- The American drug war may yet grind on, but one by one,
the troops are hiking out. Right-wingers like Jesse Ventura, Gary Johnson,
Dan Quayle, William F. Buckley, and George Schultz have all voiced support
for either ending the costly campaign of interdiction and imprisonment,
or at least decriminalizing pot.
-
- Through the years, in statements little-noted or splashed
onto front pages, they've aligned themselves with leaders around the world,
all standing in unlikely opposition to the frat-boy chief commander in
the White House. President Bush shows no sign of yielding, instead choosing
to harden his stance. In May, announcing the appointment of a drug czar
who makes John Ashcroft look like a hippie, Bush thundered, "John
Walters and I believe the only humane and compassionate response to drug
use is a moral refusal to accept it. We emphatically disagree with those
who favor drug legalization.& quot;
-
- These days, that means disagreeing with a lengthening
list of international heavyweights-former presidents of the United States,
current presidents of Latin American countries, legislators,
-
- governors, high-ranking judges, and law enforcement officials.
Not that all of them favor outright legalization-most don't-but each has
broached the possibility of relaxing the laws.
-
- Two weeks ago, as the U.S. Supreme Court shot down medical
marijuana like Christian missionaries over Peru, the Canadian Parliament
was questioning whether soft drugs should be decriminalized. "It's
time to be bold," lawmaker Derek Lee told the Ottawa Citizen. "Everything
has to be on the table."
-
- Bush finds himself hemmed in by opinion south of the
border as well, where some of his strongest allies in free trade break
radically with his policies on drugs. President Vicente Fox of Mexico,
for one, assures the Bush administration he will be an obedient, merciless
drug warrior, while he tells his own country's newspapers that someday
humanity will recognize universal drug legalization as the best course.
-
- A parade of brutal statistics has long made clear the
merit of Fox's legalize-it zeal. According to the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, police in 1998 arrested 682,885 Americans
for marijuana offenses, more than the number for all violent crimes combined.
After eight years of Bill Clinton, a supposed progressive who could have
provided relief, some 450,000 drug
-
- offenders sat behind bars-a total almost equal to the
entire U.S. prison population in 1980. The president who later told Rolling
Stone he believed small amounts of pot should be decriminalized spent his
terms fueling a multibillion-dollar escalation of the drug war, in which
people were killed in raids of the wrong homes and constitutional rights
were shredded. On average, the Lindesmith Center reports, a federal offender
in the Clinton era drew twice as much time for drugs as for manslaughter.
-
- The Drug Policy Foundation calculates that in 1999, the
feds spent $1.7 billion to guard America's borders and coasts-$17,700 per
mile-only to have 70 percent of the coke and 90 percent of the heroin make
it through. Drug use continues to climb, with some 72 million Americans
believed to have tried pot.
-
- While the U.S. continues its self-destructive orgy of
arrests and wasted money, other parts of the world move forward. The Swiss
government has endorsed a plan to legalize pot and hash consumption and
allow some shops to sell cannabis. Belgium allows people to grow pot for
personal use. The Netherlands allows coffee houses to sell marijuana. Portugal,
Spain, and Italy punish the use of any drug (including heroin and coke)
with only an administrative sanction, such as a fine.
-
- Britain has loosened its laws a tiny bit, allowing low-level
marijuana offenses to be immediately expunged from arrest records. In an
effort to control the damage from opiate addiction, Australia has opened
the world's largest heroin-injecting room in Sydney.
-
- But it's in the regions most wracked by narco-violence
that the cry for legalization rings most clear. Having been shot in the
neck by a police officer thought to be acting under orders from drug lords,
Patricio Martínez García, governor of the Mexican state of
Chihuahua, told El Universal in March that he believed a proposal for legalization
must be considered. "[B]ecause if the war is going to continue being
lost, with the deterioration of the life of communities and even the nation,
and with the deterioration of the quality of life for the citizens of the
country, well, then, where are we heading?" said García, whose
state borders Texas and New Mexico. "There has to be a remaking of
the law."
-
-
- Vicente Fox - Mexican President "My opinion is that
in Mexico it is not a crime to have a small dose of drugs in one's pocket.
. . . But the day that the alternative of freeing the consumption of drugs
from punishment comes, it will have to be done in the entire world because
we are not going to win anything if Mexico does it, but the production
and traffic of the drugs . . . to the United States continues. Thus, humanity
will one day view it [legalization] as the best in this sense." source:
Unomasuno, March 17, 2001
-
-
- Jorge Castañeda - Mexican Foreign Minister "In
the end, legalization of certain substances may be the only way to bring
prices down, and doing so may be the only remedy to some of the worst aspects
of the drug plague: violence, corruption, and the collapse of the rule
of law." source: Newsweek, September 6, 1999
-
-
- Jorge Batlle - President of Uruguay "Why don't
we just legalize drugs? . . . The day that it is legalized in the United
States, it will lose value. And if it loses value, there will be no profit.
