“Who would believe that a democratic government would
pursue for eight decades a failed policy that produced tens
of millions of victims and trillions of dollars of illicit
profits for drug dealers, cost taxpayers hundreds of
billions of dollars, increased crime and destroyed inner
cities, fostered widespread corruption and violations of
human rights - and all with no success in achieving the
stated and unattainable objective of a drug free America?”
- Milton Friedman, winner of 1976 Nobel
Memorial Prize for economic science
Drug War: How We Got Into This Mess and the
Special Interests That Keep Us Here
Suzanne Wills
Drug Policy Forum of Texas
Email - suzy@dpft.org
Slides created by Nathan Kohler
Mission:
To provide scientific information and expert opinion about
drugs and to suggest a path to better policies.
http://www.dpft.org/
1906 Pure Food & Drugs Act
U. S. Postal Service commemorative stamp issued
January 15, 1998.
George Washington
reportedly used laudanum
to ease the pain caused
by his ill fitting dentures.
It was easily available until
1914.
45% alcohol with 2.964 grams of opium per fluid ounce
http://wings.buffalo.edu/aru/preprohibition.htm
In 1910 there were 12,000 temperance leagues with 248,343 members.
By 1920 membership had risen to 345,949.
Source: Norton Mezvinsky, "The White Ribbon Reform, 1874-1920”
Dr. Hamilton Wright
Set out to eradicate opium use
– Harrison Narcotics Act
– The creation of addict as a
criminal
– Was a severe alcoholic
- Supported by temperance movement
- Financially supported by wife,
Elizabeth Washburn Wright
–
Alcohol still, circa 1925
Virginia Tech Palmer Collection
http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/palmer/kn/moon
Harry J. Anslinger,
Commissioner of Federal
Bureau of Narcotics,
1930-1962
"... the primary reason to
outlaw marijuana is it’s
effect on the degenerate
races." 1937
http://www.conquestdesign.com/uncler/index.html
Reefer Madness, was produced in
1936 with the close collaboration
of the Bureau of Narcotics.
- Marijuana Tax Act of 1937
‘…to levy a token tax of approx.
$1 on all buyers, sellers, importers,
growers, physicians, veterinarians,
and any others who deal in
marijuana commercially, prescribe
it professionally, or possess it.’
- 5 years prison and/or $2000 fine
- Doctors had to report to Bureau of Narcotics on patients
or both would be fined/ jailed
- Made marijuana unprofitable as a pharmaceutical
product
Crimes of Indiscretion: Marijuana Arrests in the United States
By Jon B. Gettman, Ph.D.
June, 05
Jeffrey A. Miron
Visiting Professor of Economics
Harvard University
Cannabis prohibition costs:
Law enforcement- $7.7 billion
Lost tax revenue: $2.4-$6.2 billion
LE-$273.71 million
Lost tax-$46.6-$59.3 million
http://prohibitioncosts.org/mironreport.html
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Drug Enforcement Administration
_______________________________________
)
In The Matter Of )
)
Docket No. 86-22
MARIJUANA RESCHEDULING PETITION )
______________________________________)
OPINION AND RECOMMENDED RULING, FINDINGS OF
FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW AND DECISION OF
Administrative LAW JUDGE.
FRANCIS L. YOUNG, Administrative Law Judge
DATED: SEP 6 1988
…There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing
a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.
…Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically
active substances known to man.
“Oncology” Vol. 13, No. 12 (December 1999)
“In several states, marijuana
smoking exceeds tobacco
smoking among young
people….”
John Walters
Director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (the drug czar)
National Review, September, 2004
Fumigated food
crops in
Colombia.
Photo by Sanho Tree,
Institute for Policy
Studies.
Tobacco kills over
400,000 people in
the U.S. every year
and millions more
worldwide.
Murder rate, Dallas, TX, 2004: 20 per 100,000.
