However, informal surveys have found that D.A.R.E. is no more effective than any other drug education program. "The D.A.R.E. program?s limited effect on adolescent drug use contrasts with the program?s popularity and prevalence. An important implication is that D.A.R.E. could be taking the place of other, more beneficial drug education programs that kids could be receiving."
Because of attempting to prevent all drug experimentation and/or use, D.A.R.E.?s objectives are not only unrealistic but also possible counter-productive because they are obviously unattainable. As an example, some studies have shown that adolescents who have experimented with illicit drugs (especially marijuana) are better adjusted than either abstainers or frequent users and were more socially skilled with higher levels of self-esteem than abstainers.
Some people say that drug addiction is a disease, and addicts should be treated as people needing medical help. "Whatever conditions may lead to opiate exposure, opiate dependence is a brain-related disorder with the requisite characteristics of a medical illness."
There are a few different methods of treatment, but for the sake of simplicity, this paper will cover methadone and narcotic antagonists.
Methadone is a synthetic narcotic analgesic that was developed in Germany during World War II due to the lack of opiate based pain medication. Methadone prevents often-excruciating withdrawal symptoms, yet blocks the pleasurable effects of heroin. For a heroin addict, he is either "straight" (feeling normal), "high", or "sick". He wakes up sick, shoots up, and gets high. That lasts for a few hours maybe, and he shoots up again if he can, to avoid getting sick. In this viscous cycle, it is easy to see how holding a job or living normally is out of the question. "Although a drug-free state represents an optimal treatment goal, research has demonstrated that this goal cannot be achieved or sustained by the majority of opiate-dependent people."
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), "Methadone maintenance treatment is effective in reducing illicit opiate drug use, in reducing crime, in enhancing social productivity, and in reducing the spread of viral diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis." "All opiate-dependent persons under legal supervision should have access to methadone maintenance therapy…"
Methadone maintenance is long-term, if not permanent. However, the methadone is given in a controlled environment; patients must come to the clinic once or twice a day for their dose. This way the patients were not given a narcotic that they could sell on the street. A daily appearance at the clinics and the opportunities for counseling is cited as one of the major reasons for the success of the methadone program.
"Of the various treatments available, Methadone Maintenance Treatment, combined with attention to medical, psychiatric and socioeconomic issues, as well as drug counseling, has the highest probability of being effective."
Narcotic antagonists, such as the drug naltrexone, work by blocking the effects of narcotics such as heroin. Naltrexone works only if the addict has already been detoxed, and is motivated to take the drug. Narcotic antagonists work best for those addicts that tend to relapse impulsively. "The unnecessary regulations of methadone maintenance therapy and other long-acting opiate antagonist treatment programs should be reduced, and coverage for these programs should be a required benefit in public and private insurance programs."
The National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES) found that with treatment: drug selling decreased by 78%, shoplifting declined by almost 82%, and assaults (defined as ?beating someone up?) declined by 78%. Furthermore, there was a 64% decrease in arrests for any crime, and the percentage of people who largely supported themselves through illegal activity dropped by nearly half – decreasing more than 48 percent.
Another way of thinking is that drug addicts are criminals and should be punished. Certainly, this is one of the objectives of the War on Drugs, to put the drug traffickers in prison. However, how many millions of people do you think we have to put in prison to have the best results? Under current laws, most users also fall under the category of dealers, due to either the amount carried, or the way the drugs are packaged. Potentially forty million people would have to be imprisoned under these laws, and that is just impossible.
Although people may think that the War on Drugs targets drug smugglers and ?King Pins,? of the 1,559,100 arrests for drug law violations in 1998, 78.8% (1,228,571) were for possession of a controlled substance. Only 21.2% (330,529) was for the sale or manufacture of a drug. Simple possession of marijuana accounted for 38.4% (598,694) of the total arrests.
Even if only ten percent of the drug dealers were put in prison, the U.S. would have to build four prisons for every one we have now. How many people need to be in prison for drug offenses to effectively control the drug problem? The government has asked the taxpayers to write a blank check for prisons to jail non-violent offenders.
Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget increased by more than 1,350%, from $220 million in 1986 to about $3.19 billion in 1997.
The ONDCP in its 2000 annual report detailed administration requests for major increases in funding to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for drug-related prison construction. These include an extra $420 Million in fiscal year 2001, and advanced appropriations of $467 Million in 2002, and an additional $316 Million in 2003 – all drug-related.
The 1997 National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study (NTIES) stated, "Treatment appears to be cost effective, particularly when compared to incarceration, which is often the alternative. Treatment costs ranged from a low of $1,800 per client to a high of approximately $6,800 per client." To contrast, the average cost of incarceration in 1993 (the most recent year available) was $23,406 per inmate per year.
For a single drug user to be put in prison, it costs taxpayers about a half million dollars. That includes $150,000 for arrest and prosecution, $150,000 for a new cell, and approximately $30,000 a year for the next five years. In the same respect, that amount of money could provide education and treatment for one hundred people. Which do you think is the better option?