But as long as the U.S. citizenry doesn't rise up to do something, they
will pass this life fighting and fighting." source: El Observador,
December 1, 2000
-
-
- Bill Clinton - former U.S. President "I think that
most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some places,
and should be." source: Rolling Stone, October 6, 2000
-
-
- Joe Clark - Head of Tory Party, member of Canadian Parliament,
former Prime Minister "I believe the least controversial approach
is decriminalization [of marijuana], because it's unjust to see someone,
because of one decision one night in their youth, carry the stigma-to be
barred from studying medicine, law, architecture or other fields where
a criminal record could present an obstacle." source: Globe and Mail,
May 23, 2001
-
-
- Jimmy Carter - Former U.S. President "Penalties
against a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use
of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against
possession of marijuana for personal use. The National Commission on Marijuana
. . . concluded years ago that marijuana use should be decriminalized,
and I believe it is time to implement those basic recommendations."
source: speech to Congress, August 2, 1977
-
-
- Dan Quayle - former U.S. Vice President "Congress
should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana. . .
. We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are
a menace to society." source: Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs
and the Politics of Failure by Dan Baum, quoting Quayle from 1977
-
-
- George Schultz - Reagan's Secretary of State "We
need at least to consider and examine forms of controlled legalization
of drugs." source: Associated Press, November 6, 1989
-
-
-
- Abigail Van Buren - Advice Columnist "I agree that
marijuana laws are overdue for an overhaul. I also favor the medical use
of marijuana-if it's prescribed by a physician. I cannot understand why
the federal government should interfere with the doctor-patient relationship,
nor why it would ignore the will of a majority of voters who have legally
approved such legislation." source: "Dear Abby," March 1,
1999
-
-
- William F. Buckley - Conservative Author "Now it's
one thing to say (I say it) that people shouldn't consume psychoactive
drugs. It is entirely something else to condone marijuana laws the application
of which resulted, in 1995, in the arrest of 588,963 Americans. Why are
we so afraid to inform ourselves on the question?" source: syndicated
column, October 21, 1997
-
-
- Gary Johnson - Governor of New Mexico "Make drugs
a controlled substance like alcohol. Legalize it, control it, regulate
it, tax it. If you legalize it, we might actually have a healthier society."
source: The Boston Globe, October 13, 1999
-
-
-
- Ben Cayetano - Governor of Hawaii "I just think
it's a matter of time that Congress finally gets around to understanding
that the states should be allowed to provide this kind of relief [medical
marijuana] to the people. Congress is way, way behind in their thinking."
source: Associated Press, May 15, 2001
-
-
- Jesse Ventura - Governor of Minnesota "The prohibition
of drugs causes crime. You don't have to legalize, just decriminalize it.
Regulate it. Create places where the addict can go get it." source:
Playboy, November 1999
-
-
- Kurt Schmoke - former Mayor of Baltimore "Decriminalization
would take the profit out of drugs and greatly reduce, if not eliminate,
the drug-related violence that is currently plaguing our streets."
source: The Washington Post, May 15, 1988
-
-
- Frank Jordan - former mayor of San Francisco "I
have no problem whatsoever with the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
I am sensitive and compassionate to people who have legitimate needs. We
should bend the law and do what's right." source: Los Angeles Times,
February 26, 1995
-
-
- Ron Paul - U.S. Congressman from Texas "When we
finally decide that drug prohibition has been no more successful than alcohol
prohibition, the drug dealers will disappear." source: Paul's Web
site, www.house.gov/paul
-
-
- Jorge Sampaio - President of Portugal "Policies
conceived and enforced to control drug-related problems and effects have
led to disastrous and perverse results. Prohibition is the fundamental
principle of drug policies. If we consider the results achieved, there
are profound doubts regarding its effectiveness. Prohibitionist policies
have been unable to control the consumption of narcotics; on the other
hand, there has been an increase of criminality. There is also a high mortality
rate related to the quality of substances and to AIDS or other viral diseases."
source: Madrid's El País, April 7, 1997
-
-
- Milton Friedman - Nobel Prize winner for economics "Legalizing
drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality
of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish
so much to promote law and order?" source: Newsweek, May 1, 1972
-
-
- Dream of a Worldwide Truce by Russ Kick
-
-
- n the eve of a United Nations special session on drugs,
an international roster of luminaries signed a letter, penned by members
of the Lindesmith Center, that lobbied for radical change. "We believe
that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself,"
read the June 1998 declaration. "Persisting in our current policies
will only result in more drug abuse, more empowerment of drug markets and
criminals, and more disease and suffering." Among the signatories
were Willie Brown, Joycelyn Elders, several former members of Congress,
two former U.S. attorneys general, a former assistant secretary of state,
three federal judges, the San Jose mayor, a former police commissioner
of New York City, a former secretary general of the UN, 28 Spanish judges,
past presidents of Bolivia, Guatemala, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua,
and current legislators from Australia, Britain, Canada, European Parliament,
Mexico, and Peru.
