Pajamas Media

58 Comments

1. Benson:

How many “solutions” to the problem of recreational chemicals have we had so far? Lock theusers/pushers up, put them into rehab…nothing works, now does it?

So why don’t we try giving the drugs free to anyone who wants them? I’m serious. Flood the community with crack, opium, whatever the locals want, as much as they want. What would happen, what causes and effects would work themselves out, how would events evolve, and what would the final steady state be like?? If you don’t want to try it, tell us what ethical principle prevents this policy, please.

May 10, 2009 - 2:53 am 2. Ozzie:

Leave it to liberals to take a real cultural problem that needs a small legal adjustment and push it left so hard it’s unreasonable. There ARE real problems in the legal system regarding drugs and punishment. If beer is the white cultural social drug of choice, pot is certainly the black cultural drug of choice. It should be decriminalized just for that reason, just as alchohol was.

Crack is very different, and certainly not cultural. It is so addictive, it preys on the weak hardest, irregardless of skin color. Perhaps blacks are more susceptable because they are already forced into a culture of prohibition because of pot, but that’s as far as it goes for crack being a black problem. I’ve known white and black crack addicts. They all ended up uniformly dehumanized. There was nothing different about how they used it, nor how they tried to gather resources to purchase it. It was above food and shelter on ALL of their priority lists. I don’t see what the left has to gain from trying to paint the problem black.

May 10, 2009 - 3:37 am 3. BPT (Australia):

Thanks for drawing this important story to my attention. Obama, to be sure, leaves in his own world, and has no strong connections with underprivileged minorities.

May 10, 2009 - 3:44 am 4. whyaminotsurprised:

Hey Benson, as a law abiding citizen, I could care less if people want to screw their lives up or kill themselves in the process. But when it puts the public in general at risk, e.g. my children, neighbors, co-workers, etc. for crime by the druggies, then I want the government to bring down the full extent of the law to protect us. And, I also want the right to have a gun in my possession so I can protect my family and property.

“The One” has a gift for pushing his racist agenda. Shouldn’t these crimes and their punishments be determined by individual states? Get the feds out of the States’ business, and out of my personal life.

May 10, 2009 - 3:53 am 5. mixplix:

Benson;
It would be like the opium dens that ruined the Chinese public. The Chinese drug problem was solved by them giving them 2 yrs. to get off drugs and then eliminate them if they continued the addiction.

May 10, 2009 - 4:17 am 6. Alice Wigglebottom:

Emaciated brown corpses with rotting teeth and wild hair walked through bus and train stations glaring at passengers through glossy red eyes

Yeah, those brown people…can’t think strong enough to make decisions for themselves. The need someone to take care of them. Like children really. Or monkeys.

May 10, 2009 - 4:30 am 7. eon:

#1 Benson;

The most obvious ethical flaws are;

1. Most drug addicts eventually die of complications from their addiction. This would accelerate the process, and put the United States government in the role of acting as a deliberate “executioner” of drug addicts. (Don’t expect anyone, especially the MSM, to draw the conclusion that this is anything but a deliberate purpose of the policy, as they don’t believe in “personal responsibility”, period.)

2. If you think the addicts, relieved of the necessity to commit crimes to pay for their habit, will miraculously become productive citizens, think again. The purely psychological effects of most addictive drugs will still leave them unable to relate to reality on a regular enough basis for that. At best, you will see them hanging out in the equivalent of 19th century “opium dens” (which, I suspect, will do a big business with medical schools for obvious reasons. More likely, the addicts will continue to be “street people” (i.e., what were known as “bums” in pre-P.C. times), will continue to harass passersby, and will continue to commit crimes to get money for things other than drugs (food, etc.)- or simply because their addictions and dementias will feed upon each other in a nasty synergy familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with addicts on the street (like cops). Take a good look at 19th century London, specifically Whitechapel, for a good illustration of the results.

3. The money for the initial acquisition and processing of the drugs will have to come from somewhere. I don’t think most taxpayers would consider this a reasonable expense in the present economic situation.

4. There will still be a market for whatever drugs aren’t available on the dole, so the dealers will simply change their product line. Even if you make every drug imaginable available, the dealers will seek to preempt the legal distribution process in the hope of making money. The end of Prohibition didn’t end bootlegging, and today tobacco smuggling is a big business with many of the same gangs which deal in drugs that are totally illegal.

By all means, try to push this as public policy; our present “leadership” would no doubt see it as a perfect solution. Just be aware that it isn’t likely to improve matters in any noticeable way.

clear ether

eon

May 10, 2009 - 4:33 am 8. Jerry:

RE #1 Benson: You write as though your thought-experiment has never been tried before. Do you really believe that Prohibition came as the result of religious fanatics imposing their will on the majority of the country? Prohibition became law because of the breakdown of the family, the abuse of women and children, the loss of productivity, the lose of the work-ethic, the loss and the shortening of life, the coarseness of everyday life that forced ordinary people to adapt to the pathology that we still call alcoholism. The problem of alcoholism is still seen from elementary school to doctoral level institutions, where its victims are still reducing the calculated value of life to the “pleasure” of the momentary high.

