Puff, Puff, Keep Drug Laws Passed
by Ron Brooks
“Legalization advocates would have us believe that marijuana is a benign drug. That message is not only reckless, it is dangerous. By treating marijuana as a joke, the pro-legalization lobby is using our kids as pawns in a dangerous political game.”
NPR.org, April 20, 2009 · As a 35-year law enforcement veteran and a father of two, I am alarmed by the dramatic increase in efforts to legalize or decriminalize powerful and dangerous drugs, including marijuana.
I am surprised that the “drug war has failed” drumbeat of drug legalizers is growing louder even in the wake of recent significant declines in drug abuse by young Americans. And I am appalled at the suggestion by some that legalizing and taxing marijuana is a smart way to close government budget gaps.
I have yet to hear a convincing argument that marijuana legalization is a healthy policy choice — physiologically, economically or socially.
Legalization advocates claim that current drug policy has failed. This is patently false if you measure success by whether drug use has increased or decreased.[1] In fact, according to the Monitoring the Future survey conducted by the University of Michigan, youth marijuana use has declined by 25 percent since 2001. That translates into hundreds of thousands fewer young people using drugs today than just eight years ago.
That is not a failure of policy — it is a success generated by a balanced policy focused on preventing use, enforcing laws and treating those afflicted with the disease of addiction.
Legalization advocates would have us believe that marijuana is a benign drug. That message is not only reckless, it is dangerous. By treating marijuana as a joke, the pro-legalization lobby is using our kids as pawns in a dangerous political game. The research is clear: Because teen brains are still developing, young people who use marijuana are at greater risk of developing dependence.
Research also shows that marijuana use leads to greater incidence of depression, attention deficit disorder, and even schizophrenia. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, chronic marijuana use is associated with problem behaviors, including other drug use.
According to Dr. Paula Riggs, associate professor of psychiatry and director of adolescent services at the University of Denver, marijuana use by teens causes acute neurotoxicity. It “impairs cognitive functioning … And if you’re a kid who smokes regularly, you won’t progress developmentally at the same rate as kids who aren’t smoking.”
Today’s marijuana is much more powerful and addictive than in years past[2] THC — the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — now averages 10 percent, up from 4 percent since 1983, and many samples tested between 20 percent and 37 percent. If that does not convince you, consider that marijuana is the No. 1 drug for which Americans kids between the ages of 12 and 18 seek treatment.
More than 65 percent of all teens in treatment are there for marijuana dependence,[3] with another 11 percent in treatment for alcohol and drug dependence together, many of whom are using pot with alcohol. In another disturbing trend, hospital emergency room admissions involving marijuana tripled between 1994 and 2002 and now surpass ER admissions involving heroin. And drugged driving accidents — many involving marijuana — kill more than 8,000 and maim another 500,000 every year.[4]
The bottom line is that efforts to legalize drugs including marijuana, and attempts to change America’s abstinence-based drug policy to one of harm reduction — in other words, a policy where we teach people to use harmful drugs safely — put our kids and our communities at risk.[5]
The Monitoring the Future survey shows that the No. 1 reason kids cite for not using pot is that it is illegal.[6] Ask almost any cop, paramedic, ER doctor or schoolteacher if they think legalization is a good idea, and you will hear a resounding “no”. It is clear that drug use and the disease of addiction threaten America’s health and economic stability. It is amazing that some would suggest unleashing even more destruction and addiction through legalization.[7]
Ron Brooks is president of the 70,000-member National Narcotic Officers’ Associations’ Coalition, and is in his 35th year as a law enforcement officer in California. Courtesy of Ron Brooks
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103224753
To elaborate on a few points made earlier:
1. Unfortunately, this is a grossly insufficient metric for evaluating the Drug War’s success. Far better would be, say, the eight measures used by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the DEA- all of which demonstrate abject failure- “Success” is marked as reduced cannabis use, increased risk perception of cannabis use by high school seniors, and the decrease in availability of the drug among high school seniors, along with such markers as deterring new users, reducing the number of admissions to treatment and emergency room mentions for cannabis, a reduction in cannabis’ potency, and finally an increase in the price of cannabis. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103224152
2. An oversimplification that is potentially untrue and definitely misleading- Testing methods in the past were not nearly as accurate, nor were the policies for testing confiscated drugs as concrete as today. Captured drugs would often be left in the storage room for a while before testing; in effect, measured strengths of marijuana from past decades are low-ball estimates. Beyond that, it is ever so easy to construct a comparison like this: take the lowest grade marijuana from DEA records and set it against, say, the strongest stuff ever confiscated today. Presto- a huge increase in the potency of the substance! But heck, let’s even concede for a moment that today’s reefer is of greater strength than in years past. Wouldn’t that mean that users would need to consume less of the drug for each use? Isn’t that actually good from a health standpoint- less inhalation of harmful burning byproducts (tar, CO, etc.)?
3. This is a wholly disingenuous claim, totally ignoring the fact that most of these youths are in treatment due to court mandates- “58.1% of all marijuana referrals to treatment were from the criminal justice system, and only 16.6% of marijuana referrals to treatment were from individuals (that includes parents), which is where you would expect a large figure if, in fact, marijuana addiction, particularly in youths) was a real problem. Note that in only 24% of individual referrals to treatment is marijuana even mentioned. When you look at all treatment cases where marijuana is mentioned at admission (not necessarily the drug of treatment, but mentioned as having used it), almost half came through criminal justice referrals” http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2004/08/03/treatmentStatisticsOrTheDr.html
And as of February, 2004: “Fewer than one in five people admitted to drug treatment for marijuana in 2001 did so voluntarily, and more than half were referred by the criminal justice system, according to statistics released recently by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Among the 255,000 individuals admitted to treatment in 2001 (the last year for which data is available) primarily for marijuana, 57 percent were referred by the criminal justice system. In many cases, these were first-time offenders arrested for marijuana possession, and given the option by a judge or drug court of entering drug treatment as an alternative to jail.
