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RETHINKING THE WAR
Several aspects of the war on drugs are particularly troubling when viewed through the lens of Quaker teachings:
Current American anti-drug policy is founded primarily on coercion and violence; it is thus directly antithetical to the Friends' beliefs in the dignity of each person and every person's innate capacity to see the Light within.
For two decades, two-thirds of federal funding has been devoted to criminal justice and supply control measures. The emphasis on law enforcement is seen in the arrest and incarceration data. Over 1.5 million persons have been arrested annually on drug charges since 1996, more than twice the number arrested annually for the major violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) combined. This is the largest class of criminal arrests in the U.S. each year, and almost 80 percent of these arrests are for simple possession. Over 400,000 persons are in state and local prisons and jails for drug offenses alone. Hundreds of thousands are imprisoned for having used drugs while on parole or probation for non-drug offenses. Sixty-percent of the federal prison population, which now exceeds 140,000, are serving sentences for smuggling, distribution, manufacturing or possession of drugs.
Almost every time there is a drug arrest, the police officers draw their firearms and point them at the suspects. Nearly every American has seen the photograph of the armed INS officer pointing an assault rifle in the direction of Elian Gonzalez during the raid at his relatives' Miami home on the morning before Easter. Raids exactly like this are a universal experience in poor neighborhoods, and in neighborhoods of racial minorities, when police forces execute search warrants for drugs in "dynamic entries." Like the Elian raid, they are typically conducted before dawn when suspects can be caught sleeping. Homes are broken into by teams of officers dressed in armor, masks, helmets, and equipped with assault weapons. Explosive devices are detonated to stun and disorient the occupants. Doors are smashed by battering rams. Children are awakened in their beds by screaming, masked men pointing assault rifles at them, and to the shrieks of their hysterical parents. Half-naked adults are forced onto the floor, and children are held at gun-point. Booted, hooded men shout at them and ransack their homes looking for evidence of drug use or sales. This is an extraordinary level of violence directed at "suspects" and their families&emdash;persons constitutionally considered innocent. In 1996, 90 percent of the 690 largest local police departments in the U.S. had militarily-trained "Special Weapons and Tactics" (SWAT) teams. Drug raids comprised 75 percent of the activity of those teams; at 200 to 700 raids per team per year, that's 10,000 to 70,000 such raids annually.
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Federal expenditures to imprison 84,000 drug offenders this year exceed $2.61 billion, while federal drug treatment funding for non-Veterans and those outside the criminal justice system amounts to $2.09 billion. Treatment and prevention funding by State, federal and local agencies is less than a quarter of the total effort. Sadly, if you lack health insurance frequently the the coercion of the criminal justice system is the only drug treatment available. Enter a drug treatment program or go to prison. (It is often said that drug abuse is a health problem if you're white, and a criminal justice problem if you're black&emdash;more on that in a minute.)
Current anti-drug strategy contributes to violent conditions within the drug marketplace. Because drugs are illegal, they are phenomenally valuable. A troy ounce of gold currently sells for $276, or $8.87 per gram. Platinum is about twice as valuable. Cocaine, selling at $44 a pure gram in 1998, is five times more valuable, while heroin sells at around $318 per gram. But these valuable commodities can only be purchased for cash. Illegal drugs are also fungible: unlike other stolen goods, drugs can always be sold for 100 percent of their retail value. Drug markets, with enormous cash receipts and inventory five to 35 times more valuable than gold, are ideal targets for theft.
Conflicts arise in this marketplace as they do in every business. But unlike in other arenas, the conflicts cannot be resolved non-violently. Disputes about payments, product quality, timeliness of delivery, conditions of employment or unfair competitive practices cannot be resolved in the courts, which would refuse to hear such cases because of the illegal nature of the underlying business. By prohibiting the use and sale of all of these drugs, these inevitable disputes are resolved by violence.
Thus drug retailers, more than any other retailers, need security. Drug retailers cannot hire security guards or off-duty police officers. They must hire persons who will carry firearms and who can be expected to use them. How does the job applicant demonstrate his qualifications? By proving that he has committed previous acts of violence. Indeed, having a reputation for violence is attractive to employers since that reduces the likelihood of robbery.
To sum it up, our anti-drug strategy of total prohibition encourages violence in the drug marketplace and prevents non-violent dispute resolution. Our anti-drug strategy creates especially tempting targets for violent crime, and blocks any lawful agency from preventing such crime. Our anti-drug strategy encourages the potential victims of drug-market robbery to recruit the most violent offenders to work for them. The omnipresence of this violence in many neighborhoods and cities has the added effect of encouraging law-abiding citizens to obtain firearms for their own protection.
And it has profound international dimensions. Illegal drug trafficking finances covert action programs, insurgencies, paramilitary armies, and enormous violent criminal gangs. Today the news reports from Mexico and Colombia are dominated by the violence caused by criminal gangs labeled "cartels," or revolutionary armies who are financed by the profits of the illegal drug trade. Less well reported is the role of illegal drug money financing the Taliban in Afghanistan, the military insurgency in Burma, or the narcotics money relied upon by the Kosovo Liberation Army.