Eric Sterling

Friendly Fire | Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Rethinking the War on Drugs from a Quaker Perspective

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by Eric Sterling '73
President, The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Washington, DC
Member, Bethesda Friends Meeting
About the Author

What should we do about the growing number of drug overdose deaths? What can we do to prevent the crime committed by drug users? Can we control the violence and corruption that are intrinsic to the illegal drug trade? Can we prevent the environmental destruction in the Amazon and the Andes, in U.S. National Parks and Forests, and even in our own neighborhoods, that results from illegal drug processing? What can we do about paramilitary forces, revolutionary armies and global criminal gangs who finance themselves through their involvement in the drug traffic? As our nation and the United Nations address these issues, do we have a strategy likely to succeed?

More to the point, how should Friends, and those whose values are shaped by Quaker testimonies, consider these issues? Can Friends' teachings and approaches guide us as we think about them?

Quakers, as many readers know, have long-standing testimonies against intoxication, the traffic in intoxicating liquors, and the use and abuse of narcotics. While founder George Fox and his contemporaries were not teetotalers, there was from the beginning a concern about the abuse of alcohol. A 1755 document reveals a concern about the "excessive use of spirituous liquors, [and] the unnecessary frequenting of taverns." By the nineteenth century, Friends were leaders in the temperance movement and many supported total abstinence. This strict position has softened in many Friends quarters in the last third of the twentieth century.

Friends have taken similar approaches toward intoxicating or mood-changing drugs. By the mid-twentieth century, even the use of narcotics for medical purposes was frowned upon. The use of drugs and alcohol, it is believed, interferes with the spiritual life and one's ability to faithfully attend to the Inner Light. Drug addiction leads to conflict in families and the failure to carry out one's responsibilities to family and society.

However, Friends have always recognized that it is wrong to use immoral or hurtful means to achieve worthwhile ends, and have traditionally opposed war in all its forms. They were among the first groups to fight slavery. They have historically been social reformers, inventing penitentiaries and supporting equal rights for women and black Americans well before many other groups did the same. Friends, since before the founding of Pennsylvania, have been similarly concerned about honesty in the administration of government and about protecting the natural environment.

Taken altogether, I believe that Quakers must balance their concern about the serious problems of drug use and abuse with the egregious problems created by the efforts to control such use and abuse.

Taken altogether, I believe that Quakers must balance their concern about the serious problems of drug use and abuse with the egregious problems created by the efforts to control such use and abuse. Examining our national anti-drug strategy in the light of Friends traditional concerns - respecting the individual, abhorring violence, advocating justice, caring for the community, and protecting the environment - reveals a strategy dramatically inconsistent with these views; in short, the worthwhile social objectives of reducing drug use and drug abuse around the world are being pursued by means that are very hurtful to individuals, to society, and to the environment.

In March, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting approved a minute explicitly addressing this issue. "Today our country is engaged in a 'war on drugs,'" it states, "which bears all the hallmarks of war: displaced populations, disrupted economies, terrorism, abandonment of hope by those the war is supposedly being fought to help, the use of military force, the curtailment of civil liberties, and the demonizing of 'enemies'....Our federal, state and local governments need to put much greater emphasis on strategies that act to remove the causes of drug addiction and provide for education, treatment, and research into the causes of addiction."

While few will argue that drug use and abuse should not be strongly discouraged, this strong stance by our Quaker leaders only underscores the urgency of finding new techniques of controlling the global drug crisis. But can Quaker teachings point us in the direction of these solutions as well? I believe they can. But first some background.