The War on Drugs Itself Is Causing Most of the Damage

April 29, 2012, 5:03 p.m. ET
The War on Drugs Itself Is Causing Most of the Damage

"Rethinking the War on Drugs" by Mark A.R. Kleiman, Jonathan P. Caulkins and Angela Hawken (Review, April 21) misleads readers into thinking that there are programs that will finally make headway into the drug problem. Can cities really afford to hire enough breathalyzer and drug-test monitors to check drug users twice a day? And will "swift and certain sanctions" do anything more than displace drug markets like a Whac-A-Mole game, or fill jails and prisons with nonviolent users?

Here is an idea: Let's go back to the way we did things prior to 1914. All drugs were legal for adults, and there were no social programs to rescue those who misused them. With no excuses and no enabling, people were forced to moderate their use.
Michael J. Reznicek
Spokane, Wash.

Congress passed the Harrison Act criminalizing opium, which launched a hundred years of violent war and corruption and continues today with drug abuse far worse than it was in 1914. It is a pity the article rehashes the same old abstract theories of human behavior typical of drug-war theorists. Thousands of us who belong to Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, however, take a more pragmatic and democratic view.

Prohibition causes the huge profits enriching crooked officials and violent criminals, and the government causes great harm when it puts millions of Americans in jail to protect them from themselves.
Joseph D. McNamara
San Jose, Calif.
(Mr. McNamara, a retired police chief of San Jose, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.)

The authors are wrong in claiming that drug legalization is an all or nothing approach that necessitates legalizing crack and heroin along with more widely used marijuana. The Dutch policy of de facto marijuana legalization is premised on a separation of hard and soft drug markets.

The idea is that marijuana consumers won't come into contact with sellers of addictive hard drugs. Though current politics threaten restrictions on marijuana sales to tourists in the Netherlands, the policy has been successful.

The explosion in use that drug warriors claim will follow legalization never materialized. Lifetime use of marijuana in the Netherlands is half that of the U.S. But heroin use in the U.S. is 3.5 times higher than heroin use in the Netherlands, where the average age of addicts is going up. The Dutch have effectively closed the gateway to hard drugs by regulating the retail sale of marijuana.
Robert Sharpe
Policy Analyst
Common Sense for Drug Policy
Washington

I am disappointed to find that all the article proposes is a continuation of the drug war but with an enhanced police state.

The fundamental issue missed is that people want to consume these substances -- as they do alcohol, tobacco, food, you name it -- and the vast majority do so, whether the substances are legal or not, of their own free will and in ways which cause no harm to anyone else. It is the war on drugs itself, as was the case with Prohibition, that is causing the majority of the damage.

Without a moral argument for depriving people of their right to choose how they live their lives, the article avoids the real issue.
Douglas E. Fechter
Wilton, Conn.

Unfortunately, the calls for reform are based on the false premise that our criminal-justice system is filled with individuals whose behavior can be changed through more punishment. While 80% of inmates have a history of substance abuse, 50% are serious addicts. As a drug court judge with 30 years of experience behind the bench, I have seen countless individuals come before me again and again, unable to change their behavior despite the catastrophic personal suffering that results from addiction. Individuals who are addicted to drugs or alcohol require treatment in order to find long-term recovery, not the threat of punishment.

We can all agree that the time has come for this nation to adopt a more sensible, humane and cost-effective drug policy. Our capacity for meaningful change is contingent on understanding the nature of the problem. If we are serious about reducing substance abuse, crime and recidivism, and saving taxpayers money, then we must accept that our criminal-justice system is filled with seriously addicted people who need treatment to change their behavior. Drug courts must be the foundation of reform.
John R. Schwartz
Supervising Judge
City Courts
7th Judicial District
New York


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