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BEN FRANKLIN AND THE WAR ON DRUGS
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Safer
Schools
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| On Getting Older | |
| Psychoactive Substances |
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from La Opinion, December 3, 2000] A little line has been drawn in the sand in Anaheim. A gas station/mini-mart is being built at the corner of Harbor and South Street. The owners have applied for a beer and wine license. Ben Franklin Elementary School is about a block away. Closer still are churches and a neighborhood clinic. Last May 25th a community discussion (in both Spanish and English) about the alcoholic beverage license approval procedures was organized at the school by Assemblyman Lou Correa’s office. It was a warm night and the jacarandas were in spectacular bloom. The main protagonists proved to be Dr. Don Garcia, the owner of the nearby family clinic, and the gas station property owner. Dr. Garcia asked why “we needed” a fifteenth alcoholic beverage retailer in the neighborhood. He added that he was mighty tired of seeing the results of alcohol abuse in his clinic – cirrhotic livers and battered wives and kids. The property owner replied that his bank had told him his development plan wasn’t viable unless beer and wine were in the inventory. He added that the license actually included a variety of restrictions on the marketing of the alcohol – for example, no sales after midnight, no outdoor displays, and no singles, that is, only full six packs were to be sold. Both speakers were emotional, the former about lost lives, the latter about lost money. Despite the ongoing protests of parents, school officials, local clergy, and Dr. Garcia, the beer and wine license has been approved by the Anaheim City Council – the vote was 3 to 1. The final step in the approval process is a hearing by the California State Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC) to occur in the next few weeks in Sacramento. Sadly, this one little battle in Anaheim represents hundreds of similar battles being waged all over the country regarding the promotion and distribution of alcoholic beverages and other psychoactive substances such as tobacco and cocaine. This is the real frontline in the war on drugs, along with drug and alcohol treatment centers, and parents counseling and confronting their kids. Unfortunately, these battles don’t make the headlines like Colombian submarines or Tijuana tunnels. It’s now time for a comprehensive review of our governments’ policies and laws regarding psychoactive substances. We now know much about the fiscal, physiological, and societal effects of abuse of these substances. But, our current policies are a hodgepodge of panicked and piecemeal lawmaking based on a long history of conjecture about causes and consequences of substance abuse. For example, now marijuana for medical purposes has become a state’s rights issue in California. William Bennett well describes the most pressing social problem of our time in his book, Body Count. He makes crystal clear the connections between crime and psychoactive substance abuse. He reports, “What the literature suggests is that alcohol, like drugs, acts as a ‘multiplier’ of crime…. An estimated 10.5 million Americans are alcoholics and 73 million Americans have been directly affected by alcoholism in some form.” While I agree wholeheartedly with Bennett’s definition of the problem I cannot now agree with all of his recommended solutions. Despite the fact that he reports that the best studies (including one by Rand Corp.) have found that a dollar spent on treatment programs is worth seven spent on interdiction efforts, he ends the book with a focus on increasing interdiction efforts. He bases this advice on his interpretation of one-year increase in cocaine prices (in the U.S.) associated with production disruptions in Colombia. That is, according to Bennett, “Interdiction works, just look at 1990.” However, we now have more data to look at than the 1990 figure that Bennett saw as so crucial to his prescriptions. And the news is grim indeed. A recent study by ABT Associates prepared for the Office of National Drug Control Policy shows prices for cocaine on American streets falling continuously through the 1980s and 1990s. In 1983 the street price for a gram of cocaine was about $350 and now it’s about $200. These data raise very serious questions about the potential success of interdiction efforts. Given this evidence, passage of Proposition 36 on the November 7th ballot was an important step in the right direction. I do concur with Bennett’s prescription that alcoholic beverage advertising must be curtailed. Indeed, Bennett’s book does a great job of pointing out the inconsistencies in our approach to managing psychoactive substance abuse across the types of substances. For some reason we allow mass media advertising and the widest distribution (just stop by in the neighborhood of Ben Franklin Elementary in Anaheim!) of the substances that have the gravest consequences for the public health – alcohol and tobacco. Likewise, our laws and enforcement efforts to date have accomplished little to reduce the personal selling activities and the steady price decreases associated with the cocaine and marijuana trade. Moreover, we can expect that our laws and enforcement efforts will not be able to handle the new, so called “designer drugs” now being developed within our own borders. Meth and Ecstasy are only the latest examples. In a comprehensive policy review ALL ideas must be considered. Open minds and creative solutions must prevail. Political agendas must defer to scientific evidence. The complicated interactions of drug and alcohol abuse and crime and jail time must be considered. Successes and failures in other countries are pertinent as well. For example, in the Netherlands drugs are seen as a medical problem and marijuana (indeed, brands from around the world) is openly sold in cafes in tourist areas. Or go to Singapore – there it states on the back of the immigration form they hand you at the airport, “Warning, death for drug traffickers under Singapore law.” We also need to consider the advice of people like Milton Friedman and George Schultz who recommend legalization, or John McCain and William Bennett who advocate increased military involvement in interdiction efforts. Finally, back to Ben Franklin, the sage not the school. Two of his comments are pertinent here – “…drink not to elevation,” and “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” |
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