TheAgitator.com
Heroin Addicts for the Drug War!
Monday, March 17th, 2008The LAPD officer who writes under the pseudonym “Jack Dunphy” has a wrap-up of The Wire at Pajamas Media that concludes with a stirring defense of the drug war. It goes like this:
Some addicts can and do clean up, but will legalization make honest citizens out of drug dealers willing to kill over control of a street corner?The argument for drug legalization is a rational one, but it is not one that I, after more than twenty years as a cop in Los Angeles, can endorse. Watching Bubbles struggle with his demons over these last five years, I was often reminded of a heroin addict I arrested years ago. As I was about to close the cell door on him, I asked him if he thought heroin should be legalized.
“No way,” he said.
I asked him why not.
“If you legalize it,” he said, “pretty soon everybody will be like me.”
This is what drug warrior arguments have come to. Cheap appeals to emotion that rest on the authority of a heroin addict.
Let’s start with the line about “dealers willing to kill over a street corner.” In fact, legalization would take care of that problem, because when a product is legal, “turf wars” are better known as “market share.” That is, there are legitimate ways of expanding your business. You innovate. You offer a better product (like, say, one that doesn’t kill people). And there are legitimate ways of handling bad business associates. You sue them. Or you call the police. You don’t kill them. When was the last time you heard of a Michelob transaction gone wrong?
The drug warrior mentality says that some people are evil from birth. They go into the drug trade because they’re horrible people who want to kill for a living. Legalizing drugs, then, won’t make them go away. It’ll just push them into some other illicit activity where business is settled with violence. I don’t buy it. I don’t think the huge number of people now involved in the illicit drug trade were all born evil. I think people respond to incentives. When you combine the prohibition premium on running drugs with the lack of other available options in some parts of society, you distort personal values, and nudge people toward choices they wouldn’t otherwise make.
As for Dunphy’s strange appeal to a junkie’s authority, there are several problems with the “if you legalize drugs, everyone will become an addict” argument. Among them:
1) It assumes that prohibition is actually preventing access to illegal drugs in any meaningful way today. It isn’t. I could have a bag of marijuana in my hands in about five minutes. As fast or faster than I could get a sandwich. It would probably take me 20 minutes to a half hour hunt down a small bag of heroin, but it wouldn’t be difficult. And I could get either without any real fear of arrest. And I’m not a drug user. If I had actual connections, it’d be even easier. Some survey data shows high school kids can get marijuana as easily or easier than they can get alcohol.
2) It wrongly assumes that the all of the problems we associate with drugs–the bloody turf wars, the presence of particularly potent drugs like meth, the lengths to which dealers will go to get their premium, etc.–are the product of the drugs themselves, and not the product of them being prohibited. This chart helps slay that argument. When was the last time you heard about a Michelob deal gone bad? .
3) It assumes that the laws against using and distributing drugs are the only thing preventing a huge portion of the population from trying them, and becoming addicted to them. Legalization may increase the use of currently banned drugs. But I have my doubts about a massive increase in addicts. The social stigma would still be there, as it is with alcoholism. Perhaps more people would experiment. But it isn’t clear that that’s a bad thing. Use is not abuse, no matter what ONDCP says in its press releases. And the vast majority of drug users–even “hard” drug users–don’t turn into addicts. Certainly, the overwhelming majority of people who currently abstain from drug use solely due to drugs being illegal are unlikely to become violent addicts should those drugs be legalized, robbing and killing at will to maintain a fix. To the extent that there would be increases in experimentation, the drugs people would be experimenting with would be safer. At minimum they’d be regulated by market forces, and more likely, heavily regulated by government. Would excessive regulation lead to a violent black market in unregulated drugs? I doubt it. Is there a violent black market in unregulated alcohol? Tobacco? There are limited black markets, yes. But they aren’t nearly the problem the black markets for cocaine, heroin, and the like are.
4) It rests on the absurd assumption that it’s appropriate and logical to throw people in jail in order to protect them from becoming addicts.
For an alternate take on the drug war from a former LAPD cop, see my interview with David Doddridge.
The chart is interesting, but the sample is too small to draw anything conclusive about present-day murders and drug war. In fact, they appear to be on a decline over the last ten years, which really doesn’t support the desired point. And, as a growing nation with increased population density, the numbers after the 40s (WWII) makes perfect sense.