Dallas Morning News Jan. 16, 2005
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/hmrt.htm
Http://www.hero.ac.uk/uk/studying/archives/2002/no_politics__please1376.cfm
Inscribed: To Governor Ray Shafer ...from
his devoted friend Richard M. Nixon
http://shafer.allegheny.edu/figures.html
The Shafer Commission issued its report
on marijuana policy on March 22, 1972Washington, DC - A Presidential commission's report
recommends that marijuana be legalized. The
Commission concluded that marijuana users "are
essentially indistinguishable from their nonmarijuana
using peers by any fundamental criterion other than
their marijuana use." They found that, "Neither the
marijuana user nor the drug itself can be said to
constitute a danger to public safety." The
Commission recommended "Decriminalization of
possession of marijuana for personal use on both the
state and federal levels."
The Report of the National Commission
on Marihuana and Drug Abuse
Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding
Commissioned by President Richard M. Nixon, March, 1972
"...the creation of ever-larger bureaucracies, ever-increasing
expenditure of monies and an outpouring of publicity so that
the public will know that 'something' is being done. Perhaps
the major consequence of this ... has been the creation of a
vested interest in the perpetuation of the problem among those
dispensing and receiving funds ... In the course of wellmeaning efforts to do something about drug use, this society
may have inadvertently institutionalized it as a never-ending
project."
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18524921.300
(1985)
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/trends2003_www_E.pdf
(2002)
The intoxication
instinct
New Scientist vol 184 issue 2473 13 November 2004, page 32
Meth lab, 2005
Okanogan County, Washington , Feb. 2005
http://www.omakchronicle.com/news/meth/meth1.html
Barry McCaffrey
Director of Office of National
Drug Control Policy, 1996 - 2001
U.S. Prisons  More than
$55,000,000,000 a year
 More than
2,000,000 prisoners
Source: 2003 ONDCP National Drug Control Strategy
2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health
Percent of high school seniors reporting they could
obtain drugs fairly easily or very easily, 2003
Marijuana
87.1 %
Amphetamines
55.0
Cocaine
43.3
Crack
35.3
Barbiturate
35.3
LSD
33.6
Tranquilizers
29.8
Heroin
27.9
Crystal
methamphetamine
26.1
PCP
21.9
Amyl/butyl nitrites
19.7
Source: University of Michigan, Monitoring the Future National Results on
Adolescent Drug Use: Overview of Key Findings 2003, 2004
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/du.htm#Availability
George McMahon
Nail Patella Syndrome
Irvin Rosenfeld-Bone disorder
Elvy Musikka
Glaucoma patient
Corrine Millet-glaucoma patient
Barb Douglass-multiple sclerosis
patient
Two patients maintain anonymity.
Conant vs. McCaffrey
(later vs. Walters)
established physicians’
right to discuss Cannabis
with their patients.
Dr. Marcus Conant
Lead plaintiff
Gonzales v. Raich, June 6, 2005
“…despite a congressional finding to the
contrary, marijuana does have valid
therapeutic purposes."
“In the early days of the Republic, it would
have been unthinkable that Congress could
prohibit the local cultivation, possession,
and consumption of marijuana.”
Justice Clarence Thomas
“The undertreatment of pain in hospitals
is absolutely medieval.”
Dr. Russell Portnoy
Pain Center at Sloan Kettering
Memorial Hospital
“…The use of pain medications
has become a crime story when
it…should be a healthcare story.”
Dr. David E. Joranson, University
of Wisconsin Medical School
“Return on Investment in Needle
Exchange and Syringe Programs”
for the decade of the 1990s
Financial return:
Investment
US$ 71.8 million
Savings
US$ 1.3-4.1 billion
Cases of disease avoided:
HIV
25,000
Hepatitis C
21,000
NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS:
SENDING THE RIGHT MESSAGE
http://www.bakerinstitute.org/Pubs/wp_needles.pdf
Heroin
injection has
often been
the ignition
point for
AIDS
outbreaks in
third world
cities.