We have enough experience to know pathology when we see it, particularly when it touches our own lives. The imposition of fear and loathing upon an innocent population should not be the goal of government.

May 10, 2009 - 5:09 am 9. Robert Sherum:

To “Benson” above:

…as long as you’re paying for it.

May 10, 2009 - 5:33 am 10. Jerry:

During the height of the crack-cocaine epidemic I dealt with children as young as six years old who went home each day from school to provide for their parents’ needs, cashing their welfare checks, buying food for the family, and trying to squeeze out a smile from them to mitigate the poor excuse for family life they experienced, even when compared to next door neighbors who had not one cent more than they did. These were the children who soon populated the very imperfect foster care system of NYC.

Is there any punishment that is due to people who sell others the tools to torture their children and kill themselves, thus creating orphans? To whom should such people be compared, criminals or entrepeneurs?

May 10, 2009 - 5:35 am 11. Terry Gain:

I am sure President Obama missed out on these particular realities of African-American life and as a result feels more compassion for the drug dealers than the people they destroy.

What would he be doing differently if he were trying to destroy America?

May 10, 2009 - 5:35 am 12. sule:

In the era when “smallpox blankets were given to Indians…” nobody knew about microbiology. All people were vulnerable in some way or other, unsanitary conditions; human waste, unwashed hands, shared utinsels and food and air, unclean drinking water.

As a reformed liberal raised by liberals, I don’t buy into that line anymore, but I have lived next to addicts and have witnessed what your column describes. Pure misery lived out by themselves, and imposed on unwilling others.

May 10, 2009 - 5:36 am 13. Meryl:

The story just demonstrates again that the dhimmis are not interested in results, just good intentions.

“See, we’re more merciful than YOU are!! What’s that? Thousands more are dying because of our brand of ‘mercy’? YOU are hardhearted and wicked! You hate blacks!”

Just another reason why the Islamists will continue to get free headchopping ride in this culture…as long as most of them are black or brown, we won’t be allowed to point out they keep cutting people’s heads off and physically hurting those who don’t want them to take over.

We’re just awful that way, doncha know. I’ve gotten accustomed to my head and like it very much as it is, attached to my shoulders. I’m such a racist Islamophobe.

May 10, 2009 - 5:38 am 14. Terry Gain:

So why don’t we try giving the drugs free to anyone who wants them? I’m serious.

Serious. Yes serious about distributing poison. The solution you propose will make this serious problem worse.

May 10, 2009 - 5:39 am 15. LeighB:

Well, I sure hope the prisoners who are released get assigned an ACORN “buddy” to get them registered to vote in several states. /sarcasm off

May 10, 2009 - 6:24 am 16. Dave:

Alice, I believe the author is speaking as one who lived in the areas most impacted by crack and when she refers to “emaciated brown corpses” it is not a racial slur but a simple fact of what she witnessed. There were/are certainly emaciated white corpses too, it just a matter of where they are located.

Or, maybe you actually believe what you said.

May 10, 2009 - 6:40 am 17. Vaughn:

#6, They sound like Acorn workers.

May 10, 2009 - 6:46 am 18. Fred Beloit:

Give the drugs away free? The government would never allow it. They would want an astronomical special sales tax on them, just as with booze, smokes, chews, and such. In order to have a high sales tax there would have to be a price to begin with, the higher the price the more the revenue to the government.

May 10, 2009 - 7:18 am 19. David Thomson:

The irony is that black Democratic Party politicians were the ones to initiate long prison sentences for crack offenders! It was only later when these same individuals complained about the high numbers of blacks being sent to prison. This is a no-win issue. You are ultimately damned regardless of what you do.

May 10, 2009 - 7:30 am 20. Sebastian Shaw:

This is what happens when moral relativism is applied in the real world. Obama also sees nothing wrong with Gitmo terrorists living free in the United States & on welfare. There is no good or evil, there just is.

Obama is an idiot.

May 10, 2009 - 7:49 am 21. Harry Schell:

All I can say is when governments cut back on sentencing, police forces and the rest to “save money” or address some imagined wrong, AND then wants to disarm those upon whom criminals prey, government just became an enemy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the Bill of Rights.

The 2nd Amendment just continues to grow in importance. Not because a militia will ride to DC, but because some group will resist being the meat in the sandwich of government force and criminal force, looking to one or the other for security and the right to live without asking permission.

Vesting government with a “monopoly on force” is ludicrous, because it is a monopoly shared with criminals who don’t disarm. The disarmed law-abiding end up in the middle, much easier for one side or the other to control, much more malleable to the goals of either.

May 10, 2009 - 8:09 am 22. Bilgeman:

Mr. Adai:
“The harsher sentencing for crack was due to it being pure and highly addictive. Because it was a form of cocaine that could be smoked, the inhaled vapors delivered the drug more rapidly to the bloodstream and successively to the brain for a more intense effect.”