Now, after Prohibition, there is a marked decline that may be attributed (probably is), but statistically speaking, this looks nothing more than cyclic behaviour. The sample set is just too small.
But I do agree that crime rates in general have risen much higher specifically because of the way drugs and drug crimes are treated.
I left this post earlier but I had to come back and tell you this kind of post is why I check you out at least a few times a day. Well thought out and argued even though I don’t totally agree with your assessment. Sorry to be such a kiss-ass
I have a couple thoughts about legalization. First, alcohol is legal, but “bootleg” alcohol is a thriving business in some areas. One reason for this is to avoid taxes placed on legal alcohol. Second, cigarettes are legal, but there is illegal trade in cigarettes that exists in order to avoid taxes. Illegal ciragettes is a problem, but illegal alcohol can cause injury or kill as there is no quality control enforced. I believe that legalized drugs would result in some quantity of illegal drug traffic that is not quality controlled as there would be the desire to avoid paying any taxes. Drug legallization might reduce some problems, but I cannot imagine a complete absence of problems. The illegal trade in alcohol and cigarettes is also prone to violence. the desire to profit by providing a product at a lesser price (no taxes) can add up to big dollar amounts and there are people who will resort to violenece if it means big money. I think a a look at the topic requires a broader look at the problem. Legalization will not make all the problems disappear.
john whrli-
“Legalization will not make all the problems disappear”
Drugs themselves will never disappear either. You will never get rid of drugs unless you get rid of pain.
This is the only phrase I have a problem with:
“And the vast majority of drug users–even “hard” drug users–don’t turn into addicts. ”
I’ve seen this arguement so many on this site (mainly from commentors), and it just is absolutely ridiculous on its face. I’ll grant that more cocaine is probably sniffed from bullets at social gatherings than smoked or injected. But honestly, someone find me a long-time casual meth or heroin user. Just one.
Radley, you’re right on again. When I was living in San Francisco and my pothead brother would visit me from the suburbs, he could score weed in ten minutes flat. On the other hand, I had to buy him cigarettes (he was 17). It occured to me then that if weed were legalized but taxed and controlled in the same way as tobacco, not only would we save a bundle but that my brother wouldn’t be able to score it as easily.
The tale did end well. He served four years in the Army and came out the most motivated young man I’ve ever known. But, he still smokes pot recreationaly and cigarettes as a habit. The latter because it turns out the ex-Soviet Army and the American Army share a mantra, “If you don’t smoke, you work.”
Colin, I’m skeptical of the regulate marijuana arguement. It seems to me that if you do that, you create a whole new black market of cheap and/or badass marijuana. I’d rather it just be decriminalized and let the chips fall where they may with marijuana because the social costs of even a dramatic increase in use are so low.
Prohibition actually works pretty well against me, mostly because I don’t get out much. Black market participation requires a pretty broad social network. I often go without since I can’t just run to a store and grab some weed.
Alex,
I experimented with most drugs short of anything injected for several years in high school and early on in college. While going to school full time I was able to work part time and still graduated on time with good grades. I haven’t touched anything illegal for close to 5 years now, not because of any negative consequences these substances caused but because I experienced all I could with them.
Am I rarity? Perhaps. But I know many people who occasionally use harder drugs, mostly cocaine, and share very common experiences with me and are gainfully employed.
As for the ease of purchasing illegal drugs, when I was still underage, especially in high school, finding drugs was much easier than finding alcohol. No one checks IDs when purchasing an eighth of marijuana but they do when trying to purchase a six pack. I could have called any number of people to find an illicit substance but there were very few who had access to alcohol on any regular basis.
Knaw, I agree with you. It sounds like we’ve had similar experiences. There was a reason I didn’t include cocaine on the list. There’s so many people, especially professionals, who sniff it on occasion. When sniffed, the dangers are vastly overstated (watch out for a coke banger though).
However, I think there’s two aspects of the Drug War that need to be addressed seperately. There’s meth, heroin, PCP, etc. and then there’s everything else. I’m generally pro-decriminilization on all fronts. However, arguements for marijuna leglization are necessarily different than arguements for meth legaliztion (and pharmaceutical legalization, which is my pet cause). People like JJH2 make these elaborate, philosophical arguements about both, but the bottom line is that they resonate with very few.
BTW, I’m not going to talk about all of my sundry personal experiences on the topic, but I will say that a lot of friends from the neighborhood, from the Army, from college, etc. have been bad off at some point. I just have such a gutteral distate for these arguements I know from experience to be way off-base.
