SERVICES TO PATIENTS IN NEED, SORELY BASED ON THE FACT THAT THE NUMBER OF LEGALIZATION IS NOT GOING TO ERASE THE FOREGOING PROBLEMS. IN FACT IF WE LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE PROHIBITION ERA AND THE ENGLISH HEROIN EXPERIENCE, EPIDEMIOLOGIC EVIDENCE POINTS-OUT THAT MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES SECONDARY TO ALCOHOLISM (SUCH AS CIRRHOSIS) ACTUALLY DECREASED AND THE MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF DRUG ADDICTION INCREASED IN ENGLAND DURING THE YEARS WHEN HEROIN WAS LEGALLY AVAILABLE. GIVEN THE HARLEM HOSPITAL EXPERIENCE, WHERE THE MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE USE OF THESE SUBSTANCES OCCURS AT A DISPROPORTIONATELY GREATER RATE, MY RESPONSE TO DRUG LEGALIZATION WOULD NECESSITATE AN EMPHATIC NO. WHAT I DO SAY YES TO IS A RECIPE FOR THIS COUNTRY THAT INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING: 1. THIS COUNTRY MUST DEVELOP POLICY THAT CONSIDERS DRUG ABUSE IN THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF HEALTH PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS TO INCLUDE DRUG 2. EVEN GREATER EMPHASIS IS NEEDED TOWARD PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SECONDARY INTERVENTIONS WILL NECESSITATE THE INCREASED MR. CHAIRMAN, THESE DISCUSSIONS ON THE LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS PROVIDES THIS COUNTRY WITH AN EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY TO EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FEDERAL DRUG POLICY. IT MY OPINION, THAT THESE DISCUSSIONS WILL FAR EXCEED THEIR POTENTIAL IF WE ALSO USE THEM AS AN OPPORTUNITY REASSESS FEDERAL DRUG ABUSE POLICY AND MAKE BOLD STEPS TO CHART A COURSE THAT WILL TRULY TARGET THE FACTORS THAT PROMULGATE THE SPREAD OF DRUG ABUSE AND THAT WILL TRULY ENHANCE THE ABILITIES OF HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS TO PROVIDE THE MEDICAL CARE THAT PERSONS SUFFERING WITH THE DISEASE OF ADDICTION OR DRUG ABUSE-RELATED MEDICAL COMPLICATIONS. AGAIN, I THANK YOU FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY. STATEMENT OF DAVID BOAZ VICE PRESIDENT FOR PUBLIC POLICY AFFAIRS HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON NARCOTICS I'd like to thank Chairman Rangel and the Select Committee for holding these hearings on proposals to legalize drugs. It's time we had a vigorous national debate on whether drug prohibition is working, and these hearings will do much to launch that debate on a rational course. Let me start my discussion of drug prohibition with the following quotation: "For thirteen years federal law enforcement officials fought the illegal traffic. State and local reinforcements were called up to help. The fight was always frustrating and too often futile. The enemy used guerrilla tactics, seldom came into the open to fight, blended easily into the general population, and when finally subdued turned to the United States Constitution for protection. His numbers were legion, his resources unlimited, his tactics imaginative. Men of high resolve and determination were summoned to Washington to direct the federal forces. The enemy was pursued relentlessly on land and sea and in the air. There were an alarming number of casualties on both sides, and, as in all wars, innocent bystanders fell in the crossfire." That passage wasn't written recently. It was written about the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s, and it illustrates a very simple point: Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the 1920s, prohibition did. Drugs don't cause Page 2 today's alarming crime rates, drug prohibition does. economics. What are the effects of prohibition? (Specifically I'm considering drug prohibition here, but the analysis applies to almost any prohibition of a substance or activity people want.) The first effect is crime. This is a very simple matter of Drug laws reduce the number of suppliers and therefore reduce the supply of the substance, driving up the price. The danger of arrest for the seller adds a risk premium to the price. The higher price means that users often have to commit crimes to pay for a habit that would be easily affordable if it was legal. Heroin, cocaine, and other drugs would cost much less if they were legal. Experts estimate that at least half of the violent crime in major U.S. cities is a result of drug prohibition. Crime also results from another factor, the fact that dealers have no way to settle disputes with each other except by shooting each other. We don't see shoot-outs in the automobile business or even in the liquor or the tobacco business. But if a drug dealer has a dispute with another dealer, he can't sue, he can't go to court, he can't do anything except use violence. And then the very illegality of the drug business draws in criminals. As conservatives always say about guns, if drugs are outlawed, only outlaws will sell drugs. The decent people who would like to be selling drugs the way they might otherwise Page 3 sell liquor will get squeezed out of an increasingly violent business. The second effect of prohibition is corruption. Prohibition raises prices, which leads to extraordinary profits, which are an irresistible temptation to policemen, customs officers, Latin American officials, and so on. We should be shocked not that there are Miami policemen on the take, but that there are some Miami policemen not on the take. Policemen make $35,000 a year and have to arrest people who are driving cars worth several times that. Should we be surprised that some of this money trickles down into the pockets of these policemen? A third effect, and one that is often underestimated, is bringing buyers into contact with criminals. alcohol you don't have to deal with criminals. If you buy If a student buys marijuana on a college campus, he may not have to deal with criminals, but the person he buys it from probably does deal with criminals. And if a high school student buys drugs, there is a very good chance that the people he's buying drugs from--the people who are bringing drugs right to his doorstep, to his housing project, to his schoolyard--are really criminals; not just in the sense that they are selling drugs, but people who have gone into the drug business precisely because it's illegal. One of the strongest arguments for legalization is to divorce the process of using drugs from the process of getting involved in a criminal culture. |