Perhaps so, but the harsher sentencing as it was implemented on the street, was racist bullsh!t.

The answer is not to lower sentence for crack possession and dealing, but to raise sentences for all cocaine possession and dealing.

But that would result in more white professionals and their kids getting thrown in the slammer.

I remember Rayful Edmunds’ DC in the late 1980’s.

The people selling crack on the corner were largely dark-skinned, and likely from the District.
The people buying the crack were mostly light-skinned, and in cars with Maryland and Virginia plates.

Y’know what? They’re all nuisances and criminals, throw ‘em all in the hoosegow for an equal length of time.

Yay-yo is yay-yo…sniff it or smoke it in the penitentiary, where it has to be smuggled in inside someone’s rectum.

May 10, 2009 - 8:17 am 23. Frank:

#1 Benson

Legalization is the only way to stop the violent crime related to drug use and dealing. We saw the exact same thing in the 1920’s with alcohol. It doesn’t make sense that we can’t see it now.

May 10, 2009 - 8:35 am 24. JasonS:

The meme that young black men are “forced” into dealing crack by the realities of life in Racist White America is still prominent among the black left and I’ve heard that argument many times. The left in general takes a deterministic view of life and is obsessed with the idea that nobody is really responsible for their own actions.

But even if that were the case and young black men were forced into dealing crack, then how come less than one percent of young black men deal crack? Is it that Racist White America only affects a tiny fraction of a percentage of them?

May 10, 2009 - 8:50 am 25. David Thomson:

“Perhaps so, but the harsher sentencing as it was implemented on the street, was racist bullsh!t.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. The black politicians argued for more unforgiving sentences.

“The people buying the crack were mostly light-skinned, and in cars with Maryland and Virginia plates.”

It is much easier for police to and prosecutors to obtain jail sentences when the criminal activity is so open and blatant. Affluent whites are normally far more discrete. They purchase their drugs in environments not conducive to police investigations.

May 10, 2009 - 8:57 am 26. EnemyoftheState:

I submitted the following recommendation to the president and the DEA last month. I have not had a response yet.

To the Drug Enforcement Administration: My simple suggestion for ending the U S illegal drug epidemic.

You guys have been attacking the wrong end of the chain. You have been trying to stop the manufacturers or interdict the supply lines. The U S market demand for illegal drugs is so financially lucrative that there is no way to stop the makers and suppliers. You can not make their profession sufficiently dangerous to make them consider the risk/reward ratio to be not in their favor.

What you need to do is eliminate the demand part of the equation. If no one wants the drugs, then no one will bother to produce or transport the drugs. How do you eliminate the demand? Quite literally. I assume the DEA has large quantities of seized heroin, cocaine, etc, which was seized enroute and is uncut, i.e. much stronger than normal “street drugs”. I propose that the DEA infiltrate the street seller business and sell the uncut product to the customers. There will be a great surge in drug overdoses, and then a great drop in drug demand.

There is a potential ethical/moral dilemma to this solution, but you could argue that these users had already chosen to waste their lives and were living on borrowed time anyway. Perhaps innocent lives were spared because these criminals didn’t get a chance to commit crimes against the the innocent to support their drug habit. Maybe society was saved the cost of capturing, trying, imprisoning and rehabilitating them. It’s not like you’re forcing anything on them. You’re giving them something they want, and they’ll even pay you for it.

May 10, 2009 - 9:38 am 27. Andrew:

The minimum mandatories were primarily about the violence, and not some moral crusade…and remember that drug offenders and violent offenders are in many cases not mutually exclusive.

May 10, 2009 - 9:38 am 28. Don:

First, you have to remember that the “beautiful people” are into the “pleasure principal,” tune in, turn on, drop out. Besides, they don’t live in the “ghetto.” Secondly, it’s only racism and profiling when it comes to getting busted. When it comes to handing out the goodies, the “pleasure principal,” it’s called “affirmative action” and “comparable worth.” Get it?

May 10, 2009 - 9:47 am 29. jvon:

If he really objects to the sentencing guidelines as being racist, why not increase the penalties for selling powder cocaine to be in line with crack? Would anyone seriously object to this?

I think the real issue here for Obama is that so many black people are in jail. You can’t bring THAT up without having a discussion about why exactly that is though, and that’s a can of worms Obama isn’t ready to open.

May 10, 2009 - 10:03 am 30. David Thomson:

“The minimum mandatories were primarily about the violence”

Thank you for mentioning this most important point. The white sons and daughters of the affluent may have been spoiled brats. Nonetheless, they rarely ever engaged in violent crime!

May 10, 2009 - 10:06 am 31. Jake:

The thing most of us liberals don’t understand most about your black and white view of the world is that you truly believe your a master-of-the-universe, control-my-own-destiny wankers. It’s romantic, but not reality guys. Everyone is one poor decision away from throwing everything they own away. You also seem to have this view that all drug users are societal leeches. You do know that the top floors of the biggest skyscrapers are just as lucrative and active in illicit drugs and the slums and ghettos right? How do you think these Wall Street guys work such long hours figuring out the next scheme to manipulate millions out of the real economy and into their coffers? It’s called cocaine, it’s crack’s safer, better cousin. I’ve also heard meth is quite popular with many of the well-to-do, Barney’s wearing, executive types.

