Consequences of Prohibition
Politics & Advocacy
Phillip S. Smith, Writer/Editor, Drug War Chronicle
The grand old man of American drug reform is at it again. Retired American University professor and head of the International Antiprohibitionist League Arnold Trebach returns to the fray with "Fatal Distraction," and a fine addition to the literature it is. While the book is a reworking of his contribution to the 1993 pro-and-con "Legalize It? Debating American Drug Policy" (with James Inciardi), Trebach has greatly expanded that material and includes much that is new. In doing so, he has created what is in essence a primer for ending drug prohibition.
Drug reform groups that refuse to embrace ending prohibition, who are afraid to say the word "legalization," are part of the problem, Trebach declares. For reformers today to avoid calling directly for full legalization is to Trebach analogous to "the Abolitionist movement of the 1800s having worked not to free the slaves, but to provide better housing and health care for them." Like slavery, Trebach notes, drug prohibition is "a true evil institution, one that needs destroying -- not improving."
Trebach spends about the first third of "Fatal Distraction" demonstrating just how and how horribly drug prohibition has failed, and as he does so, he takes the reader on a guided tour of the drug war, from the bloody streets of our inner cities to our overflowing prisons, from the damage done to the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution to the inherently corrupting asset forfeiture laws, from the crisis in pain relief to the mini-concentration camps masquerading as drug treatment centers for our kids. To all of this, Trebach brings decades of experience, observation, and thoughtful pondering, and he builds a devastating case against prohibition.
Much of Trebach's argument and many of his examples will be familiar to serious students of drugs and drug policy, but Trebach's comprehensive vision helps bring the convoluted mass of intersecting issues around drug policy into clear focus. It also helps that Trebach presents his material in easily digested, bite-sized chunks of three or four or five pages.
But, as "Fatal Distraction's" subtitle -- "The War on Drugs in the Age of Islamic Terror" -- suggests, Trebach has more on his mind that simply ending drug prohibition. Obviously deeply affected by the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Trebach argues that the war on Islamic fundamentalist violence is so critical to America's future that continuing to divert energy and resources into the war on drugs could threaten our very existence.
Arnold Trebach
Nevertheless, while the theme of fighting Islamic terrorism appears sporadically throughout "Fatal Distraction," most of that material appears within a handful of chapters near the end of the book. Perhaps its presence will get some new people to think about the drug laws who haven't done so before. The remainder of "Fatal Distraction" -- the distillation of a life's work in the trenches of drug law reform -- makes this a book grizzled reformers and bright-eyed newcomers to the cause alike will want to read and absorb.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
Trebachs new book
Very smart review by Phil Smith.The war on drugs has no need to be replaced with a war on 'terror', certainly not if the war on terror is the name given to a battle against people who want the Yanks and the Israeli's out of the Middle East.
Trebach is an experienced observer of Prohibition and belongs to the best analytical minds on the subject. But his identification with the existance of Israel and its destiny makes him a primitive analyst of the global political situation, aka the war on terror. He is terrified with all political forces that threaten the existance of Israel, and there for belongs to a group that wants radical Islamists and Palestinian freedom fighters rooted out from the the face of this world.
I happen to be one of those Jews who thinks that the creation of Israel is one of the desperate mistakes that came out of WW2.No concentration camp and no Nazi horror legitimises that hundreds of thousands of Palestianians were chased out of their homes and farms to make the existance of Israel possible.The violent fascism and the undoubtable racism of modern Zionists seems to be invisible to people because of the Nazi past and what it did to the Jews. I wish Trebach would use his considerable educations and his wide perspective on the history and horror of what Israel has done and is doing, instead of asking for more war.
Peter Cohen,Amsterdam
Trebach and Cohen
Well, so much for the âJewish Conspiracyâ!
My good friends Peter Cohen and Arnold Trebach disagree on the relationship between the drug war, âIslamicâ terrorism and the state of Israel. I disagree with both of them.
I am a Christian Libertarian who is also a strong supporter of Israel, and a long-time opponent of the drug war. However, I donât see much direct connection between the two.
The Iraqi Shiite leader, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr Al Hakim, has said that the chaos in Iraq is unrelated to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, despite what the Iraqi Study Group and Tony Blair may say. The hostility between Shia and Sunni goes back over a thousand years. Muslim fundamentalism predates the state of Israel, and the Afghan Taliban did not need a distant excuse for its bigotry.
Moreover, if Israel were to disappear tomorrow, or make âpeaceâ with its sworn enemies who deny its right to exist, and then disappeared the day after tomorrow, the murderers who have tried to highjack Islam would still want to kill anyone who disagrees with them about anything, even anti-Zionist Jews.
While, as Phil Smith observed, it is certainly true that the war on drugs is âa diversion and distractionâ from other worthwhile things, there is very direct conflict between it and the so-called war on terror in the suppression of opium poppies in Afghanistan, or securing traffic on the Mexican border. The Madrid bombers supposedly financed themselves by smuggling hashish from Morocco. Of course, all contraband trade offers an opportunity to âcriminal organizationsâ, but there is probably none easier or more lucrative than illicit drugs.
I think that Trebach is therefore right in his basic premise that the drug war is a threat to the national security of the United States and the Western world, whatever it may mean to Israel.
Richard Cowan
[email protected]
The Criminalization of Medicine: America's War on Drugs
Will you do a review of Ron Libby's new book, "The Criminalization of Medicine: America's War on Doctors"?
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