Despite the don`t-do-it importunings of rock musicians and professional athletes, despite the rhetorical bombast from right-thinking politicians, despite, even, the invasion of Panama, in the past half-year or so, the War on Drugs seems to have begun to transform into the Debate on Drugs. If it`s not a transformation, it is at least a parallel battle, one fought with ideas rather than guns, by scholars as much as by cops.
Although there are various ways to sidle up to it, the question in contention stands stark: Should the United States abandon its drug-fighting policies in favor of permitting adult Americans to buy once-illicit narcotics for their personal use?
In other words, should ”Just say, `No` ” become ”Just say, `A ballpoint pen, a, uh, deck of cards, a thing of throat lozenges and-ahem-thatsmallpacketofcocaine, please` ”?
For a nation in which the stigma attached even to legal drugs, such as caffeine and nicotine and alcohol, is growing, the question is a shocker. Yet the beginnings of the debate are traced not to modern-day Abbie Hoffmans, or to American Rastafarians trying to create some sort of utopia, but to the willingness of respected national figures, liberal, conservative and libertarian, to call for either some form of legalization or serious discussion of the question.
Among those who have signed on-saying, essentially, that the war as it is being fought is unwinnable-are Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, economist Milton Friedman, former Secretary of State George Schulz, federal judge Robert Sweet, writer William F. Buckley Jr., ACLU head Ira Glasser, the editorial board of The Economist magazine and Tribune columnist Mike Royko.
The Bush administration, led by outspoken drug czar William Bennett, remains convinced that it can and must win the war and is steadfast in its opposition even to a debate. Bennett has called the idea ”stupid.” And, with opinion polls reporting Americans still consider drugs the nation`s primary scourge and don`t want to hear about legalizing even marijuana, members of Congress are not exactly jumping on the bandwagon.
The debate, however, goes on without them, as newspaper op-ed pages, television issues shows and magazines have been brimming with the pros and cons of removing criminal sanctions on drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin.
Even local civic clubs are getting into the act. In Chicago this week, at a luncheon forum sponsored by the Economic Club of Chicago, two of the nation`s talkingest heads in this matter faced off before some 500 businessmen and women.
In the legalize corner was Ethan Nadelmann, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University`s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Nadelmann, a lean 32-year-old with a reddish beard and a proselytizing manner, has suddenly found himself in demand as a public speaker, making appearances on most of the network talkfests. Even so, he turns down 80 to 90 percent of his invitations, he said.
In the keep-fighting corner was Mark de Bernardo, executive director of the Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce`s special counsel for domestic policy and director of the chamber`s Labor Law Action Center. De Bernardo, 36, chunky and dark-haired, a bit more matter-of- fact than his opposite but likewise a media usual suspect, said he and Nadelmann have often found themselves pitted against each other in such forums. Indeed, after the talk, the pair headed off to the airport together.
Their ”debate” was not everything fans of the genre might have hoped for. Rather than a verbal joust, it was the sort of my-speech, your-speech format so familiar from the so-called presidential debates. Still, it was obvious it held the attention of those in the room, as almost everyone in attendance-most all of them with the air and accoutrements of busy
professionals-stayed well beyond the lunch hour. And it provoked passion:
During Nadelmann`s moments at the microphone, one besuited executive kept muttering aloud to his tablemate, ”No!” and, ”That`s stupid!”
Think sensibly
Nadelmann began his remarks by asking people to ”take your preconceptions. . . and just set them to the side. Ask yourself one simple question: `Does it make sense?` ”
Legalization, he said, ”is not a panacea. It`s an alternate strategy.”
Nadelmann acknowledged there would be ”a risk of increased drug abuse-it depends on how well you run it.” But he insisted it is not a surrender. ”If it were,” he said, ”why would it hurt drug dealers most?”
Law-enforcement efforts of the past, present and future are ”doomed to failure,” he said. Not because of corruption, but simply because of ”the nature of the market, the nature of the commodity and how lucrative the whole thing is,” he said. You push it down in one place, it pops up again in another.
