Mark Bradford
EDGE
6/2/05
The Pit Falls of the War on Drug
The drug laws that are in place right now are very inefficient. This paper will
focus on the people and the specific elements that are affected by the inefficiency of the
drug laws. When looking at the drug laws at a glance a person might be lead to think that
they would be very effective and they seem reasonable. While drug laws in themselves
are necessarily wrong, some of the discrepancies in the laws make them unfair and take
from the category of handing down justice and puts them into the category of cruel and
unusual. First there will be an analysis of prohibition throughout American history, then
an analysis of what the actual crimes and punishments are for a few of the drug in the
United States. Next there will be a look into who is affected by the laws and how.
Finally, this paper will try to provide some kinds of solutions to the problems that are
being caused with the drug laws.
First the definition of a drug is any substance that has an effect on the mind and
body except food, and the definition of a crime is an act or omission that is punishable or
goes against a law. When crime is looked at in this sense it can be said that government
is the cause of all crime because every crime that is committed has to go against a law
that is passed by the government. In looking at the problems with the drug laws, a
history of where the drug laws come from is necessary. In the first 140 years of the
United States all drugs were legal. This means that if a person wanted to do any drug at
any time that the person could do it without having to worry about any penalties. The
actual first federal law that was passed was the Pure Food and Drug act of 1906. This
law was did not even put a restriction on the drugs that were available. This act was
more of a labeling act. This was used to make sure that people knew what they were
taking. This act stated that the consumer had a right to know the correct identity of the
product. This was a time period where the government was very liberal pertaining to
drug laws. The government did not think that it was their place to tell people what was
useful for them to take or not. During this time period the U.S. used to import and export
opiates to other countries. In the period before 1913 the alcohol taxes provided about
half of the federal income, but in that year an income tax was introduced which in turn
made a decision to prohibit alcohol much easier for those who were making the decision
in the government. Between of years of 1919-1923 is where the American people lost
their rights to control their own medical treatment. The act that was passed that took this
right away was the Harrison act. This act restricted doctors to prescribing narcotics only
in the course of their professional practice. The passing of this law lead to lead to the
harassing of doctors who did no follow the laws and sent a message to those who did not
pay close attention to the specific definition of what constituted as professional practice.
This was of course dependant on the persons interpretation was. There ended up being a
number of doctors that ended up getting jail time and many others with warnings. This
act also put a restriction on the physicians and their ability to give drugs. The physicians
could only give drugs on a doctor’s prescription. January 16, 1920 was the beginning of
the alcohol prohibition. Since the beginning of prohibition there have been entrepreneurs
that have stepped up on the opportunity to capitalize on the market of selling what has
been prohibited when the demand on the prohibited is great. Smuggling has come a long
was since the beginning of the prohibition of alcohol. One example of the how far its
come is that “ One early smuggler was a cab driver who simply drove his clearly marked
New York City taxi cab 350 miles north to Canada, loaded up all the whiskey that it
could hold, and drove back to New York with cases of whiskey plainly visible through
the windows” (http://www.dpft.org/history.html). From these humble beginnings the act
of smuggling has come a long way, into much more sophisticated and thought-out
techniques. April 4, 1933 was the official end to the alcohol prohibition. The act of
prohibition is still alive today in the form of drug laws that still exist today.
When taking a look at the drug laws and the viewing the different demographics
of people in the prisons it has to be said that a lot of the drug law punishments are not
equivalent to the crime that is committed, they are in essence too harsh. When looking at
the fact that minor non-violent drug offenders are receiving some of the same sentences
as murderers and rapist is when one has to think that the sentences are a little bit
excessive. “Only offenders convicted of murder and kidnapping/ hostage taking serve
longer sentence than crack offenders. Those convicted of robbery serve an average of
108 months; arson, 68 months; sexual abuse, 65 months; and manslaughter, 25 months”
(http://www.famm.org/si_crack_powder_sentencing_fact_sheet.htm). The people going
to prison for drug violations are not only receiving tougher sentencing but they are more
of them in the prisons than those who went to prison for any other reason, the fact is that
60% of all federal prisoners in prison are in for drug offenses. Those convicted for crack
cocaine serve an average sentence length of 119 months in prison! Tobacco is
responsible for the death of millions and is still legal while on the other hand a drug like
marijuana has not been the proven cause of one death but is still illegal. Due to the war
on drugs the “The estimated time served by drug offenders in state prisons increased a
full year between 1987 and 1996; federal drug sentences doubled”
(http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-03.htm).