-
- Non-politicos who signed include Kweisi Mfume, Walter
Cronkite, Stephen Jay Gould, Andrew Weil, Isabel Allende, Günter Grass,
a slew of professors at top-notch universities, CEOs, various clergy, and
Nobel laureates.
-
- Several representatives on Capitol Hill are also bucking
for new approaches. Reformers include California representative Tom Campbell,
who has suggested "experiments in supplying drugs to addicts the way
Zurich tried," according to the Chicago Tribune. Massachusetts representative
Barney Frank has repeatedly introduced a bill to change pot from a Schedule
I drug to a Schedule II drug, thus allowing states to legalize it for medical
purposes. In its current incarnation, the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana
Act is cosponsored by 14 representatives and is residing in a House subcommittee.
-
- Many on the federal bench have also seen the light. During
his tenure as chief judge of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
(1993-2000), Reagan appointee Richard Posner argued in favor of legalizing
marijuana and psychedelics. District Judge Warren Eginton of Connecticut
wants to see pot and cocaine legalized, while District Judge James C. Paine
of Florida has condemned the war on drugs.
-
- Other leaders who question prohibition are listed below.
-R.K.
-
-
- Gustavo de Greiff - former Attorney General of Colombia
"We should legalize drugs because we here are providing the dead,
and the consumers are there in the U.S." source: El Diario-La Prensa,
May 8, 1994
-
-
- Peter Bourne - President Carter's Drug Czar "We
did not view marijuana as a significant health problem-as it was not. .
. . Nobody dies from marijuana. Marijuana smoking, in fact, if one wants
to be honest, is a source of pleasure and amusement to countless millions
of people in America, and it continues to be that way." source: PBS's
Frontline: "Drug Wars," October 2000
-
-
- Joseph D. McNamara - former police chief of San Jose
and Kansas City "We should immediately stop arresting people whose
only crime is possessing small amounts of drugs for their own use. . .
. Marijuana should be treated the same as alcohol and cigarettes."
source: The Washington Post, May 19, 1996
-
-
- Jaime Ruiz - senior adviser to the Colombian President
"From the Colombian point of view [legalization] is the easy solution.
I mean, just legalize it and we won't have any more problems. Probably
in five years we wouldn't even have guerrillas. No problems. We [would]
have a great country with no problems." source: Ottawa Citizen, September
6, 2000
-
-
- George Papandreou - Greek Foreign Minister "I can
officially state that my government and myself believe that all over Europe
we need to open a debate on the 'drug question' in order to create more
coherent and human policies with better perspectives. . . . The policy
of criminalizing consumers has failed, creating many problems to our society."
source: Transnational Radical Party's Anti-Prohibitionist Days, Brussels,
December 11, 1997
-
-
- Edward Ellison - former head of Scotland Yard's Antidrug
Squad "I say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse,
not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals
put out of business.& quot; source: London's Daily Mail, March 10,
1998
-
-
- Ray Kendall - Secretary General of Interpol "[I
am] entirely supportive of the notion of removing the abuse of drugs from
the penal realm in favor of other forms of regulation such as psycho, medical,
social treatment." source: Report of Premier's Advisory Council, 1996
-
-
- Juan Torruella - chief judge of the First Circuit U.S.
Court of Appeals "There is a need for pilot tests of some types of
limited decriminalization, probably commencing with marijuana, and obviously
not including minors." source: Spotlight Lecture at Colby College,
Waterville, Maine, April 25, 1996
-
-
- John Curtin - U.S. district judge, New York "Education,
counseling, less use of criminal sanctions, partial legalization, and legalization
are all alternatives. It is a hard road, but the present course has failed."
source: The Buffalo News, March 2, 1997
-
-
- Robert Sweet - U.S. district judge, New York "Finally,
the fundamental flaw, which will ultimately destroy this prohibition as
it did the last one, is that criminal sanctions cannot, and should not
attempt to, prohibit personal conduct which does no harm to others."
source: National Review, February 12, 1996
-
-
- House of Lords, Great Britain "We consider it undesirable
to prosecute genuine therapeutic users of cannabis who possess or grow
cannabis for their own use. This unsatisfactory situation underlines the
need to legalise cannabis preparations for therapeutic use." source:
"Therapeutic Uses of Cannabis," Select Committee on Science and
Technology, March 14, 2001
-
-
- Australian Parliament "Over the past two decades
in Australia we have devoted increased resources to drug law enforcement,
we have increased the penalties for drug trafficking, and we have accepted
increasing inroads on our civil liberties as part of the battle to curb
the drug trade. All the evidence shows, however, not only that our law
enforcement agencies have not succeeded in preventing the supply of illicit
drugs to Australian markets, but that it is unrealistic to expect them
to do so. If the present policy of prohibition is not working, then it
is time to give serious consideration to the alternatives, however radical
they may seem." source: Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority,
1988
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