Transcript

Century of Lies / September 25, 2011

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DEAN BECKER: The failure of Drug War is glaringly obvious to judges, cops, wardens, prosecutors and millions more. Now calling for decriminalization, legalization, the end of prohibition. Let us investigate the Century of Lies.

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DEAN BECKER: We have a treat for you today. Recently the University of Arkansas’s Chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) in coordination with their University Programs hosted a debate between the former DEA administrator and U.S. Congressman, Asa Hutchinson, and the head of the Drug Policy Alliance, Mr. Ethan Nadelmann.

We’ll have that for you in just a couple of moments along with a report from Mr. Terry Nelson of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and his thoughts about this being a boom time for the traffickers.

But first we want to talk about breaking news out of New York which has, until recently, been the world’s leading jailer of marijuana users but who have now decided they are going to quit tricking New York’s children into showing their marijuana – thus sending them to Rikers Island for the weekend. We’ll have more on that for you next week.

But first this debate between Asa Hutchinson, former [DEA administrator], and Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

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STEVEN DUKE: My name is Steven Duke. I am currently the President of Students for Sensible Drug Policy here on campus. I want to thank our moderator here tonight, Mr. Jason Edgar.

JASON EDGAR: Thank you University of Arkansas. Ethan Nadelmann, we’ll start with you, a four minute statement - not to exceed four minutes. Mr. Nadelmann, the floor is yours.

ETHAN NADELMANN: Thank you Steven Duke and SSDP for having me here and thank you Asa for having this debate with me.

Let me explain where I’m coming from on the drug issue. I start off with a very simple idea which is that drugs are here to stay. That there’s never been a drug-free society. [inaudible] because they couldn’t grow anything – but basically there’s never been a drug-free society and there’s never going to be a drug-free society. And that’s a reality that we have to accept.

This notion of zero-tolerance…”Let’s do anything, pay any price, bare any burdens to make a drug-free society”. I think it’s time to abandon that idea and I think more and more people are. So what’s my objective? It’s to accept reality. Whether we like it or not, the drugs are here to stay. Let’s accept that reality and learn how to live with that reality so that drugs do the least possible harm and, in some cases, the greatest possible benefit.

More specifically, I would define my objectives with respect to drugs and drug policy in two ways. The first is I want to reduce as much as possible the negative consequences of drug use. I want to reduce addiction. I want to reduce disease. I want to reduce HIV/AIDS and Hep C. I want to reduce the criminality associated with drug addiction. I want to reduce the suffering that people, individuals and families and communities go through. Do whatever possible to reduce that suffering, that harms of drugs because all drugs need to be used safely, less dangerously, to reduce that harm.

But that’s not my only objective. There’s a second objective. I also want to reduce, as much as possible, the negative consequences of our failed drug prohibitionist policies - of our failed War on Drugs.

I’m concerned with addiction and people dying and being hurt by drugs. I’m also concerned that we live in a country, a country of freedom, who now leads the world in per capita incarceration of our fellow citizens- which leads the world in the number of people locked up behind bars over China and Russia.

I’m concerned when we’re arresting 1.6 million people a year. I’m concerned when increase 10-fold the number of people behind bars on drug charges – from 50,000 in 1980 to half a million today. I’m concerned when people are struggling with addiction and they’re treated like criminals especially if they are poor. I’m concerned when we’re taking laws that are steeped in racism, as so many of our drug laws are, and we target enforcement of these laws disproportionately at people of color – black and brown people rather than other people – where they’re targeting young rather than old…when they are targeting people who can least afford to be targeted.

I am not here to argue that every drug should be legalized and sold like alcohol and cigarettes. Not only that politically it’s a nowhere argument but I don’t think it’s the best policy. But I am here to say that we have to reduce the harms of drugs and the harms of our failed drug policies.

But it is very much like what we saw with alcohol prohibition – 70/80 years ago. You know this country passed a national amendment – we don’t do that very often – to prohibit alcohol around the country. People hoped that it would eliminate alcohol from the face of our society.

It looked like it might work for a few years but then it backfired. People started drinking more and more and they didn’t drink beer – they drank hard liquor because they wanted more bang for that buck. And then you had Al Capone and organized crime and violence and corruption. Tens upon hundreds of thousands of people being killed and blinded and poisoned by bad, bootlegged liquor – liquor that was more dangerous because it was illegal.