When dealing with powder cocaine the mandatory
minimum sentence for defendants convicted of selling 500 grams of cocaine is five years
in prison. For five kilos the minimum sentence is ten years in prison. The crime of
simple possession of powder cocaine by first-time offenders is considered a misdemeanor
and is punishable by no more than one year in prison. There is a big discrepancy between
the punishments of crack cocaine and the punishments of powder cocaine, even though
there is no big difference in the damage that is incurred by the user.
For crack cocaine the mandatory minimum sentence for
defendants convicted of selling 5 grams of crack is five years. The minimum sentence
for fifty grams of crack is ten years in prison. Simple possession of crack by a first time
offender is considered a felony, and carries a five-year mandatory sentence. The
difference in the two drugs are not big enough for there to be such a difference in the way
that they are persecuted. “the mean average sentence length for powder cocaine is 77
months, compared to 119.5 months for crack cocaine”
(http://www.famm.org/si_crack_powder_sentencing_fact_sheet.htm).
Marijuana is a drug that is judged way too harshly.
This is a drug that can be compared to other drugs that are legal and would be found less
harmful to the user. Marijuana is less dangerous drug than alcohol. “Over 100,000
deaths each year in the U.S. are alcohol related, about 15,000 due to driving accidents.
Marijuana deaths approximate zero in a long history” (http://dpft.org/alcohol.htm). The
long-term effects of alcohol is much more severe than that of marijuana. Excessive long-
term use can lead to organ and brain damage, while there is no clear health damage
caused from marijuana. The amount of people that are effected negatively by marijuana
being illegal is a far greater number than that of people that benefit. The prison rates of
people involved with marijuana are ridiculous especially for a drug that is as harmless as
marijuana. “In 1972, after an exhaustive study by a team of experts, President Richard
Nixon’s hand-picked National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended
decriminalization of marijuana. Five years later, President Jimmy Carter and many of his
top cabinet officials made the same recommendation to Congress. Both the Commission
and the Carter administration felt that the “cure” of imprisonment was worse than the
“disease” of marijuana use. U.S. drug control officials argued strenuously that Congress
should ignore such recommendations, which it did”(http://www.cedro-
uva.org/lib/reinarman.dutch.html). If someone is found guilty of possession of more than
28.5 grams of marijuana they are charged with a misdemeanor and have to serve 6
months in prison. The punishment for the cultivation of any amount of marijuana is a
felony and 16 months in prison. In “ 2001, the average length of a sentence received for
marijuana was 38 months”
(http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/heroin/). Such punishments
should not even be in existence because marijuana should be a legal drug. Besides the
money that would be saved in holding inmates the government could also make money
off of the sale of the product in a legal market. So there is also an economic benefit to
the legalization of marijuana on top of the fact that I would be the right thing to do
because of the drugs benefits and that the drug is not very harmful.
When looking at heroin the average length of a
sentence received by Federal heroin offenders was 63.4 months. Over 80% of those
convicted were Black and Hispanic.
One of the reasons that all of the drug laws are so harsh and unfair is the
misconception about the connection between drugs and violence. The misconception is
that when someone is high on some drug that the person automatically becomes violent,
but that just is not the case. Most of the people that become violent when on drugs can be
said to be violent people before they were on the drugs in the first place. The causes of
the crimes are the people themselves and not the drugs that they are on. This relationship
between drugs and violence is misrepresented in most polls and articles because people
think of the two as having a causal relationship when that is just not the case. The
sentencing behind the drug cases are ridiculous. The sentences that are given have to be
justified by the fact that people think that prison is a deterrent and is used for
rehabilitation purposes. Both of these views of the prison system are wrong. The truth is
that most of the people that deal with drugs don’t think that they will ever get caught so
they don’t even factor prison into the equation when making decisions. For the people
that get caught and using the prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation, that is one of
the most unlikely things to happen. In fact what is most likely to happen is that a non-
violent drug offender will become more violent than he originally was at the time of
conviction.
