Drug War Facts

 

Rarely does a week go by that I do not get numerous nuggets of information about crime and criminal justice, either through direct mailings or from e-mails or from the Internet.  The bulk of the information I have been receiving in recent years has to do with the Awar on drugs.@  There are some truly amazing facts coming my way about this Awar.@  I=d like to share some of them with you in this week=s column.

The drug war has helped create and perpetuate a Aprison-industrial complex@ which in turn is the result of an economic system driven by a Afree market@ philosophy that places profits above people.  In this Afree market@ everyone is Afree@ to earn a buck anyway they can.  The fact that it may be illegal is often beside the point; the fact that it may be downright unethical is largely irrelevant.  One of the key aspects of a capitalist, Afree market@ economic system is that the production and distribution of Acommodities@ is the major goal.  Commodities create profits, pure and simple.  And the production and distribution of commodities are based upon the famous Alaw of supply and demand@ which dictates that where there is a demand for a commodity, someone willing to take the risks will engage in the act of supply.  And when the commodity has been considered a Avice@ and attempts are made to limit access to it by the criminal justice system, there appears to be even a greater demand.  Such has been the case with all sorts of Avices@ - prostitution, gambling, alcohol, drugs...you name it.  When we have made attempts to reduce either the supply or the demand of something that is desired through the law, we have always had drastic consequences and have always failed miserably.

What many do not seem to understand is that by making something illegal that is at the same time highly desired by the general public, we open up all sorts of opportunities for not just bribery (the usual scandalous variety where cops receive payoffs to look the other way, judges fix things if they get that far, etc.) but also a great deal of money made very legitimately via working in the criminal justice system.  Indeed, largely as a result of fighting the drug war, the Acriminal justice industrial complex@ (of which the prison is one part) has become a booming business.  Currently we taxpayers shell out in excess of $150 billion per year for the police, the courts and the correctional system - up from a paltry $30 billion 20 years ago.  Fighting the drug war is big business.  The same can be said with the Awar on gangs,@ as billions are being spent in this effort.

Now about the drug war. The fact is, we do not seem to be winning.  That is, we are not winning in the usual sense of the word: the drug problem is not getting any better, people are finding it easier and easier to obtain drugs, while hardly a dent has been made in the amount of drugs coming into the country.  But in another sense many are in fact Awinning@ - if we define Awinning@ as making huge profits. Aside from the jobs created and the money made actually Afighting@ the war (e.g., lucrative contracts to build prisons, provide police cars and various technology to fight crime, drug testing, etc.), there is plenty of money to be made on the supply side. Consider some of these interesting facts that I have received lately:

 

Ø      A UN report notes that drug trafficking is a $400 billion per year industry, equal to about 8% of the world's trade; one example: one kilo of raw opium in Pakistan averages $90, but sells for $290,000 in the U.S.; another example: there are about $7 billion in drug profits coming out of Columbia each year (legitimate exports are only slightly greater at $7.6 billion); Columbian cartels spend about $100 million on bribes to officials each year; 98% of Bolivia's foreign exchange earnings from goods and services came from the coca market in 1993;

Ø      The estimated economic costs of alcohol abuse is around $148 billion, compared to drug abuse costs of around $97 billion;  concerning this $97 billion, 60% of the costs are related to law enforcement and imprisonment - only 3% were from the victims of drug-related crime;

Ø      And speaking of costs: whereas in 1969 the Nixon administration spent $65 million on the drug war, in 1982 the Reagan administration spent $1.65 billion; in 1998 the Clinton administration requested $17.1 billion (more money for drug war bureaucracies); the most recent data show that as of November the combined total money spent at both the state and federal level was $34 billion;

Ø      Our government steadfastly continues to focus on the "supply-side" rather than the "demand-side" of the equation, with horrible results, such as the fact that interdiction efforts intercept only 10-15% of the heroin and 30% of the cocaine; U.S. expenditures to counter drug operations in Columbia came to $625 million between 1990 and 1998, yet during this time Columbia was able to pass Peru and Bolivian as the number one producer of coca;

Ø      Recent figures show that in the federal system 55% of all drug defendants are what we call low-level offenders, such as street dealers, while only 11% are classified as high-level dealers; as of November, about 1.4 million had been arrested (one every 20 seconds); about 120 are locked up every day on such charges.

 

I don=t know about you, but it looks as if the Aspirit of capitalism@ helps perpetuate the demand and the supply of drugs.  Drugs, whether legal or illegal, are profitable commodities; profitable for the supplier, the seller and the Adrug warriors@ who are supposedly trying to Awin@ this Awar.@  But these Adrug warriors@ are not really interested in truly Awinning@ in the sense of eliminating the drug problem or even reducing it to any significant degree.  After all, careers are at stake here, as are promotions and other perks.  No wonder Marx stared his classic study Capital by focusing on the subject of commodities (check out the first chapter).

 

Portions of a paper presented to the Unitarian Church, Las Vegas, December 2000, but never published.