Table 2. Changes in the patients' status in the Swiss heroin study (n = 237)
http://www.ccbh.nl/rapport_engels_html/chapter1/16.htm
The clinic in Bern, Switzerland is in this building
"I know of no other crime
prevention program with
such a big reduction in
theft and other serious
crimes."
Martin Killias,
Institute of Police Science
and Criminology
In year 2000 dollars
55 pounds of heroin
was worth $128,000
on the legal market.
www.nagoya-customs.go.jp/. ../images/heroin.
It was worth $3.7
million on the illegal
market.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
July 31, 2001
“I find that a policy of prohibition fails to
deliver reductions in drug use or supply,
provides incentives for increased crime,
profits for criminal endeavour and an
environment of mistrust and ignorance that
is socially and educationally counterproductive. “
Eddie Ellison, the former operational
head of Scotland Yard's Drug Squad
http://eddie.gn.apc.org/index.php?pID=1
GW pharmaceuticals is developing a portfolio of cannabis medicines the first
of which, “Sativex®”, received an Approval with Conditions from Health
Canada in April 2005 for use as an adjunctive treatment for the symptom relief
of neuropathic pain in Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
http://www.gwpharm.com/
Special Interests











All federal agencies
The defense industry
The pharmaceutical
industry
The advertising industry and the media
The prison industry
The tobacco and liquor industries
The drug testing industry
The drug treatment industry
The home security industry
The timber industry
The international illegal drug cartels
The defense industry
Plan Colombia
now the
Andean Counterdrug Initiative
2003 prices:
Coca base-$360/lb.
Whsl cocaine-$17,000/lb.
Retail cocaine-$48,000/lb.
A farmer dries his cocaine base in the sun in Monserrate. Photograph by Carlos Villalón
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0407/feature2/zoom4.html
The Oregonian, 24 Feb. 2005
2000 Plan Colombia bill-$1.3 billion
$1.1 billion to buy
helicopters
$200 million to
spray crops with
glyphosate
Bell’s Huey II
Sikorsky’s Black Hawk
Each year the coca crop and the fumigation
campaign move further into the Amazon jungle
with disastrous results to its ecosystem.
Destroyed peanut crop in Colombia.
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/colombia/presspack
500-mile oil pipeline, partly owned by
Occidental Petroleum Company of California
www.amazonwatch.org
"Thus far we have
not seen a change
of availability in the
United States."
John Walters, August 4, 2004
Congressional Research Service Reports for Congress
Under-Secretary-General for
Humanitarian Affairs and
Emergency Relief Coordinator
Jan Egeland addressing the
Security Council.
Jan Egeland has described Colombia as “the biggest
humanitarian problem, human rights problem,
the biggest conflict in the Western Hemisphere.”
The pharmaceutical industry
Medical marijuana
James E. Burke
Chairman of Johnson & Johnson 1976-1989
Chairman of PDFA 1989-2002
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Comcast Cable
Consumer Healthcare Products Association
MetLife Foundation
Purdue Pharma L.P.
BASF Corporation
Bayer Corporation
F. M. Kirby Foundation
GE Foundation
General Motors Foundation
Cardinal Health Foundation
GlaxoSmithKline
Eastman Kodak Company
Kimberly-Clark
Johnson & Johnson
McNeil Consumer Products
Joseph Drown Foundation
Merrill Lynch & Co., Foundation, Inc.
Major League Baseball
Perrigo Company
The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Inc.
Pfizer Inc.
The Procter & Gamble Fund
Schering-Plough Foundation
Wyeth Consumer Healthcare Division
http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/About/Partners/list.aspx
March 30, 2005
“Drugmakers go furthest to sway Congress”
Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY, 26 April 2005
“’PhRMA’,” this lobby has a death grip on Congress”.