Yet you had young people looking up to bootleggers as role models. Jails, prisons, court houses overflowing and there was an answer back then which was to repeal that alcohol prohibition law.

John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man in America, said it quite well. He supported the prohibition movement. He said, “I’m a teetotaler and I’ve been a teetotaler. I hate alcohol and I will never use alcohol. But I have now come to the conclusion that solution I advocated in the form of prohibition is doing more harm than good and we have to end the days of prohibition and move into a world of sensible, pragmatic policies to regulate alcohol and its harms.” That’s what we need to be doing today. Thank you.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

JASON EDGAR: Let’s now hear some opening statements from Asa Hutchinson. Not to exceed 4 minutes. Mr. Hutchinson, the floor is yours.

ASA HUTCHINSON: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be back at the University of Arkansas. I don’t live very far from here so I’m here frequently. I am an Alumnus of the University of Arkansas and I congratulate the University Programs and all of the students that are here that have created this public policy debate that is actually an important one for our future and certainly for the next generation.

I want to welcome Ethan. We have debated on occasions before but usually on CNN. Now I believe that the terms of debate tonight should be in terms of our fight against illegal drugs – what will be the future. Are we going to decriminalize? Are we going to legalize methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and, yes, marijuana is a part of the debate.

My background comes from a whole host of perspectives. I see the tragedy that drug addiction does to families. I dare say that every family represented in this room has seen it – whether at a distance or close-up. We know the challenge of drug abuse.

The question of society is how can we reduce that? And I believe that when you’re on the right path and you have made progress on a social problem – don’t wave the white flag of surrender.

And, for example, If you look at 1979 was the year of the highest drug use in our country. And since 1979 - because of the efforts of education, because of the efforts of rehabilitation and enforcement combined – overall drug use has been reduced by…would you say 10% is a good margin? Would you say 20% is a good margin? How about one-third? One-third reduction in illegal drug use since 1979.

There’s an annual survey called “Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services” (SAMSA) and there’s others…Monitoring the Future and they have consistently showed a decline since the 70’s. In fact, cocaine use has gone down even more dramatically.

It also showed another statistic. And that is that in 2011, the United States spent $10.4 billion on drug education and treatment compared to over 9 billion dollars on domestic law enforcement. So, $10 billion on rehabilitation/education, less than that, $9 billion on domestic law enforcement.

And whenever I started – back 20 years ago – let me tell you it was out of perspective. There was more spent on law enforcement and less in terms of rehabilitation. But, because of drug court initiatives, because of changes in alternatives to incarceration and improvement in rehabilitation, that balance has come back better.

And so we’ve made progress. And I’m here to tell you, and I agree with Ethan, there’s some things we could do better in our country. Ethan asked about discrimatory policies, well I haven’t just complained about it in the last 10 years since I was in congress, I actually did something about it. I advocated it in congress and we accomplished it this year which is a disruption in the disparity in crack and powder cocaine in sentencing that had such a disparite impact on African-Americans in that community.

And, so yes, we can change things. We reduced the mandatory-minimum penalty. I enjoined the right on crime. Time’s up?

I will talk about some of the other areas of progress that we’ve made in the fight against drugs and improving it so don’t wave the white flag of surrender. Let’s improve the system where it’s broken and make it work for the next generation.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

JASON EDGAR: This summer a global commission of former world leaders and activists put out a report calling for the U.S. to drastically shift its drug policy away from incarceration citing that the current system of locking up users and abusers isn’t curbing drug abuse and ultimately not an effective measure to take against the problems associated with drugs in society.

Do you think this commission is right in their conclusions or are they misled and don’t fully understand the effectiveness of the War on Drugs in the United States? 2 minutes.

ASA HUTCHINSON: Well, the Global Commission report, which I have read, is a report that basically adopts the European model of harm reduction and it advocates that for everywhere.

Did it properly evaluate what’s happening in the United States? No, I do not think so.

For example, the report talked about an increase of global drug consumption, in fact cocaine, according to the report, had increased globally by 27%. Well, during that same time period cocaine use in the United States declined – dramatically declined.

Whenever you look at other drug use – they’ve all declined, except for marijuana use, in the last two years all of them have declined since the 70s and even declined in the last couple years except for marijuana. So, I don’t think it fairly treats what’s happened in the United States.