The real world isn’t black and white, it’s all the shades in between. Ayn Rand wrote fiction, and it was terrible, boring, drab fiction at that. Come back to earth.

May 10, 2009 - 10:23 am 32. Derek:

You guys are amazing! It’s great to read all the different views, despite the validity and/or intelligence of them. I am a retired NYPD Detective and fought tooth and nail (with my co-workers)to put a dent in this so-called ‘drug war’ in the late 80’sand early 90’s. Did we somehow forget that this drug epidemic has decimated our society for over four decades now? How did this all of a sudden become Obama’s doing? I noticed none of you guys commented on the previous eight years of illicit drug related murders, use and/or sales. YES, crack was a ‘Natural born Killer’ when it hit the streets but for you guys that think that crack is the most commonly used drug of choice by any ‘people’ these days…THINK AGAIN!!
For your information, marijuana, heroin, prescription drugs, powder cocaine and crystal meth arrests heavily outweigh crack arrests made in this city now and you know what else….THERE ARE MORE WHITE PEOPLE BEING ARRESTED NOW THAN EVER BEFORE!! So please, keep making excuses for the whites affected by drug use and turning your nose up at black or brown ones addicta. By ignoring the more pressing problems at hand,you more than likely have a ‘crackhead’ at your dinner table right now.

May 10, 2009 - 10:54 am 33. Daniel:

It is obvious that our current position on handling drugs has not works. They are everywhere.

Locking the dealers up seems to not be doing much. Letting them go? I am not sure about that, but what else is left to do? Legalize it?

May 10, 2009 - 10:54 am 34. Cybergeezer:

Obama wants cheap crack for his ho’s and clan brothers in D.C.
Pimp in Chief, yes; Commander in Chief? Don’t make me laugh!

May 10, 2009 - 11:40 am 35. Cybergeezer:

Obama and his administration of PUNKS is demonstrating how much respect they have for the offices they TEMPORARILY hold. These people are more than a joke; They are a farce.

May 10, 2009 - 11:44 am 36. RightwingHippyChick:

People take drugs because they want to, and those who take drugs to a stage where it’s debilitating have very poor planning skills in general. In other words, fear of prison is not in their programme… and even if it is, it is such an abstract idea for those guys, most of those folks live in a foggy world of broken trains of thought as is. In other words, this particular abyss may be doing some staring, but not in any kind of deep way, don’t confuse your own head space with that of an addict!

As for drugs — in theory they are illegal, in practice, it’s the only viable cottage industry left, a get-rich-quick scheme and so, no matter what the law sez, drugs are as easy to obtain as if they were legal, in fact, easier even, since for alcohol you have to actually prove your age. The dealer isn’t going to check your ID!

Concentrate on what you actually want to happen, instead of mending the world’s woes for everyone (leave that to the lefty busybodies)

I recommend some proper reactionary right-wing thinking here (after all, we never really indulge despite being accused of this all the time, so…) and would say that we legalise all drugs and other assorted dodgy substance, rent a nice homely piece of Siberia (they have a few spare towns I think) and use this to exile anyone who repeatedly or definitely cannot manage to conduct themselves with minimum grace in the free world.

May 10, 2009 - 1:30 pm 37. Bilgeman:

#30 David Thomson:
“The white sons and daughters of the affluent may have been spoiled brats. Nonetheless, they rarely ever engaged in violent crime!”

Perhaps not, but it is their money that finance it.
And why do you characterize the whites as children?
Not all of those white people buying Rayful Edmunds’ crack were teenagers…I thought I recognized a Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce one night on 14th and “U” Streets.

Look, man, any fool with a stove, a bottle of water, and some baking soda can manufature crack out of disco powder…it ain’t that hard.

Sell it? Deal it? Buy it? Don’t care if it’s rock or powder…do ten years.

If you’re violent, you get whatever sentence the violence gets you, plus the ten years for the yay-yo.

May 10, 2009 - 2:27 pm 38. John:

Is it possible Obama wants to reduce prison sentences on crack issues because it is primarily a black drug of choice?

Frankly, I’m with Benson above, give’em all they want. Three quarters of the users will prolly OD within a month, the others will either sober up or die in 6 months. Thus solving the problem straight away.

I’m very tired of the expense of the; “war on drugs”, which we can’t apparently win in 25+ years. Let the drug users defeat themselves. It only makes sense.

May 10, 2009 - 4:44 pm 39. JohnB:

Is it possible Obama wants to reduce prison sentences on crack issues because it is primarily a black drug of choice?

Frankly, I’m with Benson above, give’em all they want. Three quarters of the users will prolly OD within a month, the others will either sober up or die in 6 months. Thus solving the problem straight away.

I’m very tired of the expense of the; “war on drugs”, which we can’t apparently win in 25+ years. Let the drug users defeat themselves. It only makes sense.