Summer, 2002
“Drugmakers go
furthest to sway
Congress”
Jim Drinkard, USA
TODAY, 26 April 2005
Pharmaceutical corporations save millions of dollars every day
that they avoid generic competition.
After 19 major surgeries and
hundreds of pharmaceutical
drugs, George McMahon now
uses only Cannabis to control
his Nail Patella Syndrome.
Fall, 2004
Medical marijuana?
Favor-75%
Oppose-19%
DK-6%
70%
62%
71%
62
83%
79%
77%
The advertising industry and
the media
“On strategy” content and the
National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign
November 14, 1996
meeting at the offices
of then drug czar
Gen. Barry McCaffrey:
Drug Enforcement Administration
Department of Justice
White House Office of Drug Control Policy
Department of Treasury
Department of Education
Department of Health and Human Services
The White House
Eight senior executives from private pro-drug war
groups, including The Partnership for a Drug Free
America
The principal purpose of
ONDCP is to establish
policies, priorities, and goals
for the Nation's drug control program.
To achieve this, ONDCP is charged
with producing the National Drug
Control Strategy. The Strategy directs
the Nation's anti-drug efforts and
establishes a program, a budget, and
guidelines for cooperation among
Federal, State, and local entities.
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/policy/ndcs05/
The Partnership for a Drug-Free
America is a nonprofit coalition ....
The Partnership’s research-based,
educational campaigns are
disseminated through all forms of
media, including TV, radio and print
advertisements and over
the Internet.
Comcast Cable
Consumer Healthcare Products
Association
MetLife Foundation
Purdue Pharma L.P.
http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/About/Partners/list.aspx
March, 2005
Parade received more
than any other publication
for “on strategy” messages
in its content.
Sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy
“Drugstory.org facilitates contacts with experts around
the country who can answer writers' questions about
substance abuse. “
http://drugstory.org/
Advertising Hall of Achievement
2003 Photo Gallery
First on the left is Stephen Pasierb, President
Partnership for a Drug-Free America
GAO
ANTI-DRUG MEDIA CAMPAIGN
March 2005
http://www.csdp.org/research/d05175.pd
The prison industry
5% of the world’s people
25% of the world’s prisoners
http://www.aca.org/Conferences/
Cromwell Architects Engineers
Val Verde County Jail Facility
Del Rio, Texas
http://www.corrections.com/
Holliday unit, Texas prison system, Huntsville
Unit Locations
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Harris
Dallas
Tarrant
Bexar
Travis
Of the 55,183 Texas prisoners returned to
their homes during 2001, 59% returned to
just 5 counties.
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation
“In Lockhart, Texas, we
operate work program facilities
for the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice-Parole Division.
As there is an
inverse relationship between
marketable job skills and the
incidence of incarceration, we
have recruited private industry
to establish factories within the
facilities, train offenders in
appropriate skills, and pay them
for their labor under the Prison
Industry Enhancement
Certification Program (PIECP)
program. “
Source: www.wcc-corrections.com
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/privateprisons19872001.shtml
“Today, CCA is the
sixth largest
corrections system
in the country,
coming just after
Texas, California,
the federal
government, New
York, and Florida.”
Average sentences for federal convictions
(in months)
80
70
72.7
60
65.2
50
40
30
34.3
37.7
20
10
0
Drug
trafficking
Manslaughter
Assault
Sexual abuse
Report of American Bar Association Justice Kennedy Commission, June 2004
Loren Pogue
22 years for failing to
stop the sale of a piece
of real estate from a paid
informant to under-cover
DEA officers after they said
they would build an
airstrip and fly in drugs.
Now held in the Federal
Medical Center in Ft. Worth.
http://www.hr95.org/hr95faces.html
http://drugsense.org/temp/AXPeaceXPlanX75XDPI.pdf
World rank in public safety indicators
(Higher rank indicates greater public safety)
Source: Economic and social data ranking, European Institute of Japanese
Studies
30
25
20
Homicides
Assaults
Thefts
15
10
5
0
UK
Canada
Netherlands
USA
Switzerland
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/illiteracy.shtml
Serving three
consecutive life
sentences without
possibility of parole for
introducing a friend to
a drug dealer.