The laws that are in place are bias and leave many people unfairly sentenced.
Religious and racial views have an affect on the passing of legislature that in turn leaves a
lot of the laws that are in place racially bias due to the attitude of the country in the past.
An example of this would be “When southern politicians instinctively objected to federal
drug legislation on state’s rights grounds, they were quickly brought around by the
sensational stories about cocainized Negroes raping white women”
(http://www.dpft.org/history.html#back04). This shows how the fear and hate of the
black man in the past has shaped up one of the many aspects of the criminal justice
system. There are many examples just like this one of decisions being made in the
legislative process that were made due to the feeling towards a particular ethnic group.
The drug laws that exist seem to be racially bias due to overwhelming incarceration rates
of minorities as compared to whites for drug offenses. Almost 95% of the ten thousand
people that go to prison in New York State on drug charges are Black or Hispanic. There
are many facts such as this that show the discrepancy of minorities in prison and it might
be said that maybe minorities are just involved with drugs more than whites are, but
that’s just not the case because the fact is that the number of drug users are about the
same, and the number of convictions speak for themselves. The number of convictions of
Blacks in America is very overwhelming and needs to be looked at. There needs to be
some type of reform done so that this pattern does not continue. The injustice is not just
held toward those in different ethnic groups either, the laws are even hurting women
unfairly. “The number of imprisoned women is increasing at a much faster rate than the
number of men, mostly because of tougher drug laws. There were 101,000 women in
state and federal prisons in 2003, an eight-fold increase since 1980; roughly one-third
were drug offenders, compared to about one fifth of male inmates”
(http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=588601). The laws that are affecting women
were actually not put in place to target women, they just getting caught up in a web that
was intended to trap drug lords and gang leaders. The laws that are affecting women are
the drug conspiracy and compliance laws. These drug convictions are leaving many
children without their parents and are tearing a lot of families apart. Many women are
involved in drug investigations and sometimes solely due to the fact that they refuse to
turn their partners in to the police. There is also an economical bias within the law that
leaves the people who are in the lower class at a disadvantage. “Severe drug sentences
are fueled by laws that promote intensive policing of poor, minority communities, while
white, affluent drug users can maintain their drug habits using computers, telephones,
pagers and delivery services that make any street-level activity (where arrest is much
more likely) unnecessary”
(http://www.phrusa.org/research/rockefeller_laws/tenmyths.html). Poor communities are
targeted for increased police activities and consequently members of these communities
make up the majority o the prison population. The laws on crack and cocaine are the best
example of the economic bias. Congress passed a 100/1 law that the penalty for one
gram of crack would be the same as the penalty for 100grams of cocaine. The drugs are
of the same composition and have virtually the same effect on the user except for the fact
that one is slightly watered down and cooked with baking soda. Crack is a drug that is
cheaper and is more accessible to lower income people and powder cocaine is more “high
roller” drug that cost more. That is the only difference in the two drugs and for there to
be a 100/1 law is clear evidence of the bias against those who are in the lower income
brackets. The economics of the drugs also come in to play when the police force is
concerned. Though a shame there is the fact that there are police out in the world who
are not all about seeing justice get done. Some of the police are all about getting what
they can get for themselves and that’s all that they’re worried about. That is what leads
to crooked cops. Some cops are willing to make deals with criminals if they think it is in
their best interest financially. In the end the people that they hurt are the people that they
were sworn to protect, but I guess that if they are making the deal then they don’t care
about that in the first place. One of the best examples of someone that took advantage of
the fact that there are crooked people in the judicial system was George Remus. “He
moved to Cincinnati because of its proximity to established distilleries in Kentucky and
Tennessee, and bought up most of America's best-known whiskey brands. Then he bribed
officials to get "medical" permits to ship from his warehouses. Remus made 40 million
dollars by the end of 1922, which is 700-800 million in current dollars... in 35 months,
which is 35 in current months. His network of bribes included a half-million to the U.S.
