The Wall Street Journal reports that our new Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, has announced that the War on Drugs is over. It’s unclear who won, since I haven’t seen any “Mission Accomplished” banner, but there’s still an awful lot of people in prison across the nation. Of course, it’s not that the government has embraced the sin, but rather eschewed the rhetoric.
“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”
The new administration, by its own pronouncements, plans to shift the focus away from viewing drug use as a criminal matter and seeing it as a public health issue, requiring emphasis on treatment rather than imprisonment.
Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.
I’m confused. Does this mean that the prisons will be opening their door and letting out the hundreds of thousands of Americans serving prison sentences ranging in the decades, opening beds and treatment centers to aid them in their efforts to leave behind their addictive ways? Does this mean that the people who sold drugs are now to be viewed as niche marketing specialists, enjoying the benefits of a free market capitalist society? How does one turn around a Titanic that has been moving full steam ahead for more than two generations? What does one do with the detritus of a failed policy of ever increasing harshness?
The answer, I believe, is that this newfangled view reflects a shift not so much in policy but in rhetoric. I’ve heard nothing to suggest that the DEA is disbanding, or that Kerlikowske’s post be shifted over to Health and Human Services. When the United States Sentencing Commission hinted that it was considering equalizing crack with powder cocaine, a position so obviously rational that it enraged law-abiding citizens everywhere, cries of a nation over-run by crack-crazed sex offenders could be heard throughout the nation. It’s not easy changing such a long-held bogeyman, one so carefully and thoroughly created and embedded in the consciousness of a country that even the suggestion of rationality was universally deemed outrageous.
The War on Drugs, one of the most brilliant and useful government schemes ever crafted, has served our nation well. It’s given us a some great television commercials, pithy slogans (who can forget “Just Say No?”) and an industry that has fed the children of prison guards in communities otherwise devoid of productive employment opportunities. The government is changing its advertising campaign. Nothing more.
There is some hope that our government’s enforcement priorities will change with regard to one drug, marijuana. Kerlikowske, in particular, sought to shift enforcement focus away while Chief of Police in Seattle.
The answer, I believe, is that this newfangled view reflects a shift not so much in policy but in rhetoric. I’ve heard nothing to suggest that the DEA is disbanding, or that Kerlikowske’s post be shifted over to Health and Human Services. When the United States Sentencing Commission hinted that it was considering equalizing crack with powder cocaine, a position so obviously rational that it enraged law-abiding citizens everywhere, cries of a nation over-run by crack-crazed sex offenders could be heard throughout the nation. It’s not easy changing such a long-held bogeyman, one so carefully and thoroughly created and embedded in the consciousness of a country that even the suggestion of rationality was universally deemed outrageous.
The War on Drugs, one of the most brilliant and useful government schemes ever crafted, has served our nation well. It’s given us a some great television commercials, pithy slogans (who can forget “Just Say No?”) and an industry that has fed the children of prison guards in communities otherwise devoid of productive employment opportunities. The government is changing its advertising campaign. Nothing more.
There is some hope that our government’s enforcement priorities will change with regard to one drug, marijuana. Kerlikowske, in particular, sought to shift enforcement focus away while Chief of Police in Seattle.
Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs. In 2003, voters there passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana violations a low priority. The city has long had a needle-exchange program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and marijuana advocates.
His officers, however, did not buy into the program.
But this change in focus leaves one terrible question unanswered. If we are abandoning the rhetoric of the War on Drugs, if not the war itself, who will be the enemy of the next war? There must be a next war, as Americans need an enemy, someone to blame for all their problems and to resoundingly agree that if we could just rid ourselves of this villain, everything could be made right.
Who will the next war be against? And will there be a theme song?
Mr. Kerlikowske said he opposed the city’s 2003 initiative on police priorities. His officers, however, say drug enforcement — especially for pot crimes — took a back seat, according to Sgt. Richard O’Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. One result was an open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr. O’Neill said.After all these years of making drugs the disease that was destroying America, it’s going to be hard to change attitudes. The advertising campaign was incredibly successful, and it’s now a fundamental part of our American criminal justice psyche. Especially if you happen to be a cop. They have never hated the sin but loved the sinner. They hate them all, and they’re not about to change.
“The average rank-and-file officer is saying, ‘He can’t control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?’ ” Mr. O’Neill said.
But this change in focus leaves one terrible question unanswered. If we are abandoning the rhetoric of the War on Drugs, if not the war itself, who will be the enemy of the next war? There must be a next war, as Americans need an enemy, someone to blame for all their problems and to resoundingly agree that if we could just rid ourselves of this villain, everything could be made right.
Who will the next war be against? And will there be a theme song?
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The war against taxes and “If I only had a brain”.
How about illegal immigrants? That seems to be all the rage these days, since they bring in drugs, terrorists, and pandemic flu, take our jobs, and send our money back to their own country. And they make us press 1 to hear instructions in English. Put all those prison construction firms to work building The Wall.
Using a lot of immigrant labor, I’d imagine.