Secondly, and this is really part of your question is, are incarceration rates. Well, the fact is if you look at our federal prisons less than 2% of all federal prisoners in the United States are in custody for simple possession. And usually that’s because they started with a trafficking case and they plead it out so they could…and they accepted a simple possession. But less than 2% are incarcerated for simple possession.

The idea that the federal government of the United States is incarcerating simple users is a myth that has been perpetuated by those who simply want to legalize drugs. And the fact is we don’t. So, yes, I think the commission report does not recognize some of the things that happen in the United States.

For example, the commission report does not talk about drug treatment courts. How many of you are familiar with drug treatment courts? Drug treatment courts are an alternative for someone who has an addiction problem so they don’t go to jail but they go to a treatment facility with accountability and it’s been a very successful program.

Many states, including Arkansas, including myself as person, has advocated for expansion of drug treatment courts. That’s not addressed in…The crack/powder cocaine reform legislation was not addressed. So the progress was not addressed and I think it is misleading.

ETHAN NADELMANN: OK, well, I was actually honored to be able to serve as an advisor to that global commission and this wasn’t just any global commission. This included three of the most distinguished former Presidents, not leftist Presidents, but center-right Presidents from Brazil, Mexico, Colombia. It included Kofi Annan, the former Secretary of the United Nations. It included Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. It included George Shultz, the former Republican Secretary of “Everything”. It included …Richard Banson…many distinguished people.

And I’ll tell you this. What they basically said, and this goes to Asa’s point about it’s either Legalize or the War on Drugs and there’s not that much in between except maybe drug courts.

What I would say is what the commission said and I also agree with is when it comes to drug policy as with most other areas of public policy – they’re talking about policies that ran along the spectrum from the most punitive “lock ‘em up, cut off their heads, drug test everybody” policies in Singapore or Malaysia or maybe parts of the United States to the other hand of the most Libertarian, free-market policies like say the way cigarettes were treated 40 years ago in America.

There’s a whole series of steps along this way. Now what I’m advocating for, Asa, is let’s move things down this direction. Let’s reduce the role of criminalization and the criminal justice system in drug control policy to the maximum state consistent with public safety and health.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

We don’t need to be putting the criminal justice system and the cops and prosecutors front-and-center. We don’t need a Drug Czar who has to be either a Police Chief or former military general. How about somebody from a public health or a medical background?!

AUDIENCE: [applause]

When it comes to marijuana…Yes, let’s make it legal. Let’s tax, control and regulate it the way we do with hard liquor. Are there risks associated with that in terms of more people using marijuana? Yes, of course. But when you look at the FBI statistics that came out a couple days ago saying that half of all the drug arrests in America are for marijuana and almost entirely for possession. When you look at the crime and violence in Mexico. When you look at the violation of people’s civil liberties and rights in all of this…I think there are risks you gotta take to move the right way.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

ASA HUTCHINSON: Well I am delighted to know who was behind the global commission report. Now that I know that Ethan Nadelmann was an advisor, I understand why they adopted the harm reduction policy and European thinking.

Comparing what we do with what the global commission is recommending is not necessarily the right thing. I’m glad Ethan laid it on the line and simply said that, “I am for the legalization of marijuana.” But he also acknowledged that that would increase usage in the United States or at least there is a risk of it is the exact language that you used.

But he throws out this scary prospect that we have law enforcement officers out there arresting people for simple possession. It is a true statement that we do arrest for that but that’s where….they do not go to prison..they do not go to jail….

AUDIENCE: [fairly massive jeers of “Yes, they do”, etc.]

JASON EDGAR: Quiet please.

ASA HUTCHINSON: Let me ask you a question here. How many of you came here tonight supporting the legalization of marijuana?

AUDIENCE: [some whooping]

ASA HUTCHINSON: How many of you came here opposing the legalization of marijuana?

AUDIENCE: [silence]

ASA HUTCHINSON: As I said once, I’m glad our DEA agents did not lose faith in me as they think, “Oh, he has some friends here.” But clearly you see the burden of proof is before us today.

ETHAN NADELMANN: I think, Asa, one of the problems with your statistics, when you talk about the 2% behind bars for drug possession, is that you’re talking specifically about people sent to state prison where drug possession…to federal prison …

ASA HUTCHINSON: [inaudible]

ETHAN NADELMANN: But look, there are 2.3 million people behind bars in America today. Less than 10% of them are in federal prisons and in the federal prisons over half are there for a drug law violation – used to be 60% - and many of them are simply drug couriers or poor people from Colombia, Mexico, Africa, whatever who get thrown away for 10/15 years.