Attorney General. Once a detective in Cincinnati recorded him giving out bribe money to
44 public officials in one afternoon, but for some reason the District Attorney refused to
indict” (http://www.dpft.org/history.html). The drug business is such a profitable one
that even the people that are supposed to “moral” people can be bought off for the right
price. Crooked cops are protected by the shield that they were. While they do not have
immunity but are very close to that type of protection from the law. Only about 5% of
the cops who get found guilty off crimes are charged, and about 4% of the cops who were
found guilty were fired from their jobs. Cops can get away with breaking some of the
laws because they are given an exception because they are the ones that enforce the law.
It can also be said that the people at the top of the drug latter much less susceptible to
being effected by the drug laws but for different reasons, they are less vulnerable because
if the worse happens then they could always try to get off with all of the money that they
have, whether it be through buying some high price lawyer or by buying of a judge. The
money that the people in high places possess give them a type of separation when it
comes to the law, leaving them almost untouchable based solely on the fact that they have
more money that the next person. This leaves the people that are struggling for funds to
take the brunt of the law and most of the times the person who is struggling ends up
taking the fall for the person with all of the money.
A lot of people have to suffer unjustly due to some of the effects of the war on
drugs. One of the effects of the war on drugs is racial profiling. This is big issue with
minority’s races in low-income neighborhoods. What happens with racial profiling is
that the police get a picture in their heads of the people that they deal with in the arrest.
They see that most of the people that they arrest on drug charges fit a certain profile.
They see a minority male in a low-income area with a really nice car and the first thought
is that person could not have gotten that car legally because if this person could afford a
car like that then why are they living in an area like this. The judgments are made on the
officer’s instincts and his instincts are what could make the difference in him making it
home safely or not. The officer makes some of his decisions based on if a person looks
like they could be up to something or not. One case of racial profiling is one where “ A
student from Liberia attending college in North Carolina was driving along I-95 in
Maryland when he was pulled over by state police who said he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
The officers detained him and his two passengers for two hours as they searched the car
for illegal drugs, weapons, or other contraband. Finding nothing, the proceeded to
dismantle the ct and removed part of the door panel, a seat panel and part of the sunroof.
Again finding nothing the officers in the end handed the man a screwdriver as they left
the scene, saying, “you’re going to need this” (http://www.horizonmag.com/6/racial-
profiling.asp). While the assumption makes sense it is wrong to make such an
assumption. This is the reason that innocent people fall victim to racial profiling. People
are being unjustly scrutinized based just on their race. This is also a problem because it
mainly happens to minorities. If a white person was driving a really nice car through his
neighborhood then no one would think twice about it, but depending on how nice the car
is if a minority drive through police get suspicious. This is an unfair variable that comes
from the war on drugs. One more variable that is derived from the war on drugs is the
overspending that goes into funding the war. Since 1972 the federal budget for the war
on drugs has risen from 100,000,000 to today’s budget of 19,000,000,000. The rise in the
amount spent is staggering. A study was done and it was found out that “The average
monthly Social Security check in 1972 was around $177…if Social Security benefits had
increased at the same pace as drug-war spending, the average check would be more than
$60,000 a month, instead of around $800”
(http://www.commondreams.org/views/112600-105.htm). This proves that is was not
money well spent, the money could have gone somewhere where it would have had an
effect on the people in a positive way but instead it went into causing the population more
money in having to support another inmate in a prison. If the ultimate goal of the war on
drugs is to get all of the drugs off of the streets then its goal seems to be unattainable.
