by Kimberly Blaker

Given that every 20 seconds a person is arrested on a drug related charge in the U.S., it isn’t surprising that gross errors are occasionally made. But when the war on drugs results in serious harm to innocent people, it’s time to rethink the crusade.

On May 16, an erroneous tip led New York police to kick down the door of 57-year-old Alberta Spruill’s apartment, where police tossed in a stun grenade and handcuffed her to a chair. When police discovered the apparent error, Spruill, who had a preexisting heart condition, was ambulanced to the hospital where she died from a heart attack.

Regarding the terrible blunder, it’s regrettably inevitable that some cases, such as tracking down child molesters, rapists, and murderers could potentially result in wrongly targeting and, worse, injuring an innocent person (only because to err is human) in an effort to protect society from further harm.

But the war on drugs is often directed at those who are harming no one, or at most, themselves. And unfortunately, targeting innocent people isn’t uncommon in this conflict.

Last year the Supreme Court upheld the Department of Housing and Urban Development's policy of evicting HUD households when one member is caught using illicit drugs even without the knowledge and consent of other household members. The case that made the high court was brought on by 4 elderly citizens who faced eviction for the actions of a child, grandchild, or caregiver. Some of the incidents involved only the use of marijuana; and in one case, the daughter wasn’t even caught using drugs on the rental property.

Contrary to popular belief, the illegalization of drugs isn’t a recent occurrence. The Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914 marked the first federal drug prohibition, making distribution and possession of certain drugs illegal.

Then, the sale and use of marijuana became illegal in 1937, when President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Marihuana Tax Act. Cannabis was believed to be a killer drug-a myth, among many others, that was finally dispelled in the 1960s, when its use increased. During that decade personal use of marijuana was changed from a felony to a misdemeanor and was decriminalized in 11 states under President Jimmy Carter.

Nonetheless, with the recent war on drugs, a vast number of Americans are being penalized for possession of very small amounts for personal use. During the year 2000, 734,497 arrests were made for cannabis; 620,541 were for possession alone. Most troublesome, just under half of all drug related arrests are for this relatively harmless substance from which researchers have found no deaths are exclusively related to.

In contrast, there were approximately 430,700 annual tobacco related deaths during the years of 1990 to 1994, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and an estimated 110,640 alcohol related deaths in 1996 alone, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Despite the well documented dangers of tobacco and alcohol use, the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse 2001 found that 63.7% of the U.S. population (ages 12 and up) had used alcohol and 34.8% tobacco in the previous year, compared to only 9.3% of the population using its nonlethal counterpart-marijuana.

In contrast, according to a 1997 study, Licit and Illicit Drug Use in the Netherlands (a region where marijuana use isn’t criminalized), found that 82.5% of the population had consumed alcohol, 38.1% smoked cigarettes, and only 4.5% smoked marijuana in the previous year.

Paradoxically, providing all other things are equal in the two studies and regions, perhaps the only real argument for the continued illegalization of marijuana in the U.S. is that where marijuana is legal, people tend to chose the deadlier of the habits-alcohol and tobacco. But even this contradicts the views of America’s drug war proponents, who argue that legalization of marijuana will ultimately lead to greater use of it.

Regardless, the war on drugs, at least as far as marijuana is concerned, seems to have little basis. When our federal government is spending $19.2 billion annually to fund a never-ending war and when 60% of the federal adult prison population is incarcerated for drug related offenses, it’s time to throw in the hat. The focus should be on public education; better regulation of the contaminants and addictive properties that tobacco companies add and/or fail to remove from their products; and the rehabilitation of all addicts.
 

Kimberly Blaker’s The Wall™ appears weekly. She is editor and coauthor of the The Fundamentals of Extremism: the Christian Right in America. Send your comments to Kimberly Blaker: TheWall@TheWall-OnChurchAndState.com  © 2002, Kimberly Blaker