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Schmoke Op-Ed

April 14th, 2008 | 19 Comments

Baltimore’s Ex-Mayor Lays Out The Next President’s Best Possible Drug Policy:

“A different commander-in-chief will soon assume leadership of the War on Drugs. Let’s hope that a new leader will implement a new strategy, because for nearly a century now–following the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914–America’s War on Drugs has been seen primarily as a criminal justice problem.”

(Via The New Republic Politics.)

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  • Mike

    LEGALIZE IT

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    I agree. But I’m troubled by the “hard” drugs like cocaine or heroin. Surely these are damaging enough to warrant concern. Is the “invisible hand” enough to moderate consumption? Or do we need significant government oversight? If the latter, what kind and how invasive?

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    Well, in the government’s defense, who could have predicted that prohibition of something would lead to an increase in both organized crime and demand for the banned substance? I mean, politicians aren’t just a bunch of pandering hypocrites who ingratiate themselves to self-righteous totalitarians by allowing draconian punishments for activities that they have admittedly participated in. I disagree though that it should be considered a public health issue. People want to get high (drunk, laid, whatever) because their lives are a big fucking disappointment. That’s not sickness, it’s just reality.

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    Arguably, however, the widespread use of drugs could lead to long-term health problems — which we, as a nation, then treat via medicare or Emergency Room visits. Thus, its perhaps less a public health issue than one of policy. The same argument is put forward about smoking: are we as a country obligated to pay for your cancer treatment because your dumbass smokes?

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    Hard drugs? Ever met an alcoholic? They make bang-up parents, smashing drivers and staggering intellects. So we suspend their licenses if they drive drunk, tax the hell out their drug and give tax-breaks to AA. Problem solved? Well, not really, life can still be a drag (better acknowledge that higher power) but bigger problem averted (i.e. another few hundred thousand American citizens wasting my tax money, finding God and shanking each other in prison).

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    Good point. Not sure it address the substance of the policy dilemma so much as points out the absurdity of the current system.

    Back to my original question: what, if any, regulations should accompany a general legalization of drugs?

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    I’ve heard that lovable canard about unhealthy people costing more, and it’s always from people trying to legislate against something they don’t like other people doing. A recent Dutch study suggests that it’s not true, since obese people and smokers die young and don’t require the 30 or so years of post-retirement preventative care that the healthier of us require. Anyway, why not regulate drugs like alcohol? People who don’t want to destroy themselves will continue not doing drugs. People who don’t give a shit and just wanna get fucked up all the time will continue not giving a shit and getting fucked up all the time. Kids who wanna be badasses and break the law will have to try a little harder. Meanwhile, prison space will be more available for them. Government gets an incredible surge in tax revenue, still manages to squander it all. I don’t see the problem here.

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    I agree in broad terms. I guess I just think “regulated like alcohol” is pretty vague. Would the government sell cocaine from special druggeries? What kind of oversight would we require to ensure safe needles or to prevent overdoses? How would we transition from illegal to legal (without, for example, unwittingly rewarding the brutal latin american drug cartels that currently supply the market)?

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    Sure, go down to your local government-run cocainery in the bad part of town (doubt you’ll find them in strip malls), pay your $5 (+75% tax) and get that sweet nose candy. Sure, the service will be comparable to the DMV, but at least you won’t get shot. What kind of oversight to prevent overdoses? I recommend a warning be placed on all bags of cocaine that states “Surgeon General Warning: Doing too much cocaine can kill you or make you really annoying, but you probably don’t give a shit because, well, you’re doing cocaine.” We could probably shorten that to a picture. You’re right about the safe needles thing though, because the last thing anyone could imagine is an AIDS epidemic among IV-drug users. Unwittingly rewarding the brutal Latin American drug cartels would certainly weigh on the collective American conscience. And I’m sure people would revolt at the idea that our country’s legalized drug use was supporting terrorist groups in Afghanistan, drug cartels in Latin America and Marlo Stanfield on the westside. But, crazy thought here, maybe, if you don’t have to be a murderous criminal to be involved in a trade and we remove the absurdly over-inflated profit margins (these are mostly freaking weeds we’re talking about), then said trade will be taken over by the usual self-obsessed, Type-A douchebags who successfully run every other legal but sketchy enterprise in the world. I mean, yeah, they’ll probably come up with some needle-themed cartoon character to target inner-city youth, but at least they won’t be gunning each other down on the streets.

    Or perhaps we could up our funding to the brutal foreign regimes and paramilitary groups that we train to fight them.

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    Bottom Line: Legalization despite certain risks, hugely outweighs the current expenditure of money and manpower to stop the drug trade.

    I was about to write: “it might even decrease crime…” Do we think this? Will low-income, drug-ridden neighborhoods become safer? I can see that perhaps violent turf battles and open-air drug markets will cease, but there would still be the petty crime aimed at that $5 score.

    Does drug policy have a moral obligation to consider its effects on disadvantaged citizens?

