Is the War on Drugs a Failure?

Recently the AP reported that US Government's War on Drugs has not met any of its goals. Essentially the US Federal Government has spent trillions on this war and has not achieved any of its stated purposes:

After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.

"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

If one believes that the true purpose of the War on Drugs is to actually reduce drug use, then one might agree with the assessment that "the strategy hasn't worked." However, those of us cynics who read a lot of Robert Higgs' essays think otherwise.

In his essay The Myth of "Failed" Policies, Higgs writes

Anyone who listens to the news hears a lot about failed policies. Conservative Republicans in Congress say they are seeking to overturn the failed policies enacted by liberal Democrats. Although the Democrats defend their deeds, they admit that certain policies may have failed and should be reviewed. 

But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interest groups.

The War on Drugs is a perfect example of this fraud. Writes Higgs

Democrats and Republicans alike support the "War on Drugs." Federal, state, and local police make more than a million drug arrests yearly. Drug cases clog the courts. More than 60% of federal prison cells and about 30% of state prison cells hold drug offenders. No-knock drug raiders nullify the Fourth Amendment every day. Yet illicit drugs continue to pour onto the market, and they are readily available throughout the land. Looks like another failed policy. 

But politicians say more money will win the war. For fiscal 1996, President Clinton has requested a record $14.6 billion for this exercise in futility. State and local governments will also spend huge sums. Who benefits? Posturing politicians and puritanical zealots, of course, but also the Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service, Coast Guard, FBI, and the rest of the drug warriors. Police love the drug war, because the forfeiture laws it inspired allow them to seize and keep private property with impunity. Corrupt cops get fabulous bribes, and corruption therefore runs rampant.

The War on Drugs is essentially welfare for law enforcement and puritanical zealots. Just look at the staggering amount of money that has been spent over 40 years to wage this war:

_ $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.

_ $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

_ $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

_ $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

_ $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

These totals while staggering should not surprise anyone who reads WyN regularly. The State originated in crime; robbery and murder is why the State was formed and robbery and murder will continue to be the primary purpose of the State as long as it exists. However, the democratic State has an ancillary purpose: to compel all people to live as the majority wants. The majority in this country believes that (some) drugs are evil and that people should not take those drugs. The State claims that this is the goal of the its drug policy. This means that the majority benefits psychologically from the idea that the State is pursuing a goal that they deem worthy of their collective resources. The costs of the drug war are always worth the benefit of keeping drugs out of the hands of adults in the minds of the masses. An example of this ideological thinking is illustrated by this quote from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in the AP article:

So why persist with costly programs that don't work?

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, sitting down with the AP at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, paused for a moment at the question.

"Look," she says, starting slowly. "This is something that is worth fighting for because drug addiction is about fighting for somebody's life, a young child's life, a teenager's life, their ability to be a successful and productive adult.

"If you think about it in those terms, that they are fighting for lives — and in Mexico they are literally fighting for lives as well from the violence standpoint — you realize the stakes are too high to let go."

The fact that the War on Drugs has destabilized Mexico and Colombia, turned many inner city neighborhoods in the US into war zones, and created a militarized police state in the US are all worth the ostensible benefit of keeping a joint out of the hands of a young person. The violence that is destroying the lives of Mexicans, Colombians, and Americans, and would disappear almost immediately if the drug war were ended, is worth it because "drug addiction is about fighting for somebody's life, a young child's life, a teenager's life, their ability to be a successful and productive adult." It is bad enough that State agents believe that they have the right to determine what products a person can put into his own body. It is yet higher level of hubris to assert that the deaths of millions of people is "worth" trying to keep drugs out of the hands of young people. The hubris of State agents never ceases to amaze me.

C. S. Lewis was quite correct; the robber barron would be satisfied after taking his fill, but the moral busybody is not satisfied until all are living as she would have them because her cause is righteous and there is no cost too high for others to bear. And I emphasize that these costs are borne by others. As I wrote in an essay last month:

The masses do not participate in the actual violence that must be committed to compel compliance. Thus, it is easier for the masses to tolerate and advocate aggressive policies because they themselves do not have to engage in the actual violence. The masses do not break into the houses of drug suspects and shoot their pets. The masses do not arrest tax resisters. The masses do not fight wars in foreign countries. Rather armed men who either ingest a much, much stronger cocktail of statist ideology or are thugs by nature enforce these laws and fights these wars. This means that the typical liberal or conservative can advocate his policies without the guilt of actually having to beat or jail or kill someone who disobeys a dictum of the State.

The drug warrior voters in this country do not shoulder the full costs of the policies they support. These people do not have to pay the police nor do they pay the FBI agents or CIA agents who prosecute the drug war with their own resources. Instead, they go to the ballot box and vote that a portion of their resources and a portion of the resources of those who care nothing about the drug war be used to create the chaos and destruction that results from the US's drug policy. They do so because they believe drugs are wrong and that a legitimate use of the violent power of the State is to punish drug dealers and users. The socialization of the costs makes it easy for them to support such policies and the psychological benefit that redounds to them from this policy is incalculable.

Thus, the answer the question posed in the title of this post is "No, the War on Drugs is not a failure." Politicians, law enforcement, puritanical zealots, and the moral majority are all enjoying the monetary and psychological benefits of this "failed" policy.

Comments

[Redman]

It all depends on what the meaning of "is" is! Don't you know?

[Dollar Digi Surf]

It is not a failure, it's just that there are too many evil in this world that the good ones are not able to lose them. That's the explanation.

[IT'S GREAT FOR AL-CIA-DA!!!!]

The war on drugs is great for AL-CIA-DA, who is the leading shipper of black tar heroin and cocaine in the world, and it's also 'nifty' for Law EnFARCEMENT, who get the payola and the bribes to let it out onto the streets of Amer'ka! It's just peechy keen for the Gil Kerlikowske's who are so corrupt and scummy, that they become DRUG CZAR!!!! :) Oh yes, it's just been a huge huge SUCK CESS(pool) all the way around!!

[Jeff]

- The DrugWar strikes me not as the child of fascism, but the Father of American Fascism. Nixon's DEA for the first time, put a Feddie into every country of the once great land.
Shoot the Press First - Who else could sell the lie, sell the hatred and sell all wars, and sell them well.
The DEA - The Death of the American Spirit - Film at 11.

[Big M]

There's just gotta be a Hell for these fucking fascist zits on the ass of humanity.

[j r]

Is the pope a child molester?

[A. Magnus]

The war on drugs is a direct violation of the 13th and 14th amendments because it is a communist-inspired program; it postulates that the state owns the bodies of all its citizens and thus has the right to dictate what they can and cannot do with their own bodies on their own time. Marx would be jumping for joy at the big government statism promoted as the 'war on drugs.'

[chris Kanada]

let us focus on the problem - the users - they have to hunted down and placed indefinetly in gaol - for them to learn what freedom is - we have the technology to find each one of these terrorists - one joint at a time - they will thank us one day.

[Alrenous]

The thing which clinches the issue for me is that we already know how to tell if a policy has failed or not. You take once city and end the policy. If it improves, the policy was a failure.

This not only never happens, but even the idea of anyone ever seriously trying it is risible. E.g. can you imagine what would happen if I campaigned for office under a slogan like, 'controlled trials?'

The mens rea is clear - politicians often talk a big game about respecting science, but never take even the simplest action in accordance with that.