There have been many arrest made in the past but with all of those arrest there has been
no slowing of drug use. Another factor that comes from drug laws is illegal drug
trafficking. Drug trafficking is how the U.S. gets supplied with the drugs that come from
other countries. This is very similar to how bootleggers got liquor except this is on an
international level and deals in a multitude of drugs. Most of the drugs in the U.S. did
not come from the U.S., these drugs come from other areas of the world and most of
these places have liberal drug laws so their manufacturing is legal. The U.S. has put an
emphasis on the drug trafficking but has not been able to stop the inflow of the drugs into
the country. The drug traffickers are very smart in how the try to transport the drugs. It
seems that the more techniques that are found out, the more techniques that are used.
Some of the techniques that are used include: hiding drugs inside of food products,
children’s video games, cans of soup, and computer parts. These type of techniques have
been going on for some time now and are evolving into much more complex schemes to
traffic drugs.
Some solutions to the problems of the unfair drug laws would have to be
implemented at a slow pace because of the way that the nation feels about national
security. There would definitely have to be some type of an education period where
people learn about some of the false views about drugs and the drug laws. One of the
false views about the drug laws is that incarceration serves as a deterrent. This is not true
because most people that commit the crime more than once do see incarceration as even a
factor in prevention from committing another offense. Another misconception is that the
harsh punishments are warranted due to the seriousness of the crimes. This is not true
because while drugs are a problem in society they are not more of a problem than violent
offenses, but the laws do not reflect that in the right proportion. A solution to the
problem of the drug laws would be for the drugs to become legalized. This would be
feared by most of the population because people would think that some of the drugs
would be available too easily to teenagers and youths. The truth of the matter is that
illegal drugs like marijuana are already more easily accessed for teenagers than alcohol,
and to make it legal there could be restrictions put on the purchase of the substance
similar to that of alcohol, which would in turn make it less accessible. For the drugs that
are more dangerous there would be more restrictions attached to the purchase. With the
drugs being illegal the way it is now the drugs are made readily available to the people
that care enough to want to try them. Another reason for the legalization of drugs would
be for the revenue that it would bring into the country. This will save money because the
police force would not have to be paid to enforce the drug policies, and there could be a
tax put of the drugs like what was done in the past when the drug tax brought in about
half of the revenue for the country. To look at some of the misperceptions a comparison
of the U.S. drug laws and the drug laws of the Dutch. In comparing the two it would
seem unthinkable that the United States with its strict drug laws would have had more
people try marijuana (an illegal substance) than the Dutch who has liberal drug policies,
but that is the case. “The Dutch drug policies make pragmatic distinctions based on
relative risks. When the U.S. officials are confronted by scientific evidence showing
marijuana to be among the least risky drugs, they fall back on the claim that it is a
“stepping stone” to hard drugs” (http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/reinarman.dutch.html).
This illustrates the closed minded attitude of the United States. With marijuana being
legal the majority of the population does not even try the drug, and the majority of those
who do don’t continue with even less going on and using a harder drug. The usage of
heroin percentage among the population is more than double than that of the Dutch. The
rate of incarceration is almost ten times as much. Even the drug war that is waged on the
American soil does not discourage drug use. All of the money that has been put into the
war has been for naught. This should be frowned upon and one thing has to be
considered, that what we are doing now is not working. On an international level there
has been no decrease in the production of drugs and the drugs seem to find a way into the
United States. The country is putting up way too much money on something that is not
effective. The war on drugs is an ideal that has good merit but is the wrong tool to deal
with the problem of drug use in the U.S. There has to be some other way to deal with the
problem of drugs so why not try something new? There can be no guarantees that the
something new will be the right thing but there has to be something that can be done that
will affect the drug situation in a more positive way.
Works Cited
(http://www.dpft.org/history.html).
(http://www.famm.org/si_crack_powder_sentencing_fact_sheet.htm).
” (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-03.htm
http://dpft.org/alcohol.htm).
http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/reinarman.dutch.html).
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/heroin/).
http://www.dpft.org/history.html#back04).
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=588601).
http://www.phrusa.org/research/rockefeller_laws/tenmyths.html).
(http://www.horizonmag.com/6/racial-profiling.asp
http://www.commondreams.org/views/112600-105.htm).