May 10, 2009 - 4:46 pm 40. JohnB:

Oooops~! Sorry for the double post,,, 1st one was on an outdated e-mail addy, was surprised it slipped through.

May 10, 2009 - 5:12 pm 41. Benson:

Great responses to my question (which was not a suggestion, BTW).

But…is there an answer in all this? What are we supposed to do, given the terrible consequences of the War on Drugs? It has failed. It is a very costly program, and its impact on our nation and on others is heartbreaking. Yet we carry on with it. So what’s the answer? Is there one that anything near a majority of people can agree on? I think not.

Comments about cocaine usage in the upper strata of society remind me of Freud. I suspect his hubristic attempt to found a “new science,” psychoanalysis, was such a mess because he was a Cokie. He praised the drug as his muse. No wonder he had all the answers!

Meanwhile, is Harm Reduction a reasonable option? Remember, we don’t need a Utopian solution, all we need is something that’s a lot better than the tragic, irrational travesty we have now.

May 10, 2009 - 5:33 pm 42. shaui-jan:

if we get significantly relaxed drug laws and universal healthcare,were screwed.

May 10, 2009 - 9:00 pm 43. palookaville:

A bit off subject , but all you lefties who think because you voted for The Cool One he is your friend , he really hates you, and most all white people . When he and his whitie hating wife are in there bed at nite they are thinking what a bunch of idiots you are . You wanted the black experience , well your getting it , problem is , we all have to experience it .

May 10, 2009 - 11:19 pm 44. HonestJon:

Some very interesting points-of-view here! I have a few to add.

To those who want all drugs legalized: If someone is caught dealing or in possession of a specified quantity of an illegal substance (and subsequently convicted) they in general will have been convicted of a felony—and therefore are unable to vote. Do we really want dealers/heavy users of crack et al voting?

That having been said, I used to work in a prison and have seen the effects that the drug laws are having on families. When the laws cause more harm than good, then the laws should be altered. They rip apart families and cost the taxpayers in excess of $25,000 a year to keep a man locked up. Add to that the fact that the inmate now has a record and can’t get a decent job and we have a giant quandary.

Personally, I’m in favor of decriminalizing only one drug: marijuana. This is for a number of reasons: 1) 60% of the money that the Mexican drug cartels make are from marijuana (and most of us are aware the situation south of our border); 2) Marijuana is not physically addictive; 3) the law causes more harm than it does good; 4) weed doesn’t destroy families nearly as often as the harder drugs; 5) the government could tax the crap out of it and make a lot of money that it’s missing out on at present.

26. EnemyoftheState: WOW! What evil thoughts you have! Why not just spike all the shipments of pot from Mexico with paraquat and the meth with drano and the heroin with cyanide and let the shipments come in as normal? That would kill off all the offenders in an effective and timely manner!

regards

May 11, 2009 - 12:13 am 45. David Thomson:

“Perhaps not, but it is their money that finance it.
And why do you characterize the whites as children?”

Your point is well taken. I long ago realized that we must either decriminalize mind altering drugs—or severely punish the users. A viable middle way does not exist.

May 11, 2009 - 3:09 am 46. JFM:

In the era when “smallpox blankets were given to Indians…” nobody knew about microbiology.

Problem is that there was never a such thing. The recorded cases of small pox epidemics between Indians involved whites who didn’t knew themselves that their blankets were contaminated and contracted the disease themselves. The only recorded case of use of small pox against Indians involved a low ranked officer recommending it to his superior and it is unknown if he followed the advice of his subaltern. We must keep in mind that the risk was high that sooner or later whites would end contracting the disease and spreading it in their cities. And that happened during British rule.

May 11, 2009 - 4:29 am 47. Jim:

Repealing the harsher sentences make perfect sense for a number of reason. The way the laws are written in the books is highly unfair to the poor young man no matter how misguided or vile he may be.

First, the supreme has recently rule that giving major offender more time is not constitional and has reduce their sentence. Now that was backwards y’all and even insidious. Why? These are the major drug dealers and mostly the most violent offenders who won’t change and will only find other ways to commit crimes.

Second, the laws did not work. If there are less crackheads out there now, it is not because of the law, it is because people started realizing that this drug is much more addictive than pot. Or even worse, heroin is making a comeback or people are trying the next drug that they think they can smoke without reprecussions which is sad.

Third, it is keeping alot of young boys from having fathers. Guess what will keep crime down? Young boys with even a half of a father warning them about the perils of drugs, so that they won’t make the same mistakes that their fathers did.

Fourth, it creates a prison mentality that is spoken about in the rap songs (Oh, you though it was the rap music). This mentality says that it is alright and even cool to go to prison and overlooks the fact that it may cause you to have a felony record.

