Today marks the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s declaration of “war on drugs”, a quagmire that has proven far more expensive and deadly than the Vietnam War that he inherited. Put simply, the war on drugs is an ongoing decision to address America’s drug problem as a fundamentally criminal, rather than for example a medical, one. This means that low-level distribution and even possession of certain drugs can land you in prison for surprisingly long periods of time, particularly if you happen to be poor and/or non-White.
Needless to say, mass incarceration has done little to stem the tide of drug use and distribution. Many argue that it has in fact made the problem worse in many ways:
1. Connecting Criminals: One plausible explanation for the globalization of the drug trade was the war on drugs’ simultaneous imprisonment of large numbers of African-American and Latino-American gang members. The connections they made in prison gave the African-American gangs access to suppliers in Latin America and the Latin American gangs access to a distribution network in the inner cities. In other words, more effective criminals were created.
2. Destroying Employment: It is extremely difficult for ex-convicts to find well-paying jobs. Drug dealers are often the only people willing to hire them, making it difficult to leave the trade even for those who would prefer to do so.
3. Destroying Families and Communities: A staggering percentage of men in certain neighborhoods are imprisoned on drug related charges. This means more single-parent households and more children growing up without adequate supervision and without positive male role models.
Michel Foucault, French philosopher and namesake for this blog, considers the problem of prisons in Discipline and Punish. He argues that even at the inception of the prison system there were people who knew that they would not prevent crime. Why, then, were they built anyway, and why do we continue to rely upon them? Why does the US spend $40 billion a year on a “war” it cannot win?
The most immediate answer is that politicians are cowards. They are, perhaps not without reason, afraid of being branded “soft on crime” if they suggest a different approach to dealing with drugs. There are some former politicians who have spoken out against the war on drugs, but few candidates or current leaders.
We should ask who benefits from this war, though. One possible answer is law enforcement agencies whose budgets are bolstered by anti-drug funds, but even many of them are calling for an end.
The whole thing made no sense to me until I realized what a big business prisons are. Many prisons in the US are operated by private, for-profit contractors who are paid by the head. More prisoners equal more money for them, and they spend millions on lobbying every year.
Interestingly, the towns that house prisons can also benefit. In addition to jobs in construction and prison operation, they are sometimes allowed to count prisoners towards their population for the purpose of allocating seats in legislative bodies and receiving state and federal funds.
Many people in the American poker community are outraged by recent Department of Justice actions that adversely affect our interests. I have seen many argue that prosecuting poker sites is a waste of government resources. That may be true, but there are many more government resources being spent to even greater harm in this disastrous War on Drugs. Let’s not get so caught up in our own problems that we lose all sense of perspective.
The harm inflicted upon our country by this failed policy is incalculable. I’m not pro-drug use, but I am convinced that this “war” is only making the problem worse. It has gone on for far too long, and it’s time for a new approach.
Very well said sir. This is why I love your blog… not only are you a great player who always has thoughtful things to say about the game, but you’re able to put together a strong cogent argument about complicated situations outside the game.
The USA needs to get its priorities straight, who do we need to bomb to lower the price of coffe(in)e now?
I don’t think it’s much of a secret that the war on drugs has not been successful. At this point, this is a matter of fact and not of opinion.
The problem as I see it aren’t the private prison lobbies, though those may exist and may or may not have appreciable influence.
It’s just that quite simply, there is no expedient alternative. As a politician, what do you do? Tell people that you will legalize marijuana and other softer drugs so they can be sold in designated stores, or at 7-11? What about heroin? Legalize that too? It’s impossible to do. And if legalization is not the answer, then what is? What exactly is the alternative for a politician to champion in the next election?
The only possible solution is a long-term strategy of education about the detrimental effects of serious narcotics, phased-in legalization of non-harmful substances (such as marijuana), and reasonable restrictions on use (only in certain venues, at certain times, etc) that allow individuals a choice but do not allow that choice to affect the lives of others. And a concerted effort to stamp out production and importation of the truly dangerous substances.
But that will not happen because it is difficult and takes more than 4 years to show results. Oh – and hello, puritan history! The gift that keeps on giving.
The alternative is to make it legal and tax the hell out of it.
Make it legal and more expensive.
Nice post Andrew.
Like many government programs, a well-intentioned idea turned into a national nightmare. You highlighted many of the problems of our drug policy, but one growing problem is Civil Asset Forfeiture. If the government suspects you of drug crimes, it can take your property, regardless of whether it ever charges you with the crime. That ought to scare even the most ardent moralist.
The militarization of local police forces is another result of the drug war.
Very sad state of affairs. Thanks for shining your light on the issue.
Russ
Nice post. It is good to read about Foucault as I must admit to not having read him in depth. Anyways, I think the industrial interests and politician incentives are obviously very good explanatory factors for the current phenomenon. But so is the ‘morality’ inherent in western culture and perhaps more prevalent historically in America (I don’t think accepting this as a factor necessarily diminishes the impact of the ones you listed). Belief in imprisonment for the purpose of punishment as a justification in and of itself seems to me an essentially religious idea. Though there is sometimes a correlation between being punished (in some abstract way) and self-correcting behaviours, I think we can agree that the American prison system vis-a-vis drug use and trafficking is not one of them.
It is worth asking the question, why do we imprison people at all for nonviolent crimes? Prisons serve a function Mill would approve of under the ‘harm’ principle (You can have boundless freedom so long as you don’t harm others). When someone violates this principle their right to freedom is rescinded by the state, leviathan, etc. So we find a neat little loop that the state is now empowered to imprison such people, and conveniently, this removes the threat they pose to others.
But when their crime does no violence, and imprisonment has no corrective benefits, then we can see the reasons for imprisonment are to serve industrial interests yes, but in the court of public opinion and stump speeches to also satisfy some inertia powered moral intuition about the necessity of sin-cleansing. When you consider things like the three strike rule in the context of such a complex socio-economic phenomenon it should become clear just how inept, or ill-equipped, law-makers are regarding the topic. I mean, it sort of goes without saying that politicians are very inept and ill-equipped in general, so when they are particularly ill-equipped to deal with a problem the solution is often going to look like that of a kindergarten teacher’s (three strikes you’re out!)
I don’t know if Foucault discusses that idea but seems to me the way things are set up its just one big feedback loop. They are the way they are because that’s the way they have been before. Not necessarily because of some power structure’s agency and dominion per se, just because some real world phenomenon work that way.