The well-intentioned crusade to curb alcoholism and related domestic abuse 90 years ago spurred passage of Prohibition but created a huge underground industry whose ruthless bosses warred against each other and gunned down law enforcement officers and anyone else who happened to get in the way.
Drinking became even more the "in thing" to do because it was forbidden. Supply didn't diminish, it just went underground. Speakeasies flourished. Drinkers prided themselves on knowing the passwords to gain admission. Gangsters dominated commerce. And the nation reeled from Prohibition's unintended consequences. Its repeal in 1933 was greeted with relief througout the land, and the serving of very dry martinis in the White House, prepared with skill by the president himself.
"Prohibition's focus was on supply and it increased demand," says Roger Burt, a clinical psychologist in Talbot County, Maryland. Burt and his friend Francis X. Lawlor believe the lessons learned from prohibition of booze should have been applied a long while ago in addressing rampant use of illegal drugs. Most mental health clinics across the land report that 70 to 90 percent of admissions are drug related, identified as co-occurring illnesses, and admit it's difficult to know which triggered the other.
Burt and Lawlor strongly support LEAP: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (of unlawful drugs), formed in 2002 by five police officers. Today, LEAP's 30,000 advocates in 80 countries include FBI agents, judges, parole officers, prosecutors, juvenile justice officers and wardens. One of LEAP's leaders, Stanford "Neill" Franklin, a retired narcotics enforcement officer who directed the first domestic violence investigative unit for the Maryland State Police, will speak at the handsome Academy Art Musem hall in Easton, Maryland on May 11 at 7 p.m. Burt and Lawlor urge the public to attend the free presentation. "We need to raise public awareness and inform legislators," says Burt.
Although the word decriminalization isn't referenced in LEAP literature, the movement's major thrust is toward having the health industry regulate drug usage with the support of law enforcement and the courts. "We've got to stop incarcerating recreational users of marijuana," says Burt.
Franklin put the issue this way: "Prohibition is the true cause of much social and personal damage attributed to drug use. Prohibition makes marijuana worth more than gold, and heroin worth more than uranium, while giving criminals monopoly over their supply." Criminals take huge risks for huge profits, Franklin says.
The chaos and brutality loosed in Mexico, which has transformed parts of that nation into a war zone, has spread its violence into California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, affirming that the devastating consequences of an upside down approach to drug control has no physical boundaries.
LEAP has significant partners, including the Drug Policy Alliance, Marijuana Policy Project, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, and the International Drug Policy Consortium.
One of the reasons Burt and Lawlor support LEAP is their deep concern for the disporportionate number of black and Hispanic drug use offenders now incarcerated for longer sentences than Caucasians jailed for the same offenses. "Our prison population has quintupled in the past 30 years while European prison populations are down 60 percent," Lawlor points out. "Over 80 percent of U.S. inmates are black or Latino, which raises serious questions of fairness and justice, given that the incidence of drug usage among ethnic groups is basically the same."
Franklin agrees: "We incarcerate more of our citizens than any other developed nation in the world," he says. "More than 2.3 million people at last count, and a staggering percentage were put there for drug usage, not drug distribution." He agrees the system reflects racial prejudice and divides our country even more sharply between those who have much and sometimes seem to function above the law, and those who have little and struggle for survival.
By forbidding the use of drugs, LEAP's advocates contend that demand has been increased, prices have skyrocketed, and criminal trafficking has spawned violence thoughout society.
"We no longer have money for social needs, and mental health clinics are closing across the nation, adding to our homeless population," Burt laments, "but we have money to build new prisons to hold nonviolent drug users, many of them students and parents separated from their families. It makes no sense. We need a whole new approach to get the situation under control, and LEAP offers a pathway."
It's a complicated, multi-faceted problem of long standing. Burt and Lawlor believe Franklin will make it less complicated and more clearly focused on reform in his remarks May 11.
***
Carlton E. Spitzer
No comments:
Post a Comment