”But there`s a second, more important reason. It`s that most of what people identify as part and parcel of the drug problem are in fact the results of drug prohibition-in the same way that during the 1920s, when people talked about the alcohol problem, most of what they were talking about was the results of alcohol prohibition.” The current system, he said, ”is the biggest boon that organized crime has ever known.”
”And thirdly, when we talk about legalization, I think we have a lot less to fear from it than most people assume.”
Civil liberties
He presented what is, to him, a chilling ”alternate solution” to drug testing: a nationwide computer network that would identify everybody by Social Security number, by fingerprint, etc. Each morning, you would approach your computer and yield a sample to it. ”If you test positive, you get shocked,” Nadelmann said. ”The second time you get a bigger shock.”
Legalization, he said, is necesary to undermine the drug market, but
”I`m also talking about civil liberties, and so are most people involved in this. I`m talking about the appearance of convergence in our substance-abuse policy. I`m talking about being a little bit tougher on alcohol and a lot tougher on tobacco. . . Let`s have a coherent government policy.”
He cited horror statistics about the prison population: 40 percent of the people in federal jail, he said, are there for drug-law violations, which doesn`t count even those there for committing drug-related crimes. One million Americans are behind bars, he said, double what it was 10 years ago. America has its highest proportion of jailed citizens in history, ”far higher than any other Western society in the world-and yet what we principally hear are recommendations to throw more and more people in jail.”
”How many of you,” he asked, ”have ever worried about being mugged by a tobacco addict?”
The crux of De Bernardo`s argument is that the nation is turning the corner in its battle against drugs, and it would, indeed, be stupid to wave the white flag now. ”This is not the time to concede,” he said. He cited polls showing drug use is down overall and that, regarding drug testing in the workplace, ”employees are on the same side as employers”; that is, both want more of it, employees to the tune of 66 percent.
De Bernardo allowed that current efforts-with their heavy focus on the supply, rather than the demand, side of the equation-are somewhat misguided.
”Lack of user accountability makes it very, very easy for many people in American society to engage in illegal drug activity.” He cited Ann Arbor, Mich., a college town in which, he said, an expired parking meter brings a $25 fine, while possession of an ounce or less of marijuana brings only a $5 fine. The users, he argued, have to be held responsible.
”Employers,” he said, ”have the most effective weapon in the war on drugs, and that is the paycheck.” In 1983, he said, 3 percent of Fortune 500 companies were testing for drugs. Today, that number is closer to 50 percent. ”The business community is saying to job applicants, `If you choose to engage in illegal drug activity, you don`t work here. Go elsewhere. We have a policy of zero tolerance.` ”
”I don`t think that`s so extreme,” De Bernardo said. He said those who share his views aren`t talking about grabbing people on the street to test them. ”We`re talking about employers simply stipulating they expect their employees to be drug free.”
The increase in drug prosecutions and the apparent decrease in use, he said, demonstrate that progress is being made.
What it comes down to, Nadelmann said, is a question of morals: whether you believe on principle that drug use (not counting, of course, tobacco and alcohol) is wrong, and whether you believe that ”those people who do no harm to others should not be harmed by the state.”
”They are doing harm,” responded De Bernardo. ”They`re doing harm to every person in this room”-in terms of increased insurance costs, decreased productivity, etc.
Nadelmann asked, rhetorically, if there has ever been a drug-free society in human history. As far as scholars have been able to tell, he said, the answer is: One, ”the Eskimos, because they couldn`t grow anything.”
”I can`t keep myself from going out and raping,” responded De Bernardo. ”So, fine, we`re gonna legalize it?”
De Bernardo acknowledged, after the talk was over, that the way a person feels about the question probably hinges on his answer to the question, ”Can we win the war on drugs?” ”If you think we cannot,” he said, ”then legalization is a serious consideration.”
At the end of the session, the moderator asked how many in the room think the question should receive serious discussion? It was hardly a private ballot, and it was hardly scientific, but roughly half the people raised their hands.
