol prohibition and Al Capone in Chicago back in those days, except times fifty, times a hundred in terms of the number of people dying. These are not the consequences of a drug user or drug markets per se. These are the consequences of political choices to make these drugs illegal, and the failed efforts to continue the prohibitionist policies. In a nation where the 18th Amendment once prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors, we now have state liquor stores. Al Capone would be amused. Legislation to decriminalize and regulate marijuana has been mounting over the last 15 years. Just last week, Connecticut passed legislation to downgrade its punishment for small amounts of marijuana possession to a $150 fine, and medical marijuana legislation is pending in that state (http://blog.420petition.com/marijuana-legalization/connecticut-will-decriminalizemarijuana/). In Michigan, the first license for a medical marijuana dispensary was recently granted (http://blog.420petition.com/law/first-michigan-marijuana-dispensary-gets-licence/). Other alternatives to the War on Drugs have been tried over the years, such as using drug courts rather than criminal courts to deal with nonviolent substance abusers. After 40 years of failure, these efforts may be the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs. This week marks the anniversary of President Nixons Message to the Congress, which put us on the path were on. Nixon was right that We must try to better understand the confusion and disillusion and despair that bring people, particularly young people, to the use of narcotics and dangerous drugs. Its time to end the War on Drugs and go down a new path, one based on the better understanding that Nixon called for.