Eight Steps to Effectively Controlling Drug Abuse And the Drug Market

The United States has been fighting a losing war against drugs for decades. Budgets have increased dramatically over the last two decades and drug-related incarcerations consistently reach new records yet drug problems worsen: adolescent drug abuse is increasing, overdose deaths are at record levels, heroin and cocaine are cheaper, more pure and more available than ever before, and health problems related to drugs, especially the spread of HIV/AIDS are mounting. Meanwhile an expensive and ineffective international counter narcotics policy entails growing human rights and environmental costs. Drug problems can be reduced at less cost if we change course and adopt strategies that work. At a time when the federal budget is limited programs need to be re-evaluated. Funding needs to go to programs that work. We need new ideas to save lives – we can't afford to continue to be wrong.

Below are eight steps that are effective methods of controlling drugs and reducing drug-related harms. (To download a copy of this as a PDF, click here.)
1. Shift Resources Into Programs That Work 2. Make Treatment Available on Request Like Any Other Health Service
3. Prevent Drug Abuse By Investing in American Youth and Providing Them with Accurate Information 4. Focus Law Enforcement Resources on the Most Dangerous and Violent Criminals
5. International Drug Control Efforts Should Be Demilitarized and Focus on Economic Development 6. Restore Justice to the US Justice System
7. Respect State's Rights and Allow New Approaches to Be Tried 8. Make Prevention of HIV and Other Blood Borne Diseases a Top Priority

Shift Resources Into Programs That Work: US drug control strategy has been approached primarily as a law enforcement issue. Police have done their jobs with record arrests, drug seizures and record incarceration of drug offenders yet drug problems continue to worsen. Expensive eradication and interdiction campaigns abroad have brought few results and many costs. Two-thirds of the federal drug control budget continues to go to incarceration, interdiction and law enforcement programs while treatment, prevention, research and education divide the remaining third. Government needs to accept that the law enforcement paradigm will never work and shift to treating drug abuse as a health problem with social and economic implications. The solutions are in public health approaches which focus on addicts and abusers – not all users – as well as social services to reduce many of the root causes of abuse, economic strategies to develop alternative markets and also control drug markets. The federal drug budget should recognize this by shifting resources to prevention, treatment and education. p Make Treatment Available on Request Like Any Other Health Service: Making treatment services widely available undermines the drug market and reduces the harms from drug abuse. Treatment needs to be defined broadly to not only include abstinence-based treatment but also easier access to methadone and other alternative maintenance drugs. In addition it is important to provide mental health treatment, as well as services for victims of sexual abuse, spousal abuse and child abuse in order to resolve the underlying causes of addiction. Treatment also needs to be user friendly, i.e. designed to meet the needs of special populations, especially women, children and minorities. Finally, it needs to be focused on abusers and addicts rather than all drug users. The best way to accomplish this distinction is to allow people who need treatment to choose it, rather than law enforcement choosing treatment for people who happen to get caught. Prevent Drug Abuse By Investing in American Youth and Providing Them with Accurate Information: The most effective way to prevent adolescent drug abuse is to invest in youth and keep them interested and involved in life. Government should increase funding for after school programs, mentor programs, skills building/job training programs and summer job programs. The Higher Education Act provisions denying college aid to students convicted of drug offenses should be repealed as barriers to education and employment are counterproductive to preventing drug abuse. Education needs to be fact-based, accurate and taught by trained educators and health professionals, not by police. Resources should be shifted away from ineffective programs like the ONDCP media campaign and the DARE program and toward research to develop more effective drug education approaches and programs to keep youth active. Focus Law Enforcement Resources on the Most Dangerous and Violent Criminals: Half of drug arrests in the United States are for marijuana offenses and possession cases. Low-level, non-violent drug-using offenders dominate police time, waste the time of courts and fill US prisons. The drug war has resulted in record-breaking prison populations giving the US the highest incarceration rate in the world. Arrest and incarceration also have a devastating impact on individuals and families. The focus of the federal government in drug enforcement should be large cases that cross international and state boundaries. Smaller cases that are intra state should be left to the states. Law enforcement should stop wasting its limited resources on simple possession charges. Small-time dealers who essentially sell to support their habit should be given the choice of treatment instead of prison. Drug offenders, particularly marijuana, should be the lowest law enforcement priority while violent criminals should be priority number one. All correctional systems in the US should be less restrictive in granting parole to bona fide nonviolent drug prisoners at review time, less restrictive in granting compassionate release and less restrictive in allowing family visits. These modest changes would give prisoners a motive for good behavior to earn their way out of prison and back to their families and communities. International Drug Control Efforts Should Be Demilitarized and Focus on Economic Development: Focus international drug control efforts on economic development to undermine the incentives for producing drugs and rely on civilian institutions, not militaries, for eradication and interdiction. We must get serious about alternative development initiatives for drug-producing regions with community-based programs including attention to marketing so farmers have real choices. The US must stop all aerial fumigation programs because of their unacceptable environmental and human costs. Law enforcement aid should be channeled where it belongs, through police and other civilian institutions rather than the military. Human rights concerns must be attended to in all international drug control programs. Finally we must recognize that reducing demand at home is the most effective international strategy because supplies will develop as long as there is a demand. Restore Justice to the US Justice System: Drug enforcement is racially unfair at every stage of the justice system. Police profiling of communities and individuals consistently favors whites, as does prosecutorial discretion. False testimony by police to justify searches and convict suspects is too widespread. We must acknowledge the racial unfairness, document it and make it illegal to restore justice. Sentencing discretion must be returned to judges by repealing mandatory minimum sentencing at the state and federal level and by making the Sentencing Guidelines discretionary. The disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing has also had a racially unfair impact. End the disparity in crack and powder sentencing by reducing crack sentences to the same as cocaine powder. Respect State's Rights and Allow New Approaches to Be Tried: The Federal government should work with states. State-initiated reforms have included treatment instead of prison, medical use of marijuana, marijuana decriminalization and stopping abuse of forfeiture laws. The federal government has opposed many of these reforms and taken steps to block them from being implemented. Yet the states are laboratories for new approaches that should be tried and if effective duplicated in other parts of the United States. Make Prevention of HIV and Other Blood Borne Diseases a Top Priority: HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis-C and other blood borne diseases are rapidly spread through the sharing of contaminated syringes. Needle exchange and syringe deregulation have been shown to be effective ways to reduce the spread of disease without increasing drug abuse. Also these services often lead to reductions in drug abuse by getting hard-core users into treatment.