You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (69 page)

Little Suzies who want to get high will always be able. One readily available backup, which remains popular with Latin America’s poor, is huffing inhalants (gasoline, glue, and paint thinners).
¹³⁷
Unlike other recreational drugs (such as heroin and marijuana) chronic use of inhalants causes permanent brain damage.
¹³⁸
The practice of huffing does not get as much government attention or media coverage
despite the fact that eight percent of middle school students and fifteen percent of high school seniors participate.
¹³⁹

The response of the zealots to the decrepit state of the war on drugs is to step it up. However, the limits of punishments are being reached. When marijuana users are serving life sentences, the only thing left to do is kill them, and this has been tried before to no avail.

Saudi Arabia publicly decapitated drug smugglers to stem the flow of drugs in its country. The flow did not stop. Instead, such a backlog on beheadings was created that in 1995 weekly chopping days had to be expanded from two days to four.
¹⁴⁰

Harsh sentences are also not effective deterrents. Studies have shown that people who break the law are more likely to consider potential gains and probability of success than potential punishment.
¹⁴¹
Because the potential gains of drug dealing are so monstrous, the only possibility is to bring down the probability of success.

Because drug distribution is a consensual crime any advances in interception rates will have to include the further erosion of civil liberties. This has been happening and continues to happen. However, there is a limit and that limit will likely be reached when police start hitting little Suzie and her wealthy parents in the suburbs.

This is already in motion, with the Supreme Court removing the last remaining sanction against no-knock military-style police raids based on anonymous tips in 2006.
¹⁴²
With the increasing militarization of police and SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) Units now responding to domestic disputes, suicidal threats, and even angry dogs, it is not surprising the affluent suburban civilian death count is now rising.
^143
,
144

Even if civil liberties were completely thrown out the window and the nation’s entire budget was devoted to tackling drugs, it is questionable whether drug use could be stopped. When President Richard Nixon first launched the drug war he set up a program that tested the effectiveness of locking up
every
drug dealer in a particular city. With a huge amount of federal funding, the feds arrested all seventy-six drug dealers in Phoenix simultaneously. For a week drugs were unavailable in Phoenix and local drug treatment programs were overwhelmed. However, on the
eighth day new dealers emerged, and within a month the drug scene had returned to its previous state. The same experiment was executed in San Diego and again by the eighth day San Diego had new drug dealers.
¹⁴⁵

The egregious costs and horrible consequences of the war on drugs have garnered opponents from a broad political spectrum that includes politicians, judges, and law enforcement personnel. But even among the decriminalization crowd the taboo stands firm in that no one concedes that recreational drugs are actually beneficial to people.
¹⁴⁶

It is a great irony that the country that launched its revolution explicitly on the inalienable right of the pursuit of happiness has led the global war on using drugs to be happy.
¹⁴⁷
From the beginning of humanity drugs have been used to lighten the human condition and expand consciousness. Heroin, cocaine, PCP, LSD, mushrooms, marijuana, Ecstasy, and many others have all provided great pleasure for the vast majority of their users. However, because a small percentage of people use them irresponsibly, our society has spent the last century using propaganda to envelop them in a taboo.

Arguably the broadest cost of this taboo is that millions of responsible citizens—the very ones who would most likely use them appropriately—never experience the unique and enjoyable sensations drugs have to offer.

1.
        Roy Walmsley, “World Prison Population List,” (8
^th
Ed.), International Centre for Prison Studies (UK), 2009.

2.
        James Gray,
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
(2001), p. 29.

3.
        William Greider and Erika Fortgang, “Mandatory Minimums: A National Disgrace,”
Rolling Stone
, 16 Apr. 1998.

4.
        Gray,
Drug Laws
, pp. 2–4, 43.

5.
        Melinda Beck and Peter Katel, “Kicking the Prison Habit,”
Newsweek
, 14 June 1993.

6.
        Ibid. and Gray,
Drug Laws
, p. 36.

7.
        Aliza Marcus, “US Leads 17 Countries in Cocaine, Marijuana Use,”
Bloomberg.com
, 1 July 2008, ret. 1 Oct. 2008.

8.
        Gray,
Drug Laws
, p. 95.

9.
        The Supreme Court upheld the forfeiture of a rented yacht where one marijuana cigarette had been discovered. Richard Miller,
Drug Warriors and Their Prey
(1996), p. 110.

10.
      Gray,
Drug Laws
, p. 104.

11.
      Miller,
Drug Warriors
, p. 122.

12.
      Ibid., pp. 105–106, 111–113, 117–118.

13.
      Mike Gray,
Drug Crazy
(1998), p. 102.

14.
      The assertion that they were not really dealers is supported by the fact they were being represented by me, a public defender. Most dealers can easily afford private counsel.

15.
      For support from a former undercover officer that arrested dealers are often mere users see Bill Masters, ed.,
New Prohibition
(2004), pp. 27, 28.

16.
      This is demonstrated by the inner-city popularity of “Stop Snitching” T-shirts. Kelefa Sanneh, “Snowman Shirts’ Hidden Drug Message Raises Alarm,”
San Diego Union-Tribune
, 13 Nov. 2005.

17.
      Gray,
Drug Laws
, p. 108.

18.
      Ibid.

19.
      William Greider and Erika Fortgang, “Mandatory Minimums: A National Disgrace,”
Rolling Stone
, 16 Apr. 1998.

20.
      In one of my 2005 trials an officer testified to seeing a thin glassine package smaller than a dime pass hands from fifty yards away through binoculars.