When you look at 750,000 Americans in local jails, a lot of them are like people in this audience and their friends who are getting thrown away in jails for marijuana charges. And, when you look at the 5 million Americans on the Parole and Probation supervision system, they’re getting picked up for maybe a joint or dirty urine and they’re landing, oftentimes, in state prison. It’s just not being called a drug charge. It’s being called whatever they got arrested for in the first place.

But I think the bigger thing…and this really highlights the difference. You pointed to 1979 as the worst of all years. Why? Because you said more Americans admitted to using illegal drugs than any year ever before and you’re right about that. And you’re saying that come to the 1990s or today – it was down by 30% ..therefor we’re having great success.

And I would say to you 1979 was probably the best of all years. Not because it was good that so many Americans were using illegal drugs but most of those that were, were yuppies snorting a little cocaine and high school seniors and college kids smoking a little weed – the vast majority of them did not have problems.

10/15 years later drug use in America had fallen by 30 or 40%. Do you want to know something? In 1979 nobody had ever heard of crack-cocaine – by 1989 it was a national epidemic. 1979 nobody had ever heard of HIV or AIDS but now we have a quarter of a million of people who are infected or dying because we haven’t had the right policies.

1979 we were spending $2-3 million on the Drug War – now we’re throwing 50-100 billion dollars a year down the drain. 1979 – 50,000 people behind bars on drug charges – this year one half of a million.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

JASON EDGAR: They’re both going a little over time. That’s OK. Mr. Nadelmann I’ll let you answer this first. Many argue that legalizing marijuana would simply lead to more children more easily obtain the substance which is definitely not the opposite of the situation we want for the youth of America. Do you think that legalization will just lead to more use by children thus taking away the credibility of the advocates of legalization?

ETHAN NADELMANN: Basically, no. I think the risk of increased marijuana use is more going to be people my age and Asa’s age. Because we’re the ones that no longer have such good access to it.

You’ve seen that there are now 3 national surveys in which they ask high school juniors and seniors, “Which is easier to obtain, which is easier to purchase: marijuana or alcohol?” And young people say it’s easier to buy marijuana than it is to buy alcohol.

You know what else? Every year they say that marijuana use among high school juniors and seniors has gone up and down over the last 30/40 years. But there’s another question. They say is marijuana easy to obtain and consistently, even as use has gone up and down, 80% of high school seniors say it’s easy to get it.

So, quite frankly, almost anybody in an American high school, young people can obtain it, can obtain it today. I don’t think that’s the risk. I think the risk is among older people beginning to use marijuana and there I think it’s a battle of trade-offs. I think for people using marijuana is going to be a problem. They say marijuana is a drug and it can be addictive - it can be a problem.

On the other hand, there is growing evidence in the medical marijuana world that many people find marijuana more effective than pharmaceuticals.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

ETHAN NADELMANN: And for many people, marijuana is preferable and less dangerous and less harmful than alcohol. Because, let’s be clear, there’s never been a marijuana overdose fatality.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

ETHAN NADELMANN: You should not drive under the influence of marijuana but all the evidence shows that driving under the influence of alcohol is dramatically more dangerous. You know Gary Johnson who is now running for President, he said, “I remember when I was in college, if there was alcohol around – people were getting rambunctious, violent, sexual, getting behind the wheel of cars…if you had a joint going around at a party, hell, give the guy a pair of headphones and a bag of Fritos and he was set.”

Quite frankly, look at the relative risks in our society.

ASA HUTCHINSON: Well, the question asked was if you legalize are you going to increase the consumption and access to marijuana by the youth. I agree that access is not the issue. The youth of our country, whether it’s marijuana or some other illegal substance, they probably can have access to it.

So you’ve got usage now if somebody is bent on doing that or you’ve got access to it. I think the challenge, though, if you legalize is that it sends the message that obviously this is a safe substance. It is something that is OK – that authorities have said that it is lawful, it is OK to use. And so that message is what will trigger an increase in marijuana use.

Now if everybody in this audience believes that marijuana is a healthy substance then there’s really no sense in talking about it. But if we would agree that marijuana is a harmful substance then it is a serious consequence to say that we are going to take a step as a nation that’s going to lead to the increase of access and drug usage.