Look, I am not making excuses for people for break the law. If you do the crime, you should do the time. But you have to ask yourselves is arresting a bunch of poor boys from the projects for saling crack and keeping them in prison for five years making the community safer and helping minorities or is it hurting them in the end. How many people who were knuckleheads early in their life are successful people now. I will give you a hint: bush and obama. I say lock up both the big time and small time dealer, but don’t give the small time dealer as much time or more time in prison than the people who bring the drugs into the country. After all, you don’t give a person who’s been speeding the same kind of punishment as one who has committed manslaughter while driving drunk.

May 11, 2009 - 5:22 am 48. shaui-jan:

#44 honest jon ;very well stated..i do not want pot legalized though,just decriminalized.imagine what a company like anhauser-busch or phillup morris could do with weed if they had the chance.
cannabis is so profitable right now because of the sheer number of users.it’s margins in general are much slimmer than coke,meth or h.
also,taking it out of the interdiction equation at the border and you can concenrate much more effectivly on all the other drugs.that in it’s self frees up alot of manpower,putting finite resources to better use.
as far as the article goes, the 100 to 1 ratio between rock versus powdered cocaine sentencing is simply ridiculous.
this should not be a war of attrition,arresting a dealer is not the same as busting a rapist.with the former,you have plenty of people willing to take his place.incarcerate a predater and there will be less victims.
if we want a chance on getting this situation under control, we have to address demand and more importantly;the financal side.put enough pressure on the money men, and we would see more tangible results.

May 11, 2009 - 6:46 am 49. John:

The author talks about how there is such a big difference between crack dealers and crack users. I bet most crack users will also sell it. If they aren’t independently wealthy they are probably selling it or stealing to get the money to feed their habits. Crack addicts generally aren’t particularly good at holding down jobs, especially jobs that pay well enough to fund a very expensive drug habit. And even if they aren’t dealers per se most drug users will go get drugs for a fellow drug user who asks for help finding drugs, and this act is a felony delivery of drugs. A lot of people get arrested for doing just that because it turns out that their “friend” they thought they were helping was actually out making buys for police to get himself out of trouble.

It is my understanding that the law treats 5 grams of crack the same as 500 grams of powdered cocaine. You would get the same mandatory minimum sentence for possession of 5 grams of crack as you would for possessing 500 grams of cocaine. A user who doesn’t sell could be in possession of 5 grams of crack. Usually someone with that much is selling it though. Usually it’s going to be a small time dealer. Someone with 500 grams of powdered cocaine is not a small time, unless maybe he’s just a drug mule being paid to transport drugs for someone else. A pound is only about 454 grams, so 500 grams is almost one pound and two ounces. That’s an awful lot. The 5 gram amount of crack that triggers the same sentence is less than a quarter ounce.

If someone has 500 grams of cocaine, it may very well be that he intends to cook all or part of it into crack. All it takes is water and a heat source and baking soda. A person could do it in a pan on his stove in a few minutes. Mix equal parts powdered cocaine and baking soda into a pan of hot water and stir, and pretty soon you get crack rocks. You can do it with a very small amount with a Pyrex test tube instead of a pan. The guy with a pound of cocaine is a much bigger dealer than someone with only five grams of crack, and if he’s in the inner city selling cocaine chances are he or someone else will cook most of that pound of cocaine into crack. He’s the guy supplying the crackhead with five grams of crack, but he wouldn’t be facing the mandatory minimum the small timer would face because a pound of powdered cocaine is less than the 500 grams it takes to trigger the mandatory minimum. So this law punishes small timers a lot more than the much bigger fish. That makes no sense.

Small time drug dealers are a dime a dozen. We can round a bunch of them up and throw them in prison and it has no effect whatsoever on the availability of drugs because there are always plenty of people left to supply the demand. Anyone who would have bought from these people we locked up will just buy from someone else. We aren’t even increasing the price that way because only very small amounts of drugs are being seized from these small timers. We’re wasting a fortune locking up small time drug dealers on long sentences, packing our prisons such that we have no room for people who are amuch bigger threat, and in doing this we aren’t making the drugs more expensive or hard to find. I realize that the thinking is that if we lock these people up we’ll reduce the drug problem, but that thinking is flawed because we are only taking minute amounts of drugs off the streets that way and although we are locking lots of people up there are always plenty more out there selling drugs so no one does without. It’s just not an effective use of resources to lock small timers up for a long time. We should be locking thieves up longer than dopers who sell a little dope to other dopers. At least we’d actually be stopping a lot of thefts from occurring. We aren’t stopping drug transactions from occurring by locking up small tim e drug dealers because those who would have bought from them will just buy from someone else.

I’m not for legalizing drugs like meth or cocaine or heroin. But we really do need to reconsider how we are dealing with the problem of these drugs. Some of the things we do now are not only not helpful, they are counterproductive.

May 11, 2009 - 9:22 am 50. JFM:

I’m not for legalizing drugs like meth or cocaine or heroin. But we really do need to reconsider how we are dealing with the problem of these drugs. Some of the things we do now are not only not helpful, they are counterproductive.

Locking up drug dealers will only get the price raisng and increasing the incentive to produce and trade drugs.

