Editorial:
Another
Spectacle
of
Unreason
in
the
Drug
War
5/12/06
David Borden, Executive Director, [email protected], 5/12/06
This week another spectacle of unreason took place -- not national, thankfully -- but also important. In Albany, the capital city of New York, District Attorney David Soares, who had run and been elected on a platform of opposition to the state's draconian Rockefeller drug laws, drew loud criticism from the mayor, sheriff and police chief for a speech he gave last week at the international harm reduction conference in Vancouver. Soares had criticized US drug laws and called the drug war a failure, urging Canada not to follow the US lead on it. He cited "lucrative police jobs" and said that prison-building had become an understood economic development strategy. On the surface it was that "jobs" part that set some people off. It probably wasn't the best choice of words -- jobs aren't just about the money, after all, often they are about one's sense of identity as well, certainly in a profession as dangerous as that of policing. Many drug enforcement people actually believe in what they're doing, despite all the evidence; it can't be very pleasant for them to hear that all their efforts over all the years were in vain or even worse did harm. Nevertheless, jobs are jobs, and it would be foolish to believe that has no impact. It's occasionally posited that some upstate New York politicians are reluctant to get rid of the Rockefeller laws because of all the prison jobs their districts could lose if that happened. On the West Coast, the California prison guard's union set a record several years ago with a massive, half a million dollar campaign contribution to then Gov. Pete Wilson -- a fan of prison building who also gave the guards a raise when other state employees' wages were frozen. Mayor Jennings, Sheriff Campbell and Chief Tuffey doubtless understand how little one small turn of words like that can really mean -- they were just using that as a pretext for attacking a outsider maverick they don't like. Soares apologized publicly for that particular remark -- probably a good idea -- but went on to say he stood by his views and was glad the issue had been raised there at home because that meant it could be debated. The issue should be -- must be -- debated. Despite protestations by a few loud critics, Soares was telling the truth -- the drug war really is a failure -- it's not even close. For example, the US Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), reports that the retail cost of heroin declined by more than a factor of five and its purity increased by a factor of three between 1981 and 2003. Together that's an effective price drop of 94% -- quite the opposite of what the strategy calls for, increasing price in order to reduce demand. Internationally, figures released by ONDCP last month show that production of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, is as widespread now as when efforts to reduce the crop began in the 1990s. Both these dramatic failures transpired despite several tens of billions of dollars spent on the drug war every year. On a local level, in nearby Syracuse, a 2002 City Auditor report found that the city's more than 6,000 annual arrests were occurring mostly in minority neighborhoods, were not achieving their goal and were having unintended consequences. In moral terms, New York's Rockefeller laws have been a source of great injustice that would call for rethinking on that basis alone. Rather than trying to shut the discussion down by attacking the messenger, Sheriff Campbell, Chief Tuffey and Mayor Jennings should follow Soares' lead and work together to foster a rational debate on this critically important issue. Instead, they chose to appeal to the worst in people by demonizing a political opponent and talking nonsense to do it. It was a sad spectacle indeed. But it's not clear that they succeeded. As Soares pointed out, he doesn't work for the mayor of sheriff or police chief, he was elected by the people and he works for them. And since he ran on a drug law reform platform, people probably won't be that surprised at the views he expressed in Canada. As for Mexico, another speaker in Vancouver, former Colombian attorney general Gustavo de Greiff, had hopeful words turned to harsh ones when Drug War Chronicle asked him about that situation. "Let us not forget that before he was elected, Fox said we need to discuss alternatives to prohibition. I hope he does not veto this bill," said de Greiff, who also served as Colombia's ambassador to Mexico, before Fox retreated. "This refusal by Fox to sign the bill is an act of political cowardice" is what he said afterward. There will be more such spectacles before it's over and done, but maybe that's good -- the more our opponents attack us, and the more harshly, the more progress they must think that we're making. They should be careful -- we might start creating spectacles too. Read a brief article about the Albany controversy below in this issue, followed by a media action alert.
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