21.
      For example see Gray,
Drug Crazy
, pp. 34–35.

22.
      Ibid., pp. 36–37; and Masters,
New Prohibition
, p. 21.

23.
      Gray,
Drug Crazy
, p. 37

24.
      Ibid.

25.
      Anti-drug policies are “unquestionably concentrated in inner-city communities.” Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter,
Drug War Heresies
(2001), p. 112.

26.
      As a substitute teacher in the inner city from 2003–2004 making $110 a day I would have kids counting their drug money in class. One kid once had over $500 laid out on his desk. I was tempted to deal drugs.

27.
      William Greider and Erika Fortgang, “Mandatory Minimums: A National Disgrace,”
Rolling Stone
, 16 Apr. 1998.

28.
      Bill Masters, ed.,
New Prohibition
(2004), p. 101.

29.
      Ibid., p. 65.

30.
      President Bill Clinton generally appointed centrist judges and he certainly did not support judges “liberal” on the drug issue. Esther Kaplan,
With God on Their Side
(2005), p. 267; and James Gray,
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
(2001) pp. 116–117.

31.
      However, the majority of black inner-city residents do not accept the trade or usage of illegal drugs. Larry Elder,
Ten Things You Can’t Say in America
(2000), p. 265.

32.
      Recent examples of drug dealers turned rap superstars are 50 Cent of Queens, New York, and T.I. of Atlanta, Georgia.

33.
      Gray,
Drug Laws
, p. 45.

34.
      Masters,
New Prohibition
, p. 101.

35.
      In their words, their relatives were just there to “serve you.” “Serve you” was slang for selling someone drugs. Students would often offer in jest to serve me because my jittery hands and sometimes runny nose led them to believe I was a cocaine user.

36.
      MacCoun,
Drug War Heresies
, p. 120.

37.
      “White man’s land” is how my inner-city students referred to the area outside of the city.

38.
      “One in Five Drug Abusers Needing Treatment Did Drugs with Parents,” PRNewswire, 24 Aug. 2000.

39.
      MacCoun,
Drug War Heresies
, pp. 26–27.

40.
      See “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms” in Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner,
Freakonomics
(2005), p. 89.

41.
      I have derived this from discussions with dozens of clients charged with drug dealing, and also from dealers who have never been caught. Two sources of downfall for drug dealers appear to be greed and sloppiness. For example, expanding your clientele beyond a trusted core and making open-air sales.

42.
      Advantages of blue-collar jobs can be less stress and a forty-hour work week.

43.
      In Holland, where cocaine possession is treated leniently, there are no cocaine-related deaths. James Gray,
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
(2001), pp. 218–220.

44.
      Mike Gray,
Drug Crazy
(1998), pp. 107–108.

45.
      Ibid.

46.
      Gray,
Drug Laws
, pp. 128–129.

47.
      Ibid., p. 128.

48.
      Lisa Curtis, “Bias Law Presents Challenges for DAs,”
News Graphic
, 5 Jan. 2006, ret.
gmtoday.com
, 24 Apr. 2007.

49.
      “National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” Fig. 5.3B, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 2010.

50.
      Cole information from Masters,
New Prohibition
, p. 31.

51.
      Randy “Duke” Cunningham, “A Call to Arms Against Youth Drug Abuse,”
San Diego Union-Tribune
, 24 Sep. 1996.

52.
      Bill Murphy, “Son of Lawmaker Sentenced to Prison,”
San Diego Union-Tribune
, 18 Nov. 1998.

53.
      Besides chronic impotence and constipation, opiate addiction is “minimally injurious.” Gahlinger,
Illegal Drugs
, p. 382.

54.
      Lance Morrow, “Kids and Pot,”
Time
, 9 Dec. 1996.

55.
      Jacob Sullum,
Saying Yes
(2003), pp. 18–19.

56.
      Following two paragraphs from Kitty Kelley,
Family
(2004), pp. 266, 301, 302, 575.

57.
      Gavin Edwards, “Ashton Kutcher,”
Rolling Stone
, 29 May 2003.

58.
      Kelley,
Family
, pp. 303–304.

59.
      Ibid., pp. 578–579.

60.
      Jacob Sullum, “Bummer.”
Reason
, Oct. 2011, and Barack Obama,
Dreams from My Father
(1996), p. 93.

61.
      Gene Healy, “President Obama’s War on His Own ‘Youthful Irresponsibility,”
Washington Examiner
, 25 May 2010.

62.
      Sullum, “Bummer.”

63.
      Tim Dickinson, “Obama’s War on Pot,”
Rolling Stone
, 1 Mar. 2012.

64.
      Sullum, “Bummer.”

65.
      Paul Armentano, “Incarceration Nation,”
AlterNet.org
, 15 Sep. 2010, ret. 7 Apr. 2012.

66.
      Ted Carpenter,
Bad Neighbor Policy
(2003), pp. 142–144.

67.
      James Gray,
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed
(2001), p. 88.

68.
      Carpenter,
Bad Neighbor Policy
, p. 140.

69.
      Ibid., p. 147.

70.
      Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Cesar Gaviria (Colombia), and Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), “Drugs: The Debate Goes Mainstream,”
HuffingtonPost.com
, 9 Apr. 2012.

71.
      Bill Masters, ed.,
New Prohibition
(2004), p. 56.

72.
      Ibid., p. 47.

73.
      Gray,
Drug Laws
, p. 42.