Legalizing drugs will only end with lots of people becoming junkies, lots of traffic accidents and thousands of babies having their ba=rains damaged throug drug use by their mothers.

The only way is to target users. If you reduce the numbers users then prices go down and so the incentives for drug producers and dealers.

May 11, 2009 - 10:57 am 51. John:

Oh, and the “crack is making a comeback” comment is ridiculous. Very few people do crack and that isn’t likely to change because people have figured out that crack is incredibly addictive and that crack addicts lead miserable lives. Only a tiny fraction of our population will do this drug. The fact that we might not be locking up quite as many small time drug dealers for long prison terms isn’t going to change that. When these people are locked up crack users just buy from someone else. If enough get locked up and there appears to be a dearth in the number of people selling it, other crack addicts just see that as an opportunity to make money and get free crack, so they start selling. It never ends.

If the law changes such that there isn’t the 100 to 1 sentencing disparity with crack and powdered cocaine, it’s not actually going to affect that many people. The overwhelming majority of people arrested on drug crimes are arrested by state or local law enforcement, not the feds, and they are prosecuted under state laws and go to state prisons. This change in the federal laws does not change the existing state laws. So this change is really only going to affect a small percentage of people, the few small time crack dealers who for some reason happen to get prosecuted by the feds instead of local law enforcement. And those small time crack dealers that get popped by the feds will still do prison time, just not quite as much in some cases. The only thing this is going to do is reduce the burden on our federal prisons a little bit. It’s not going to have any effect on the price of drugs or the availability of drugs. It shouldn’t result in any sort of “comeback” for crack because keeping these people locked up a few years longer has not in any way reduced the availability of crack or raised prices. A small percentage of the small time crack sellers who get caught will spend a little less time in prison. How will that cause a big comeback for crack? It’s not going to make a lick of difference.

May 11, 2009 - 11:13 am 52. Dave Goin:

This is one debate where I depart from my usually fairly right opinions but I think it follows my thoughts on personal responsibility. More than likely too libertarian for most people but hey that’s how I feel about it so please don’t tear me up like that poor lady in the Ms California deal!!

My generation grew up with Coke and weed, junk wasn’t a big thing in Alberta. We pretty much all of us boys run off the to oil rigs, worked hard and had money to burn. I have seen friends go off the rails completely but for most of us it was used for nothing more than a party on days off. I have never once missed a day of work because I was drunk, hungover or blasted on anything because I knew my priorities and have held a job since age 15 @ $10/hr until this day @ 250K+/yr. As with anything else if used in moderation and you keep YOURSELF under control then there should be no reason a free man cannot put whatever he wants down his neck or in his lungs or up his nose. It all comes down to being responsible for your own life and actions.

That being said I wholeheartedly believe that if you can’t keep yourself under control then it will be done for you and jail time should be assigned if you commit crimes for any reason whether sober or not. prohibition achieved nothing and neither will this war on drugs unless you want to just shoot anyone who EVER uses them. For most people they would have to commence firing at the dining table as one gentleman said above.

Alcohol is probably the reason for more domestic violence and brawls than anything else. Thievery and murder over drugs is primarily due to astronomical profits involved and also to the massive sentences handed out due to the losing war on drugs but then if law abiding people didn’t have their own government trampling their God given rights to protect themselves the predations would be much less.

I say Do you want to wreck your life? Whatever blows your hair back. Just stay out of my house or you’re dead. Can’t steal and rob if they are dead.

May 11, 2009 - 11:55 am 53. Bilgeman:

#45 David Thomson:
“I long ago realized that we must either decriminalize mind altering drugs—or severely punish the users. A viable middle way does not exist.”

One example on how to deal with it was set by the Mao regime in China in ridding that country of it’s opium addicts.

Draconian, but apparently effective.

May 11, 2009 - 12:50 pm 54. John:

JFM says: “Locking up drug dealers will only get the price raisng and increasing the incentive to produce and trade drugs.

Legalizing drugs will only end with lots of people becoming junkies, lots of traffic accidents and thousands of babies having their ba=rains damaged throug drug use by their mothers.

The only way is to target users. If you reduce the numbers users then prices go down and so the incentives for drug producers and dealers.”

How exactly do you target users? Put them in jail longer if you catch them? Then we are stuck with the same problem, no jail space to lock up people who are a much bigger threat. In my county it used to be that if someone was convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison on Wednesday, by Friday he would be transported to the prison. Now our prisons are so full there is a several month waiting list to get in. We are always have special early releases of prisoners too to try to deal with the problem but still the wait is several months. Our local jails are full too, so there is no room for knew convicts bound of prison. So guess what happens to them? Most all of the will get reporting bonds that allow them to stay out on the streets until a prison bed opens up. If these people are such a threat that we need to lock them up for our own safety, does it make sense to sentnce them to prison and then let them walk right back out on the streets until months later when a prison bed opens up?

Prison is really only good for keeping the bad guys away from the rest of us for a while. Prison is a limited resource. We cannot just lock up people up left and right because they might possibly be a threat, or because we are mad at them, or because they won’t play ball. We just don’t have enough room for that and cannot afford to continue building new prisons at the rate we built them throughout the eighties, nineties and even on into this decade.

