Thursday, June 11, 2009
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Inject new thinking into America's drug woes
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
dan.casey
@roanoke.com
981-4423
Dan Casey
Recent columns
- Sarah Palin's fans cheered her wildly
- System tough even for ex-nurse
- Take a look at Palin's rule book
Read Dan's blog
Are we heading in the wrong direction with our national drug policy?
Sen. Jim Webb broached this question in March in calling for a National Criminal Justice Commission.
But because he's a Washington politician, you have to weigh the senator's apparent seriousness against the headline grabbing he has to do to stay in office.
When people such as Jim Ford raise the same question, that's when you tend to take notice.
Ford, 81, and a 50-year resident of the Roanoke Valley, believes all drugs should be legalized. But he's not crazy, nor would you ever consider him a radical.
Consider the Windy Gap retiree's remarkable resume: Army veteran; degrees from Northwestern and Rutgers universities; senior vice president and trust officer for Colonial American National Bank; insurance executive; and ex-chairman of United Way Roanoke Valley.
He is former chairman of the Roanoke city GOP mass meeting; a founder of Planned Parenthood and the Foundation for the Roanoke Valley; and past president of the Roanoke Valley Council of Community Services, the Roanoke Symphony (twice), the Roanoke Jaycees and Mental Health Services, which is now known as Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare.
The Janesville, Wis., native doesn't demand drugs be legalized tomorrow. But like Webb, he wants the issue studied and debated in the public arena. Because by almost every yardstick, Ford says, the war on drugs launched by President Nixon in 1972 is an abject failure.
YouTube video: Sen. Webb Introduces Bill to Overhaul America's Criminal Justice System
"Almost anything would be better than the current setup, which from the outset has not been a well-thought-out program," Ford told me recently. "It's just kept getting worse and worse."
Ford believes legalization could work like this: The federal government would strike all laws against drugs, including highly addictive ones such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. The government would sell drugs, perhaps subject to an age limit, and make a small profit, at stores staffed by drug counselors.
Any buyer would be eligible for free counseling. Any addict could undertake free drug treatment.
The hundreds of billions taxpayers now spend on drug enforcement and imprisonment would be redirected toward drug prevention and treatment, which is far cheaper and proven to work.
Such a scheme would eliminate all the profits of the black market, Ford reasons, and would deny drug barons their obscene fortunes, gangs their livelihoods and addicts their incentive to rob and steal to support their drug habits.
Nobody commits burglaries to finance cigarette smoking, after all.
Nancy Hans, council coordinator for the Roanoke County Prevention Council, knows and respects Ford and says she's fascinated that a person of his stature is raising the question in this way. She does not oppose a debate.
But Hans' biggest fear is that legalization would make drugs more widely available to younger people. Recent research has shown that the younger a drug user is, the more susceptible they are to addiction and permanent brain damage, she noted.
"What do we do about the meth? What do we do about cocaine? What can we do about the addictive nature of those?" Hans said. "It's so easy to become addicted. ... From a health aspect and a prevention standpoint, I just would never be able to go there."
There are countless statistics you can cite about the drug war: lives lost, dollars spent, time devoted, families torn apart, addicts under treatment, and wide disparities in drug arrests, convictions and incarceration rates of blacks versus whites.
Consider one Webb cited in his March 26 speech: "In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent."
To me, that sounds like the exact opposite of success.
Ford is right. Let's study it seriously, start talking about it more, and consider other ways to fight the scourge of drugs.
Dan Casey's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