“… the dramatic rise in marijuana ‘treatment’ admissions over the past decade is primarily because of a proportional increase in individuals arrested on marijuana charges and referred to drug treatment in lieu of incarceration,” as annual arrests for pot increased from 289,000 in 1991 to 724,000 in 2001. “This increase… is not attributable to any significant changes in the number of individuals checking themselves into drug treatment because they are experiencing social or health consequences from their marijuana use, or exhibiting clinical symptoms of dependence from cannabis.”
According to HHS, only 17.5 percent of those admitted for marijuana treatment in 2001 did so voluntarily, compared to 65 percent for heroin and 40 percent for cocaine. Other sources of marijuana treatment referrals included “substance abuse or other health care provider” (11 percent), “school” (4 percent), and “employer” (1.2 percent).
Among youth aged 12-17, well over 60 percent of those in drug treatment in 2001 were referred by the criminal justice system, up from approximately 37 percent in 1992. Among adolescents admitted to drug treatment primarily for marijuana, 54 percent were referred by the criminal justice system.” http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5956
4. The implication of causality is misleading; it cannot be known if the involved drivers were under the influence of drugs at the time of accident, or if they had used drugs in some prior period. FYI- That is sufficient for a drugged driving arrest in many states. “Driving while Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID)” laws come in three types, with every state having one on the books.
- Effect-Based DUID Laws- essentially are “effect based” laws. This legislation forbids drivers to operate a motor vehicle if they are either “under the influence” of a controlled substance, or if they have been rendered “incapable of driving safely” because of their use of an illicit drug. In order for a defendant to be convicted under this statute, a prosecutor must prove that the driver’s observed impairment and/or incapacity was directly associated with the ingestion of an illicit substance. To do so, prosecutors typically rely on evidence gathered by law enforcement officers at the scene of an accident (i.e., a driver’s failure to pass a field sobriety test, evidence that the motorist was driving at an excessive speed, etc.), testimony from a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE), and/or a positive result from a blood or saliva test indicating recent consumption of a controlled substance. For the most part, this is a multidisciplinary standard that focuses on the totality of circumstances — most importantly, whether the driver is observably impaired — and accordingly punishes motorists who drive while impaired from having recently used illicit drugs.
- Per Se DUID Laws- prohibit drivers from operating a motor vehicle if they have greater than a set level of a drug or drug metabolite present in their system. Most Americans are already familiar with the most common driving-related per se laws: those governing drunk driving which define a driver as legally impaired per se if their blood alcohol level tests above .08%. Similar per se laws with strictly defined cut-off levels (a designated level of an active drug constituent or metabolite above which a sample is considered to be “positive” for a specific drug) are uncommon for DUID legislation.2 This is because, according to the US Department of Transportation: “Forensic toxicologists generally have failed to agree on specific [per se levels] that could be designated as evidence of impairment. The lack of consensus about per se levels of drugs where impairment could be deemed makes it difficult to identify, prosecute or convict drugged drivers in most states.”3
- “Zero Tolerance” Per Se Laws- Politicians and police have a simple, if unscientific, response to researchers’ failure to define per se standards for DUID offenses: to enact “zero tolerance” per se laws. In their strictest form, these laws forbid drivers from operating a motor vehicle if they have any detectable level of an illicit drug or drug metabolite present in their bodily fluids.
- This approach is not based on science but on convenience. In essence, “zero tolerance” per se laws define a new, driving-related offense that is, in the words of one of its chief proponents, “divorced from impairment.” Under this standard, any driver who tests positive for any trace amount of an illicit drug or drug metabolite (i.e., compounds produced from chemical changes of a drug in the body, but not necessarily psychoactive themselves), is guilty per se of the crime of “drugged driving,” even if the defendant was sober. In the case of marijuana, these laws are particularly troublesome. THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive constituent, may be detected at low levels in the blood of heavy cannabis users for 1-2 days after past use.4 Marijuana’s primary metabolite THC-COOH, the most common indicator of marijuana use in workplace drug tests, is detectable in urine for days and sometimes weeks after past use5— long after any psychoactive effects have ceased. Consequently, under “zero tolerance” per se laws, a person who smoked a joint on Monday could conceivably be arrested the following Friday and charged with “drugged driving,” even though he or she is no longer impaired or intoxicated.
- To date, ten states have enacted “zero tolerance” per se laws: Arizona,6 Georgia,7 Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,8 Michigan,9 Minnesota,10 Rhode Island, Utah,12 and Wisconsin.13 Among these, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, and Utah forbid drivers from operating a motor vehicle with any detectable level of a controlled substance or its metabolites in one’s bodily fluids.
5. I see. Is this like why we teach sexual abstinence programs in school, because actually informing kids of safe sex practices turns them into pre-marital sex fiends? And it is such a demonstrably effective strategy, right? Oh, wait…
6. Scare tactics sure are great. Otherwise, individuals might have to make informed, life-choices for themselves. And they might just make a mistake or two! Far better for draconian laws ensuring proper citizen behavior, right?
7. Drug addiction is a problem, but to suggest that our current policies have done anything to improve the situation- especially in economic terms- is just laughable.