Now, let’s look at history…let’s look at Alaska. Alaska decided in the 70s that they were going to legalize marijuana…or decriminalize marijuana. And so they did that and usage among teenagers increased significantly enough that the parents were so concerned that in 1990 they re-criminalized it. So that is a lesson from history.

And parents saw a problem and said we’ve got to crack that. All of the society did at that time. And, so yes, you’re going to increase usage. If you believe that it is a harmful substance I don’t think that’s the way for America to go.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

ETHAN NADELMANN: You know, in the 1970s eleven states decriminalized marijuana and in academic [in audible] asked did it have any impact on marijuana use. And what he found out was, No. He found that, in fact, marijuana use went up generally across America both in the states that decriminalized and those that did not. And he found out that marijuana use went down across America in the 1980s both in those states that decriminalized and those that did not.

Same evidence comes from abroad. There’s a wonderful book called “Drug War Heresies” by two experts who are not advocates, Peter Reuter and MacCoun. And what they looked at if when you look at Europe what you find is that levels of marijuana use have nothing to do with harshness of the laws.

You have countries with harsh laws with high levels, countries with harsh laws with low levels, countries with soft laws with high levels and vice versa. There’s not that much of a relationship there. What the laws do is result in more people getting hurt by the government. They don’t affect the levels of marijuana use.

AUDIENCE: [applause]

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DEAN BECKER: Well that’s all we have time for this week. Once again I want to thank the good folks at the University of Arkansas and their Students of Sensible Drug Policy chapter. We’ll have more segments from this debate in the following weeks featuring Asa Hutchinson, former [DEA Administrator] and Ethan Nadelmann, Director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

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TERRY NELSON: This is Terry Nelson of LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. This week the President of Mexico was in New York at the United Nations and asked that the U.S. do more to stem the demand for drugs.

Calderon also suggested this week that officials look at market alternatives to reduce demand. A term some have suggested is a reference to legalization. Meanwhile the U.S. has announced that they have delivered 3 Black Hawk helicopters to Mexico and that they have begun unarmed drone missions over Mexican territory.

These measures are purely theatrical as they will have absolutely no effect on the movement of drugs in that country. It is sort of like throwing a snowball into a volcano.

I trust that these helicopters will not end up like the many Huey helicopters that we gave them once before that were parked for lack of maintenance and eventually just turned into scrap.

Giving helicopters that require tremendous amount of high-tech maintenance that the Mexicans do not have is not a very good plan. Of course, I’m sure that some of American company will be glad to maintain the helicopters for a tidy sum of money that will probably come out of the 1.2 billion dollars that we pledged to Plan Medea to help stop the flow of drugs to their country.

The continuation of plans and efforts like these are a poor excuse for foreign policy. After 4 decades of failing to stem the flow of drugs coming to the United States from south of our borders why do they think that this paltry addition will make any difference?

The 2011 National Threat of Drug Assessment released publically but without any fanfare or press push is the U.S. Justice Department’s snapshot of drug use and the billions that we continue to invest to end it.

Unless you are a trafficker, recent trends are poor. The number of Americans using illegal drugs has increased significantly over the last four years. Abuse of heroin and other dangerous drugs is on the rise – especially among young people.

Mexican-based cartels now dominate the supply, trafficking, wholesale, distribution of most illicit drugs in the United States. Actually, the war is good news for jobs creation – just not for U.S. law-abiding citizens.

Two years ago the Justice Department said that Mexican cartels were operating in about 230 U.S. cities and towns. Today the Feds put the number at more than 1,000. It’s boom-time for illegal traffickers.

The Mexican cartels were also the focus of a government document we weren’t supposed to see. In an internal review leaked by the hacker group [inaudible] U.S. Customs and Border Protection (my former agency) determined that despite the billions of dollars we spent and the thousands of lives that have been lost, capturing or killing leaders of the cartels does not have a discernible impact on drug flows.

But our leaders insist on continuing a failed policy that fits nice into Einstien’s definition of insanity that to continue doing the same thing and expecting different results is insane.

This is Terry Nelson of LEAP, http://www.leap.cc , signing off – stay safe.

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DEAN BECKER: Gotta go but please remember there is no reality involved in this drug war. Prohibido istac evilesco!

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For the Drug Truth Network, this is Dean Becker asking you to examine our policy of Drug Prohibition.

The Century of Lies.

This show produced at Pacifica Studios at KPFT, Houston.

Transcript provided by: Jo-D Harrison of www.DrugSense.org