A failed war

Forty years. That’s how long the “war on drugs,” first declared on June 17, 1971, by President Richard M. Nixon, has lasted.

Forty million arrests. That’s how many times U.S. police agencies have hauled people into court because of alleged drug-related crimes over these 40 years.

This war has cost $1 trillion — that’s $1,000,000,000,000 — according to a 2010 Associated Press study based on information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts. (“After 40 years, $1 trillion, US War on Drugs has failed to meet any of its goals,” AP, May 13, 2010)

Only a tiny amount of this money was spent on rehabilitation. Almost $700 billion of it went directly to enforcement of drug laws — expanding the repressive state apparatus of cops, courts, prosecuting attorneys and prisons.

Now comes the “Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy,” released this month. The commission is headed by former economic and political leaders from around the world, ranging from right-wing to centrist, including former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz from the United States. They were obviously chosen to defuse right-wing criticism of its findings.

The very first sentence of the report reads, “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”

It goes on to admit what critics of this drug war have been saying all along: The criminalization of drug use only forces it underground where those addicted are afraid to get treatment, while control over this lucrative illegal market spawns violence.

The commission recommends that the government “End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others.”

It makes many other recommendations based on the successes of countries that have decriminalized and thereby reduced drug use. By contrast, where drug use is illegal, as in the U.S., it has only increased.

Institutional racism taken to the extreme

It took an African-American columnist for the New York Times, Charles M. Blow, to point out the most shocking figures of all regarding the impact of the “war on drugs” on U.S. society. On June 10 he cited this information from the ACLU: “The racial disparities are staggering: despite the fact that whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African Americans, African Americans are incarcerated for drug offenses at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites.”

Thus, if the same standards were applied to Black people as to whites, at least 90 percent of the African Americans jailed on drug charges would have to be freed.

The men and women in prison, however, whether Black or white, are mostly workers with few resources. Contrast this to the fact that some of the largest banks in the U.S. have made huge profits laundering drug money. This came out several times in recent years when big banks had to pay piddling fines for accepting large cash deposits in violation of the law.

For example, former federal agent Robert Mazur wrote, “In recent years, Union Bank of California, American Express Bank International, BankAtlantic and Wachovia have all been caught moving huge sums of drug money, but no one went to jail. The banks just admitted to criminal conduct and paid the government a cut of their profits.” (“Follow the Dirty Money,” New York Times, Sept. 12, 2010)

The victims of Washington’s drug policies are not confined to the United States. Whether it’s Afghanistan or Colombia or Bolivia, the U.S. government has used the excuse of suppressing illegal drugs to expand its military role in many oppressed countries where there has been growing resistance to imperialism.

Often, as with opium poppies in Afghanistan or coca leaves in Colombia and Bolivia, the U.S. has eradicated crops that have for centuries been grown for their medicinal and other properties. To ban these crops because highly concentrated narcotics can be distilled from them is like banning sugarcane or corn production because they can be used to make alcohol.

Economics behind the politics

Why has a high-level commission finally agreed with what critics of U.S. drug policy have been saying for years?

The answer is not that these commissioners became enlightened on the subject. It is that the U.S. is in a budget crisis and can’t afford to spend another trillion dollars on this phony war.

On May 23 the U.S. Supreme Court ordered California to release 30,000 prisoners because of unhealthy and overcrowded conditions. The state now incarcerates more than 140,000 prisoners in a system built to house 80,000. This court decision came after the state announced that it would slash many social programs and lay off teachers, home health aides and other providers of essential services.

People were asking: How can the state afford more prisons when it’s cutting schools and health providers?

Many of the prisoners who will have to be released were jailed because of California’s “three strikes” law, which mandates a sentence of 25 years to life for three-time repeat offenders, even when no violence is involved. How many of these “offenses” were violations of the cruel and useless drug laws?

The fact is that none of these people should have been sent to jail in the first place. But now they will be returned to the outside world at a time when everyone knows that jobs are hard to find, but getting hired is especially hard for someone with a prison record.

The laws criminalizing drug use should be overturned, as the commission report says, and the money that was spent on keeping people behind bars should instead be used to help treat and end addiction.

But that’s still not enough. Many, many people have lost a good part of their lives because of these brutal drug laws. A huge percentage of them are African Americans. They should receive reparations because of false imprisonment.

And all workers, but especially those stigmatized by these unjust laws, need the guarantee of a job. As this crisis of capitalism deepens, the fight for jobs for all needs to be at the top of everyone’s agenda.