on michael massing's The Fix
Despite an unfortunate policy history, “The problem,” in the context of illicit drugs, although perceived independently on the street and in Washington, has been defined surprisingly similarly when considering expert opinion, and shockingly differently when considering political leadership. The recurrent disconnect has been largely driven by short-term political considerations consistently at the expense of the common good.
Hard-core users consume three quarters of the drugs imported into this country and are responsible for a significant portion of the crime related to drugs. Many seek help in changing their destructive behavior, but feel the repercussions of the supply of treatment severely outstripped by the demand for treatment. These are people that need help. But Bruce Carnes as head of Office of National Drug Control Policy’s budget and planning once said of the intent of the ONDCP that, “It was not directed at hard-core addicts. They consumed the vast bulk of the drugs, and contributed a significant part of the crime, but they weren’t the main thereat to your kids becoming drug users.” (199)
For whatever reason, maybe because the Parent Movement had captured this agency, the ONDCP clearly cared more about whether kids smoked marijuana than whether hard-core addicts got the help they needed. Apparently as far as the ONDCP was concerned suburban parents are more American, because addicts according to the Carnes formulation are not viewed as constituents.
Under Nixon, when a serious heroin epidemic was first noticed and dealt with, Nixon pragmatically expanded treatment. Jerome Jaffe, who had been so successful in creating a treatment program for Illinois, was called to do the same for the country. Jerome Jaffe explained that the goal for a national program should be “to make treatment available to all heroin addicts so that no one had to commit a crime to support a habit because they cannot get treatment.”(111) The Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), was very successful, and for the first time since national crime statistics started to be gathered the crime rate dropped. The treatment program was not run in isolation; it had been supported relatively successful efforts to combat the French Connection, a major heroin trafficking route. Successive administrations learned the wrong lesson and started emphasizing law enforcement over treatment. The Reagan administration contributed to this dire trend.
“Drug addicts, by contrast [to agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency], had few friends in Washington, and so the treatment budget would be cut a staggering 25 percent. Taking into account the inflation-driven declines of the Carter years, this amounted to a 43 percent reduction in federal treatment funds in just a few years. In real terms, federal spending on treatment was less than one-fourth what it had been in 1974.”(161)
Jerome Jaffe had had only a couple of years to create SAODAP from scratch, and had worked to make it as lean and efficient as possible. Looking back he said, “If you take a program that is adequate, but minimally adequate, and cut into it, then the net effect is it’s inadequate, and that’s what happened.”(180) Let us be clear, “In 1980 . . . the government’s Drug Abuse Warning Network had recorded 7,450 drug-related visits to hospital emergency rooms; by 1988, the number had reached 113,000-a fifteen-fold increase.” (190) Annual cocaine-related deaths increased more than thirteen-fold, and pregnant drug-use, drug-related HIV transmission, and drug-related homicides all increased dramatically. Furthermore this indicates the brazen falsehood of the gateway theory because casual use continued to drop over the same time period.
The optimism finally generated later by Clinton because of his pro-treatment statements and both his drug czars’ Lee Brown’s and Barry McCaffrey’s respective initially pro-treatment positions was repeatedly dashed. Things might have been different especially under Brown, but a slight up tick in high school marijuana use in a policy climate still primed by the Parent Movement to be sensitive to suburban voters at the expense of public health, doomed any fundamental readjustment of drug policy.
“One in every four twelfth-graders was getting smashed on regular basis. The health risks from this seemed much greater than anything associated with illegal drugs. To point this out, however, would have been politically inconvenient, for the alcohol industry was a major backer of the Democratic Party. And so, in a glaring omission, the Ann Arbor report did not even mention alcohol and the dangers it posed to young people, reserving its ire exclusively for illicit drugs.” (219)
Interestingly, marijuana use in high school was only half of what it was at its peak in the seventies, and legal drugs-alcohol and tobacco-indisputably have a larger health impact. Jerome Jaffe is quoted by Massing, “Why is it, that when marijuana kills a neuron in the cortex or the bone marrow, it is so much more fascinating than when alcohol kills a thousand cells or tobacco causes cancer in those who only inhale the smoke others breathe out?” (156)
The Helen Ingram and Ann Schneider policy model is helpful here. Drug addicts have a negative public image and very weak political power. It is horrifyingly easy for them to be shortchanged. The category addicts fit into in this model is even designated “Deviants.” Additionally, there are public health costs to this position for the public at large because drug addicts are a significant vector for disease into the primary population.
American national drug policy, as described in The Fix, captures much of what needs to be criticized and changed, but I do not think that Michael Massing goes far enough in his policy proposals in the long term for several reasons.