In California, and in a few other states, schools, libraries, and medical facilities are being closed in order to build more prisons. The money is being taken from education and treatment in order to build more prisons. Is this planning for our children?s future?
Prisoners sentenced for drug offenses constitute the largest group of Federal inmates (58%) in 1998, up from 53% in 1990 (table 21). On September 30, 1998, the date of the latest available data, Federal prisons held 63,011 sentenced drug offenders, compared to 30,470 at yearend 1990." Table 21 notes there were 56,989 Federal prisoners in 1990, compared to 108,925 in 1998. : Over 80% of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 were due to drug convictions.
In 1998, drug law violators comprised 21% of all adults serving time in State prisons – 236,800 out of 1,141,700 State inmates. Nonviolent offenders accounted for Eighty-four percent (84%) of the increase in state and federal prison admissions since 1980.
Department of corrections data show that about a fourth of those initially imprisoned for nonviolent crimes are sentenced for a second time for committing a violent offense. Whatever else it reflects, this pattern highlights the possibility that prison serves to transmit violent habits and values rather than to reduce them.
It seems that no matter how hard the government tries to fight drugs, it will always lose. Government?s solution is spending more money, imprison more people but that does not keep people from using drugs. In this final part of the paper, I will discuss legalization and decriminalization to effectively end the War on Drugs.
"Prohibition…goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man?s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."?Abraham Lincoln December, 1840
As the drug war hysteria begins to subside, it becomes increasingly obvious that there must be a serious re-examination of the laws prohibiting "soft drugs", such as marijuana. The decriminalization of "soft drugs" has emerged as an active political issue in many European countries, including Switzerland, Holland, and Germany. The policies being considered range from decriminalization, or repeal of criminal penalties for private use and cultivation of cannabis, to full legalization, in which marijuana is commercially sold like alcohol and tobacco. The Netherlands follows a policy of separating the market for illicit drugs. Cannabis is primarily purchased through coffee shops. Coffee shops offer no or few possibilities for purchasing illicit drugs other than cannabis. Thus The Netherlands achieve a separation of the soft drug market from the hard drugs market – and separation of the ?acceptable risk? drug user from the ?unacceptable risk? drug user.
Decriminalization involves the removal of criminal penalties for possession of marijuana for personal use. Small fines may be issued (similar to traffic tickets) but there is no arrest, incarceration, or criminal record. Marijuana is presently decriminalized in 10 states?California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Oregon. In these states, cultivation and distribution remain criminal offenses.
We already have some evidence that legalization works. In the U.S. states that have briefly decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s, the number of users stayed about the same. In the Netherlands, legal tolerance of marijuana has led to a significant decline in consumption and has successfully prevented kids from experimenting with hard drugs. Eleven times as many U.S. high school seniors smoked pot daily in 1983 as did students the same age in the Netherlands. The Dutch discovered that making the purchase of small amounts of marijuana freely available to anyone over 16 cuts the drug dealer out; as a result, there is virtually no crime associated with the use of marijuana. Treatment for addiction to hard drugs is widely available there; 75 percent of the heroin addicts in Amsterdam are on methadone maintenance, living relatively normal, crime-free lives. All this still falls short of legalization, and problems still abound, but the experience of the Netherlands clearly points in the right direction. The Dutch see illicit drug use as a health problem, not as a criminal problem.
Drug legalization is neither a simple nor singular public policy proposal. For example, drug legalization could at one extreme involve a return to wide-open access to all drugs for all people as. Partial legalization could entail such changes in drug policy as making currently illegal drugs available in their crude forms to certain types of medical patients. It might include the maintenance of addicts on heroin or their drug of choice, handouts of needles to addicts without the requirement of cessation of drug use, or marked softening in sentencing guidelines for drug-related offenses short of frank legalization.
Right now, a marijuana smoker is arrested every forty-five seconds. When we define all marijuana smoking as criminal, including that which involves adults smoking in the privacy of their own homes, we are wasting police and prosecutorial resources, clogging courts, filling costly and scarce jail and prison space, and needlessly wrecking the lives and careers of genuinely good citizens. Millions of Americans use marijuana; few abuse it. The government should limit its involvement in this issue solely to address and sanction irresponsible marijuana and other drug use. Responsible marijuana use causes no harm to society and should be of no interest to the federal government.
In conclusion, it appears that however well intentioned the War on Drugs was, it is now a losing battle that Americans keep pouring their tax dollars into. It all boils down to supply and demand. If there is a demand for illegal drugs, there will always be a supply. The drug war is over, and we lost. We merely repeated the mistake of Prohibition. The harder we tried to stamp out drugs, the more lucrative we made them, and the more they spread. I hope that it will only be a matter of time before the drug laws are thoroughly reexamined, and the government can admit that the War on Drugs was a failure.