Steven B. Duke - Americas Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs

Americas Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Americas Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...97

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

LOVE TO READ ?

LOVE GREAT SALES ?

GET FANTASTIC DEALS ON BESTSELLING EBOOKS DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX EVERY DAY!

Americas Longest War

Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs

Stephen B. Duke and
Albert C. Gross

To our children, and to the memory of Paul Reynolds

Contents

Chapter 1:
An Overview: The Greater Evil

Chapter 2:
Identifying the Enemy: Drugs, Drug Abuse, and Other Concepts

Chapter 3:
Our Most Harmful Legal Drugs

Chapter 4:
Our Most Popular Illegal Drugs

Chapter 5:
Lessons from the Past

Chapter 6:
The Crime Caused by Prohibition

Chapter 7:
Freedom Costs

Chapter 8:
Autonomy Costs

Chapter 9:
Social Costs

Chapter 10:
Health and Safety Costs

Chapter 11:
The Drug War Cannot Succeed

Chapter 12:
The Legalization Option

Chapter 13:
Forms of Legalization

Chapter 14:
A Harm Minimization Approach

Foreword

On April 25, 1988, I addressed the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in Washington, D.C. Although my speech that day was about anticrime measures in Baltimore, in a few brief paragraphs at the end I spoke about one of the most important issues facing Americathe failure of our national drug policy. In doing so, I set out to accomplish three goals: First, to call attention to the fact that the prosecution and incarceration of substance abusers will not stop either drug abuse or drug-related crime. (I learned that first hand as Baltimore States Attorney, where in spite of prosecuting thousands of drug offenders, drug trafficking and violent crime simply grew worse.) Second, to urge the American people in general, and my fellow mayors in particular (whose cities suffer the brunt of drug addiction and crime) to enter into a constructive debate about viable alternatives to the wasteful war on drugs. And third, to spark a change from our current policy of using the criminal law to fight drugs to a policy that emphasizes public health strategies.

I achieved my first objective almost as soon as I spoke to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The speech received immediate attention from the press and public. Since 1988, I have addressed numerous organizations, including law-enforcement agencies, with the simple message that the criminal law is not an effective tool against addiction and drug-related crime. On the contrary, tough laws against possession, along with mandatory minimum sentences, serve only to keep jails filled beyond capacity and the profits from illegal drugs high. And it is those profits that create the crime that is plaguing communities across our country.

My second objectivepromoting a national debate on drug policyis being achieved. In September 1988, Congress conducted hearings on the question of national drug policy. The media began taking a second look at the efficacy of the war on drugs. And over the last five years, Ive received hundreds of letters from ordinary citizens who want to add their voice to the debate.

I recognize that the national weight of opinion favors our current policy. Nevertheless, the debate that has gone on since 1988 has been useful. It has also changed some minds. Respected jurists, including federal judges, have come out in favor of changing national drug policy. A resolution calling for a new national commission to study drug policy has been signed by leaders in medicine, law, economics, and criminal justice. Thus the debate, of which this book is a part, continues and must continue, because we are not winning the war on drugs.

A December 1991 National Institute of Drug Abuse survey showed that the number of weekly cocaine users increased 29 percent in 1991. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that the total number of cocaine and heroin users is much higher than the NIDA survey indicates since the survey is based on volunteered information. In Baltimore, the number of drug addicts has remained stable at around 40,000. Another sign that the war on drugs is being lost is the increase in violent crime. Nationally, 1991 and 1992 were the most violent years ever. And 1993 is likely to be worse. Many cities had record numbers of murders, a large proportion of which were drug related. Many of the victims of these murders were simply innocent bystanders who happened to get caught in the middle of a violent battle over drug turf or money.

Where will the national drug policy debate go from here? What is needed is objective analyses of our current strategy and sensible proposals to support or refute that strategy. I, for example, strongly support a national commission to determine how all drugslegal and illegalshould be regulated. I have also formed a drug-policy working group in Baltimore to recommend harm-reduction policies. Others, including the authors of this book, are analyzing the flaws in the current system and looking for alternatives. All of this work, much of which is going on in universities and think tanks, constitutes an important contribution to the debate on national drug policy and must continue.

My third objective for my speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayorschanging national policy to a public health strategyhas not yet been achieved. This may in part be due to the fact that many people still do not understand what advocates of a public-health strategy want. A public-health strategy is an effort to treat drug abuse as a medical problem rather than a crime problem. This strategy is not legalization, that is, the sale of drugs in the private market as now occurs with alcohol and cigarettes. The term I use is medicalization. It is a policy that treats drug abuse as a disease to be handled by competent medical professionals. The government, not the criminal traffickers, would control the price, distribution, purity, and access to addictive substances. This would take most of the profits out of drug trafficking. A public-health strategy would also give drug abusers the opportunity to receive the treatment they need and would make it easier to keep drugs out of the hands of children.

Although the majority of Americans probably oppose dropping criminal sanctions against drug users, I believe there has been a gradual shift toward accepting the need for more treatment and alternatives to incarceration. This strategy is already being tried with considerable success in the Netherlands, and should be adopted in the United States as well.

In sum, even though a national public-health strategy is a long way from being adopted, the philosophical underpinnings for such an approach are gaining currency. Those underpinningsthat addiction is a disease to be treated and that criminal sanctions create far more crime than they stopare further explored in this book. I commend this book to you, as a clear and complete analysis of all the important issues in the debate. Reading it provoked my thought; I hope it will provoke yours too. Out of the debate, facilitated by this book and others, we should find a safer and more humane way to treat the devastating disease of substance abuse.

Next page

1234567...97

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Americas Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs»

Look at similar books to Americas Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Christopher M. White

The War on Drugs in the Americas

Michael Lewis

Prohibitions Greatest Myths: The Distilled Truth About Americas Anti-Alcohol Crusade

Nigel Cliff

The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama

Joseph Kelly

Americas Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery, and the Slow March Toward Civil War

Tom Quinn

The Reluctant Billionaire: The Tragic Life of Gerald Grosvenor, Sixth Duke of Westminster

Dennis John Woods

Black Flag Journals: One Soldiers Experience in Americas Longest War

Steven E. Schier

Americas Dysfunctional Political System: Stability Without Success

Peter W. Edbury

The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade (Crusade Texts in Translation)

Steven Dudley

MS-13: The Making of Americas Most Notorious Gang

Gibson

Rethinking the Future

John L. Potash [Potash

Drugs as Weapons Against Us

Steven Adler with Lawrence J. Spagnola.

My appetite for destruction : sex & drugs & Guns n Roses

Discussion, reviews of the book Americas Longest War: Rethinking Our Tragic Crusade Against Drugs and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.