I’m pretty solidly pro-legalization even to the extreme of including “hard” drugs in the mix. And, yes, I’ve had experiences with a nice, wide range of the substances myself–and there are a few things I would still use socially instead of alcohol if I didn’t risk job and career to do so.
Still, I wonder at this:
“4) It rests on the absurd assumption that it’s appropriate and logical to throw people in jail in order to protect them from becoming addicts.”
Most people that I know of don’t advocate throwing people in jail to protect them from becoming addicts. Most that I know advocate jailing them to keep them from engaging in criminal activities to support their habit. They seem to assume that an addict is automatically a thief who would rob to support their addiction–and that the rest of us need to be protected from the larceny and violence of the addicts.
Perhaps I’m wrong and more people think the way you suggest, but that hasn’t been my experience and I don’t see it in what Dunphy wrote, either. There is a pretty big difference in those positions, though.
As for drugs v/ alcohol: when I was young both were easily had. I drank more regularly than I smoked. I don’t find it convincing that an underage person who can easily find an eight-ball couldn’t find a way to get a six pack of cheap beer.
On the other hand, Alex, I used meth along with coke for a few years on a pretty regular basis (at least once every few weeks, socially, with a small group of friends who loved to play “My Drug Buddy”), although I’ve never touched heroin because I didn’t get the point of it. I think that I would have qualified as your “long term casual meth user”–and, let me tell you, I never robbed anyone, never committed a violent crime, and simply stopped using when I decided I wanted to stop using.
Like most people who drink, most drug users never become addicts, never do anything more stupid than calling an ex-girlfriend at stupid hours of the morning, and never let drugs control their lives.
And for someone who is an addict, I don’t think it matters what drug they choose. They’ll find something to fuck their lives up with because that’s what they aim to do. It’s not the drugs, it’s the person.
Also, if this statement
“And the vast majority of drug users–even “hard” drug users–don’t turn into addicts. ”
had referred to first-time users or experimenters, I think it would be dead on. However, it reads as if Radley is saying that most heroin and meth users are casual, which of course is bullshit.
Zommy, I’m not saying that people like you don’t exist. I’m just saying that it isn’t the norm and shouldn’t be represented as such.
There was a clinic in Liverpool England that conducted an experiment regarding giving patients a prescription for hard drugs as long as they attended regular group treatment sessions. It was quite successful. Apparently, when addicts didnt have to spend their time scoring, they spent it taking a look at themselves and whether they wanted to continue in that life. 60 Minutes did a story on this clinic as well about 15 years ago. I was able to find a couple of links regarding this clinic, including the transcript from the 60 Minutes episode. I will leave those links for your consideration.
http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/body/drugs/usage/liverpool.html
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Misc/60minliv.htm
Alex, we can at least agree that using the criminal justice system to control drug use does not work, can we not?
Alex, according to Jacob Sullum’s book, “Saying Yes,” the government’s own figures clearly demonstrate that most people who use meth and heroin use them the way most people use pot and alcohol: responsibly and without adverse affects.
You should check out the book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585423181/theagitator-20/
And the vast majority of drug users–even “hard” drug users–don’t turn into addicts
From my experience, this is an accurate statement. I’ve known quite a few drug users in my life, but only one that I would consider an addict.
And I’d venture to guess that there are far more casual users of meth and heroin than there are addicts.
“From my experience, this is an accurate statement. I’ve known quite a few drug users in my life, but only one that I would consider an addict. And I’d venture to guess that there are far more casual users of meth and heroin than there are addicts.”
The drug users tell one story. I guarantee their dealer will tell you something different. When you hear about 100′s of meth labs being busted in one state, each one making kilos at a time, I find it really hard to believe that’s all going to some hard-partying college kids.
“Alex, we can at least agree that using the criminal justice system to control drug use does not work, can we not?”
Of course we can, so really this is a moot point. I just know from personal experience that the one statement is not true at all for the very hardest drugs.
Les, thanks for that book mention. I meant to read that when it came out and never got around to it.
Also, I talked to one of my best friends who used to be a morphine addict and dealt to support his habit (100mg/day). I told him about this debate, and he laughed his ass off for a couple minutes.
I’m skeptical of the regulate marijuana arguement. It seems to me that if you do that, you create a whole new black market of cheap and/or badass marijuana.