“Since the mid-1970’s, when Ford and Carter administrations tried to squelch the Mexican drug trade, there had accumulated a vast storehouse of think-tank studies, internal government documents, General Accounting Office reports, intelligence assessments, newspaper articles, and congressional reports chronicling the failure of the U.S. efforts to seal the nation’s borders.” (223)
At this late stage people are starting to invoke Einstein’s definition of insanity of continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. Actions abroad have only had temporary results and are very expensive. Massing cites a study showing “treatment was seven times more cost-effective than domestic law enforcement, ten times more effective than interdiction, and twenty-three times more effective than attacking drugs at their source.”(50)
In light of evidence like this Massing’s recommendation that we raise the investment on treatment at the expense of military/police efforts to 50/50 ratio, and even eventually to the original Nixonian ratio of 2/3 treatment 1/3 enforcement, all seems rather silly. However spending 100 percent on treatment, even in the absence of legalization is the most economical and effective choice.
Morgan and Zimmer are quoted on page 33, “Although there are risks involved in using crack, they have been consistently exaggerated. . . . most of the problems associated with crack are products of the social context in which it arose and is used, not its pharmacological powers. . . .” Massing could very well be correct in criticizing what he calls “revisionists” and their underestimate of the pharmacological effects of hard drugs, but his primary argument against legalization is to claim that alcohol consumption increased upon the end of prohibition.
“By the greatest majority of indicators, the biggest drops in alcohol consumption and alcohol problems actually came before national prohibition went into effect. Those drops continued for about the first two years of Prohibition and then alcohol consumption began to rise. By 1926, most of the problems were worse than they had been before Prohibition went into effect and there were a number of new problems -- such as a drinking epidemic among children -- that had not been there before.” ( http://www.druglibrary.org/Prohibitionresults.htm)
At the very least, it is problematic to assume that the increase in alcohol consumption from 1934 to 1944 had more to do with the end of prohibition than the experience of the great depression. Additionally, even if the great depression had not happened correlation does not equal causation. Furthermore, even if we are to grant that alcohol consumption increased because prohibition ended that does not mean prohibition is preferable. It is widely acknowledged that prohibition was a failure and led directly to the rise of the glory days of organized crime-Al Capone is still a household name.
In fact, it is entirely likely that when the world finally gets around to ending drug prohibition they will look back on it as we look back on alcohol prohibition. Even if the end of drug prohibition and the war on drugs did result in an increase in consumption, which is questionable considering the already existing bifurcation in consumption of hard drugs and soft drugs by class, why should we assume that the increase in consumption outweighs the benefits to the tremendous weakening of organized crime that can be expected in addition to the reduction of drug distribution related violence, and health benefits for drug users solely from having access to a regulated product.
We have to understand that as Lee Brown said of “the war on drugs,” “A country shouldn’t declare war on its own people.” (211) The illegality of drugs and the associated stigma attached to their consumption directly affect the ability of people in need to get treatment.
As Massing himself says, “It’s time to consider a new approach to prevention-one that, like the Jaffe code, would recognize that the main threat to young people is not the occasional, experimental use of drugs, but their regular use." (275)
Hard-core users consume three quarters of the drugs imported into this country and are responsible for a significant portion of the crime related to drugs. Many seek help in changing their destructive behavior, but feel the repercussions of the supply of treatment severely outstripped by the demand for treatment. These are people that need help. But Bruce Carnes as head of Office of National Drug Control Policy’s budget and planning once said of the intent of the ONDCP that, “It was not directed at hard-core addicts. They consumed the vast bulk of the drugs, and contributed a significant part of the crime, but they weren’t the main thereat to your kids becoming drug users.” (199)
For whatever reason, maybe because the Parent Movement had captured this agency, the ONDCP clearly cared more about whether kids smoked marijuana than whether hard-core addicts got the help they needed. Apparently as far as the ONDCP was concerned suburban parents are more American, because addicts according to the Carnes formulation are not viewed as constituents.
Under Nixon, when a serious heroin epidemic was first noticed and dealt with, Nixon pragmatically expanded treatment. Jerome Jaffe, who had been so successful in creating a treatment program for Illinois, was called to do the same for the country. Jerome Jaffe explained that the goal for a national program should be “to make treatment available to all heroin addicts so that no one had to commit a crime to support a habit because they cannot get treatment.”(111) The Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), was very successful, and for the first time since national crime statistics started to be gathered the crime rate dropped. The treatment program was not run in isolation; it had been supported relatively successful efforts to combat the French Connection, a major heroin trafficking route. Successive administrations learned the wrong lesson and started emphasizing law enforcement over treatment. The Reagan administration contributed to this dire trend.
“Drug addicts, by contrast [to agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency], had few friends in Washington, and so the treatment budget would be cut a staggering 25 percent. Taking into account the inflation-driven declines of the Carter years, this amounted to a 43 percent reduction in federal treatment funds in just a few years. In real terms, federal spending on treatment was less than one-fourth what it had been in 1974.”(161)
Jerome Jaffe had had only a couple of years to create SAODAP from scratch, and had worked to make it as lean and efficient as possible. Looking back he said, “If you take a program that is adequate, but minimally adequate, and cut into it, then the net effect is it’s inadequate, and that’s what happened.”(180) Let us be clear, “In 1980 . . . the government’s Drug Abuse Warning Network had recorded 7,450 drug-related visits to hospital emergency rooms; by 1988, the number had reached 113,000-a fifteen-fold increase.” (190) Annual cocaine-related deaths increased more than thirteen-fold, and pregnant drug-use, drug-related HIV transmission, and drug-related homicides all increased dramatically. Furthermore this indicates the brazen falsehood of the gateway theory because casual use continued to drop over the same time period.