A lot of people are under the impression that if you have tough laws you scare a lot of people to the point that they won’t commit a crime. There is some truth to that. Laws have deterrent effect. But the problem is that the level of deterrent effect a law will have is directly proportional to the level of risk of getting caught perceived by the person contemplating breaking a law. The harshness of the sentence isn’t everything. If someone thinks there is almost no risk of getting caught he’s far less worried about the remote possibility of a severe punishment. Well over half of all murders result in an arrest? What percentage of “pot smokings” do you think result in an arrest? I don’t know the exact answer to that, but it would have to be one in several thousand. It’s easy to get away with taking drugs if people will just be a little bit careful. Only a very small fraction of the people who use drugs will ever get caught. They know this too. They know that the likelihood of getting caught is slim, and this lack of deterrence is exacerbated by the fact that most people are young and feeling invincible when they start messing with drugs. We can increase the punishments for minor drug offenses, but it won’t really deter many more people. What it will do waste a lot more jail/prison space and result in more of this very unfair turn in life where most who use drugs never get caught and can go on even to be president but a few unlucky souls have their lives ruined for the same crime. I think that the people are sick enough of the war on drugs that they wouldn’t go for a major crackdown on drug users, and I don’t think it would do much good anyway.

May 11, 2009 - 12:53 pm 55. Class Clown:

Benson and Frank,

I taught high school on an American Indian reservation for three years. I can’t even catalogue for you all the death and misery I saw caused by “legal” alcohol. The problems didn’t exactly go away with the end of prohibition.

If you think that all of the social problems are caused by the fact that drugs are illegal, you are fools. The problems are caused by the drugs themselves.

May 11, 2009 - 8:06 pm 56. John:

Prohibition causes a number of problems too. That’s just the nature of that beast. When we have a drug like marijuana that is not particularly harmful compared to alcohol and that is used by a large portion of our society, we really need to strongly consider whether all the problems prohibition causes are worth it. If you analyze the statistics you will see that more than half of all adults under 60 have tried marijuana. More than 100 million Americans have used it. More marijuana is consumed in this country than all other illegal drugs combined. According to our government Mexican organized crime make the lion’s share of their profits from marijuana sales even though they bring in and distribute most all the cocaine, meth and heroin consumed in this country. Marijuana is easily available everywhere in this country and not particularly expensive on a per use basis. Usually it is cheaper than beer. We aren’t really stopping anything trying in vain to keep up the ban on marijuana. The prohibition on marijuana causes all the same problems alcohol prohibition caused and then some. We should legalize it and regulate it like alcohol.

The prohibition of other drugs causes us problems too and always will, but most of the other drugs are extremely harmful to users and innocent people and so few use these drugs anyway that it makes little sense to legalize them. We don’t want to legalize a drug like heroin, for instance, because only a tiny percentage of our population will even try that drug. In many parts of the country you probably wouldn’t be able to find it. Legalizing a drug like heroin would make it much more available and since so few use it now it wouldn’t take that many new users to double or triple or quadruple the number of heroin addicts we have causing all sorts of problems.

Most of the black market for illegal drugs is really just a black market for marijuana. If we legalized it we would eliminate most of the black market for illegal drugs and a corresponding amount of the problems it causes us. We’d still have problems from what remains of the black market but a much smaller black market with far less money driving it would be preferable to what we have now. It would be easier to contain. Drug trafficking organizations with many billions of dollars (the lion’s share of their income) less to work with every year would be smaller, less powerful, and easier to contain.

We should not legalize all drugs, but we should strongly consider legalizing marijuana and regulating it similar to alcohol. Marijuana prohibition does far more harm than good.

May 12, 2009 - 6:53 am 57. Avitar:

Anyone that thinks Obama missed the crack culture has never been to Harvard. The section of Cambridge MA it is in is better than the slum that MIT is located in but I certainly would not want to raise children in that part of Boston.

Obama is an admitted Cocaine user, it is in his books! Add that he is the least published editor of the Harvard Law Review and it is clear that he is speaking as a user.

We may need to go back to all drugs being legal. The FDA is not going to certify drugs that prolong life if the Government is paying the freight so the only way we will get the cure for cancer is if Hollywood gets its recreational drugs at the same time.

May 12, 2009 - 10:36 am 58. justice1:

“Anyone that thinks Obama missed the crack culture has never been to Harvard.”

Come off it! Most universities are in bad parts of town. However, being a college student usually keeps on secluded from the inside of life in these areas. Sure, most of us who got involved as students with community activism can attest to seeing these people, handing out a few sandwiches and saying tsk, tsk, as we marched back to cram for an exam. Yes, he may have used coke and it may have been written in his book but was he hanging out at crack houses? Did he have friends whose moms were crackwhores? Did he snatch a few bags while he was using it? You obamites all have the same defense when it comes to making excuses for your president.

May 21, 2009 - 11:31 am

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