Clarence Aaron
http://www.hr95.org/hr95faces.html
Solitary confinement units, aka "Administrative segregation"
Ohio Department of Corrections
Ohio's prison system is at the forefront of improving conditions for
mentally ill prisoners.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/etc/synopsis.html
U.S. Department of Justice · Office of Justice
Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics
HIV in Prisons and Jails, 2002
Serving 3 LIFE sentences
+ 20 years
“…They didn't want me
for anything… they
wanted my husband…
I couldn't tell them what
I did not know."
Danielle Metz
http://www.hr95.org/hr95faces.html
African-Americans as a % of:
80
70
74
60
50
40
38
30
42
20
10
0
12.3
13
18
US Drug users Drug Arrested- Sent
Federal
population
sellers
drugs
enced- prisoners
drugs
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/articles/notequal.shtml
http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/juveniles.shtml
164,222 inmates
June, 2003
Texas spends $1.45 million a day keeping adult drug
offenders locked up. Robert Bryce, Salon , Aug. 24, 1999
Texas prisoners per 100,000 population
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1970
1980
1990
2000
2004
Texas Tough: Three Years Later
by Vincent Schiraldi & Jason Ziedenberg
http://www.justicepolicy.org/article.php?id=134
Texas prisoners by offense
Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice, August, 2002
50
45
40
46%
35
30
25
24%
20
19%
15
10
11%
5
0
Violent
Property
Drugs
Other
Female prisoners by offense
Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice, August, 2002
40
35
37.3%
30
25
28.5%
24.4%
20
15
10
9.8%
5
0
Violent
Property
Drugs
Other
General population per 2000 census
Prison population per Texas Dept of Criminal Justice,
August 2002
60
50
52.4%
40
30
41%
31%
32%
27%
20
10
0
Gen. pop.
Prisoners
11.5%
White
non-Hisp
Hispanic
AfricanAm
4.1%
1%
Other
Inmates incarcerated for a drug offense
Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice, August, 2004
50
45
49.5%
40
35
30
25
25.3%
20
15
17.4%
10
5
0
7.8%
Black
Hispanic
White
Other
JUSTICE POLICY INSTITUTE POLICY BRIEF: RACE AND IMPRISONMENT IN TEXAS
February, 2005
“Our resources are misspent,
our punishments too severe,
our sentences too long.”
Supreme Court Justice
Anthony Kennedy to the
American Bar Association,
August, 2003
Essential public policy objectives 



Enhanced public order and reduced crime.
Improved public health.
Protection of children.
Efficient use of scarce public resources.
The War on Drugs has not only failed to fulfill any
of these objectives, but also has exacerbated the
very problems it was designed to address.
King County Washington Bar Association, Drug Policy Project, 2001
RESOLUTION: State Regulation and
Control of Psychoactive Substances
Therefore, the King County Bar Association
resolves that:
The Washington State Legislature should establish
a special consultative Body… to provide specific
recommendations for legislation to establish
regulatory systems and structures for the State of
Washington to control psychoactive substances
that are currently produced and distributed
exclusively through illegal markets….
ADOPTED this 19th day of January, 2005.
Signatories to the resolution adopted the 19th day of
January, 2005 include:
The Washington State Bar Association
The Washington State Medical Association
The Washington Society of Addiction Medicine
The Washington State Psychiatric Association
The Washington Academy of Family Physicians
The Washington State Pharmacy Association
The Church Council of Greater Seattle
The Seattle League of Women Voters
The Drug Policy Forum of Texas is an educational
organization with no legislative agenda.
For sources contact Suzanne Wills, suzy@dpft.org.