The optimism finally generated later by Clinton because of his pro-treatment statements and both his drug czars’ Lee Brown’s and Barry McCaffrey’s respective initially pro-treatment positions was repeatedly dashed. Things might have been different especially under Brown, but a slight up tick in high school marijuana use in a policy climate still primed by the Parent Movement to be sensitive to suburban voters at the expense of public health, doomed any fundamental readjustment of drug policy.
“One in every four twelfth-graders was getting smashed on regular basis. The health risks from this seemed much greater than anything associated with illegal drugs. To point this out, however, would have been politically inconvenient, for the alcohol industry was a major backer of the Democratic Party. And so, in a glaring omission, the Ann Arbor report did not even mention alcohol and the dangers it posed to young people, reserving its ire exclusively for illicit drugs.” (219)
Interestingly, marijuana use in high school was only half of what it was at its peak in the seventies, and legal drugs-alcohol and tobacco-indisputably have a larger health impact. Jerome Jaffe is quoted by Massing, “Why is it, that when marijuana kills a neuron in the cortex or the bone marrow, it is so much more fascinating than when alcohol kills a thousand cells or tobacco causes cancer in those who only inhale the smoke others breathe out?” (156)
The Helen Ingram and Ann Schneider policy model is helpful here. Drug addicts have a negative public image and very weak political power. It is horrifyingly easy for them to be shortchanged. The category addicts fit into in this model is even designated “Deviants.” Additionally, there are public health costs to this position for the public at large because drug addicts are a significant vector for disease into the primary population.
American national drug policy, as described in The Fix, captures much of what needs to be criticized and changed, but I do not think that Michael Massing goes far enough in his policy proposals in the long term for several reasons.
“Since the mid-1970’s, when Ford and Carter administrations tried to squelch the Mexican drug trade, there had accumulated a vast storehouse of think-tank studies, internal government documents, General Accounting Office reports, intelligence assessments, newspaper articles, and congressional reports chronicling the failure of the U.S. efforts to seal the nation’s borders.” (223)
At this late stage people are starting to invoke Einstein’s definition of insanity of continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results. Actions abroad have only had temporary results and are very expensive. Massing cites a study showing “treatment was seven times more cost-effective than domestic law enforcement, ten times more effective than interdiction, and twenty-three times more effective than attacking drugs at their source.”(50)
In light of evidence like this Massing’s recommendation that we raise the investment on treatment at the expense of military/police efforts to 50/50 ratio, and even eventually to the original Nixonian ratio of 2/3 treatment 1/3 enforcement, all seems rather silly. However spending 100 percent on treatment, even in the absence of legalization is the most economical and effective choice.
Morgan and Zimmer are quoted on page 33, “Although there are risks involved in using crack, they have been consistently exaggerated. . . . most of the problems associated with crack are products of the social context in which it arose and is used, not its pharmacological powers. . . .” Massing could very well be correct in criticizing what he calls “revisionists” and their underestimate of the pharmacological effects of hard drugs, but his primary argument against legalization is to claim that alcohol consumption increased upon the end of prohibition.
“By the greatest majority of indicators, the biggest drops in alcohol consumption and alcohol problems actually came before national prohibition went into effect. Those drops continued for about the first two years of Prohibition and then alcohol consumption began to rise. By 1926, most of the problems were worse than they had been before Prohibition went into effect and there were a number of new problems -- such as a drinking epidemic among children -- that had not been there before.” ( http://www.druglibrary.org/Prohibitionresults.htm)
At the very least, it is problematic to assume that the increase in alcohol consumption from 1934 to 1944 had more to do with the end of prohibition than the experience of the great depression. Additionally, even if the great depression had not happened correlation does not equal causation. Furthermore, even if we are to grant that alcohol consumption increased because prohibition ended that does not mean prohibition is preferable. It is widely acknowledged that prohibition was a failure and led directly to the rise of the glory days of organized crime-Al Capone is still a household name.
In fact, it is entirely likely that when the world finally gets around to ending drug prohibition they will look back on it as we look back on alcohol prohibition. Even if the end of drug prohibition and the war on drugs did result in an increase in consumption, which is questionable considering the already existing bifurcation in consumption of hard drugs and soft drugs by class, why should we assume that the increase in consumption outweighs the benefits to the tremendous weakening of organized crime that can be expected in addition to the reduction of drug distribution related violence, and health benefits for drug users solely from having access to a regulated product.
We have to understand that as Lee Brown said of “the war on drugs,” “A country shouldn’t declare war on its own people.” (211) The illegality of drugs and the associated stigma attached to their consumption directly affect the ability of people in need to get treatment.
As Massing himself says, “It’s time to consider a new approach to prevention-one that, like the Jaffe code, would recognize that the main threat to young people is not the occasional, experimental use of drugs, but their regular use." (275)