What I’d like to see is it legalized so that Marlboro or Camel could put out their own packs of Marijuana cigarettes that can be picked up at the corner store and regulated – if there must be regulation – in the same way as cigarettes are.
Is there a black market now for cigarettes? Yes. But it was created by the high taxes on smokes. I’m sure one would be created for Marijuana as well but it would certainly be better than the one that exists now.
The lesson of prohibition is not that legalization solves the criminal problem, it is that prohibition creates a grander criminal problem.
The trick about the taxes is to put just enough on them to be profitable, but still enough to undercut the prices of the dealers. Seems simple enough to me! We still have cigarettes that cost very little more than the taxes, since it is still profitable for the producers of cigarettes. Everybody, not in the government, is out to save a buck on their purchases! But, at the cost of production, I would imagine that the price could easily be dropped down to destroy the profit margin of the dealers, and, still, supply the product to people, so they would not have to worry about jail for their choice of intoxicant!
“Second, cigarettes are legal, but there is illegal trade in cigarettes that exists in order to avoid taxes.”
I live in newark nj, where there is a HUGE black market in cigarettes, however this market did not exist until a HUGE increase in taxes applied to cigarettes that pushed the price for a pack from around $3.00 a pack to $5.00 and prices now hover around $6.00. Prior tp that you never saw anyone on the street selling cigarettes. The average salary in newark is around $30-40 however many make less. If you smoked a pack a day you suddenly saw your weekly cost go from $21 a week to right now $35 or $1092 a year to $2184 (give me a moments pause while I reflect that I spend $2184 on this nasty habit a year.) Not trying to defend cigarette smoking but the sudden increase in taxes CREATED the black market.
http://patterico.com/2008/03/15/jack-dunphy-on-nullification-and-the-drug-war/
We beat up Jack over here.
Canada tried that ultra taxing of smokes some years ago. Result?
MY GAWD I can buy an 80 mph boat off the showroom floor today that can carry 200 cases of smokes across the river in mere minutes!
Where I live in the midwest we have “the meth crisis”. In fact where I live was one of the highest meth producing areas of the country at one time. Back several years ago when meth making was profitable I had connections into the world and knew who the players were. The majority of those making meth were simply poor folks, rural mainly, who found a way to make money. Lots of farmers who were barely making it found that selling anhydrous ammonia to meth cooks was more profitable than putting it in the ground. Many a farmer who was on the ropes financially took to whipping up a few batches to bring in some extra income. They weren’t and hadn’t been violent criminals. Oh once the meth craze really got going you got some violence and assclownery simply due to the effects of the drug itself but most crime was due to people needing to steal to obtain the funds to buy meth. A simple result of prohibition. Very few people stole to buy alcohol. It was reasonably priced.
Now with the influx of cheap mexican meth even the professional chefs can’t compete. In mexico it is made on an industrial scale and one can’t match production and price. Most of these former cooks are not cooking anymore. The money isn’t there and the danger from mexican traffickers is too great. Pretty much the only people cooking are tweakers who don’t have the money for even the cheap mexican meth or just to make a few bucks and support their habit on the cheap. Not to mention that the mexican drug imports brought a new level of crime to the areas which is a story in and of itself.
If one could walk into the local pharmacy and buy pharmaceutical grade amphetamines for a reasonable price (which at one time when America was free you could indeed do) most of the crime and the problems of mexican drug trafficking and the crime it brings would disappear.
If we decriminalized we’d have far fewer problems. We could end the startling militarization of our police forces (which in this area is simply shocking) and perhaps those poor rural folks could make a little money by selling legal marijuana to companies who supply pharmacies and other retail outlets or begin industrial hemp production.
I agree with the first post (and Radley overall), on the subject of the graph. The fact that the trend line that leads to a high murder rate is roughly the same before and and after prohibition starts is point 1 against
Radley’s use of it, and the reduction of murders in recent years to near interlude levels is another.
Obviously, there are multiple variables going into this, so I’d want to know what states had enacted prohibition on their own prior to this, and the economic environment, and probably even more factors that affect the murder rate, then maybe try to compare similar intervals in other variables and see how the murder rate compares.
I might also want to see Canada’s murder rate during prohibition and after also.
“The drug warrior mentality says that some people are evil from birth. They go into the drug trade because they’re horrible people who want to kill for a living.”
Partial correction: should read “Reality dictates that some people are evil from birth. They become government thugs because they’re horrible people who want to kill for a living.”
Thank you for your time.