This is my final chapter on drug abuse prevention. I dropped the section on the spiritual causes of drug abuse. It may have put too many readers asleep. But I think the remaining section summarizing a federal prosecutor’s conclusions about drug abuse policy is too important to pass up.
IV. A federal Prosecutor’s take on the drug abuse problem
The best, and most honest summary of the drug abuse problem that I have come across, was written by John Kroger in his book “Convictions”
Ironically John Kroger was a successful federal prosecutor. Up until just a couple of years ago he worked as an Assistant US Attorney. After prosecuting several important narcotic cases, his conclusion is that the most effective way to deal with the problem of drug abuse is through treatment programs.
In general, prosecutors are more interested in convicting and locking up drug dealers, but Kroger looks at the complete futility of this approach. Despite the tens of billions that have been spent yearly in an attempt, over the past 40 years, to win the war and drugs, he notes that the statistics show that we are not winning this war through our present policy.
Drug abuse continues to go up. The availability of drugs is greater than ever. He describes in great detail how the billions we spend to eradicate drugs at the source, primarily in Colombia, has been and continues to be a dismal failure.
Attempts to seize drugs at our borders have also been ineffective. In spite of the occasional bust, over 90% of the drugs get through. Millions of cars and trucks cross the US border from Mexico every month. If we tried to search them all, traffic will be backed up into Guatemala.
Law enforcement in the United States is also largely ineffective. Drug dealers are caught and sent to jail, but there is a waiting line and of new dealers to take their place. In the United States, 16 million drug users spend over $60 billion on drugs every year. Leaders are willing to take the risks to get a piece of that pie.
An approach that makes sense is to reduce demand through treatment and prevention programs.
Yet over the last 30 years the percentage of government money earmarked for prevention and treatment has gone down while money for law enforcement has gone up. Why? Political expediency based on the public misperception. This is true even though studies have shown that every dollar spent on treatment saves the country four dollars. This figure was arrived at through studies that were conducted by at UCLA.
Back in the 70s we spent about 60% of our anti-drug money on treatment. Now it’s down to 33%.
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