  • Mike

    It’s pretty tough to make the jump from Marijuana being legal, and coke and smack doing the same. We pretty much already have a distribution infrastructure for a recreational drug that can’t really kill you outright (like cigarettes/alcohol). Harder drugs are more inherently dangerous, and as such couldn’t really be sold in the same way. I think in holland, or wherever heroin is decriminalized, to get it legally you have to let them shoot you up safely, and dispose of the needle. It’s not like you get a baggie and the CVS guy is all “Have fun riding the snake! come back and see us again!” The first time someone’s precious snowflake pops their heart, it would all come crumbling down like big tobacco. warning labels don’t really stop anyone, because there’s always some lawyer to say it wasn’t clear enough, and young chad is a victim.

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    “Does drug policy have a moral obligation to consider its effects on disadvantaged citizens?”

    I hadn’t really thought about that, but you’re right, if we legalize drugs, poor peoples’ neighborhoods might suddenly become hotbeds of drug activity. Entire parts of the city could become de facto war zones while youth gangs fight over drug-doing turf. We might even end up with 1% of our population in jail, mostly poor, 20% on charges associated with legally doing drugs. Yeah, we should stick to our current moral policies before we lose the moral high ground and have a crisis on our hands.

    “I can see that perhaps violent turf battles and open-air drug markets will cease, but there would still be the petty crimed aimed at that $5 score.”

    Well I’m sure poor people, being naturally bullet-proof but extremely protective of their $5 (they are poor), would share your ambivalence.

    Alcohol can’t kill you outright? American Scientist disagrees, though IV heroin presents the most dangerous (read: awesomest) risk of OD. Also, cigarettes? Yeah, responsible for <a href=”http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/factsheets/cig_smoking_mort.htm 1 in 5 American deaths . That’s 400K people. That’s like 1,000 Iraq Wars every fucking year (or 1 Iraq War if you’re Iraqi).

    “it would all come tumbling down like big tobacco”
    If by tumbling down, you mean continuing to make billions of dollars, despite being responsible for millions of American deaths (and in 20 years, probably billions of Chinese) then get me on that rock slide, ah’ma ride it to millionaire cowboy hell, yeehaw!

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    “I hadn’t really thought about that, but you’re right, if we legalize drugs, poor peoples’ neighborhoods might suddenly become hotbeds of drug activity. Entire parts of the city could become de facto war zones while youth gangs fight over drug-doing turf. We might even end up with 1% of our population in jail, mostly poor, 20% on charges associated with legally doing drugs. Yeah, we should stick to our current moral policies before we lose the moral high ground and have a crisis on our hands.”

    – I had no idea you cared enough to be so causticly sarcastic. Either you think I’m ignorant of the current situation or you think I’m a moron. The point is whether legalizing drugs is the magic bullet solution for disadvantaged citizens–probably not. So if we do support legalizing drugs, what problems might that cause (even admitting it solves other problems, such as the ones you painted so pointedly); and what obligations it imposes on policy makers? Certainly we think government should act in the interests of its citizens; this is why we want to reform the system to begin with. So, then, smarty-pants-McGatsum what does that mean in a world of legalized drugs?

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    Me neither. Weird. But I don’t think you’re a moron, you’re just …um … being kinda white. Also, I was up all night studying, so I’m pretty much just writing on delirium. With that in mind, it’s not a matter of a magic bullet solution for the disadvantaged (though let me tell you about another man who had a plan like that … ) because this country could give two shits about the disadvantaged, except for the occasional third world types that let us hang out in their backyards and blow up the other third-world types. You know, we’re all walking around with the most complex computing machines in existence plastered to the backs of our stupid faces and all we can do is shit all over everything and fuck and fight each other like a pack of filthy sewer rats in cheap clothes made in sweatshops by people we don’t even pretend to give a shit about, who could be engineering a space station but instead are making some knockoff shirt so I can go hang out with the other douchebags at a bar, drink my light domestic and pat myself on the back because, hey, things ain’t always easy and things ain’t always swell, but when I finally catch that ghost train ah’ma ride it to millionaire cowboy hell. I’m eating some ice cream now in the hopes that it leads to obesity and you all have to chip in to cover my extra health care costs.

  • Evan

    wgatsum please note for future reference (and everyone else) that if you are logged in while making comments you can preview the comment live and make sure your links are properly formatted.

    Christ I call out sick for one day and yall pinko commie liberal bastards start arguing like a bunch of monocle wearin’ sissies. …almost like they were…. mandatory.

    WINK WINK

  • http://lmergner.blogspot.com muke

    For the record, I am not advocating in the place of non-white people, but asking (1) what is a reasonable expectation of policy effects, and (2) whether policy-makers have ethical responsibilities towards citizens.

    The latter question is a general one, and does not need to be restricted to a colonial relationship of white bureaucrats to non-white urban ghettos.

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    1. What is a reasonable expectation of policy effects?

    The problem will get worse, the poor will suffer, the rich will profit and the middle class will complain about it until the next news cycle when something trivial outrages them even more. (see education, foreign policy, gun control, etc.)

    2. Whether policy-makers have ethical responsibilities towards citizens.

    Oh, it would be nice if they gave us a nod now and then, told us how we’re the greatest whatever in wherever, that we’re making progress because of our abstract quality and that we are a beacon of platitude for everybody somewhere else. But I’m just a simple man and I can hardly figure out my cell phone bill, much less contemplate how a free and democratic society can run a $9 trillion deficit, invade a country unprovoked while being bogged down in another endless war, support its troops by keeping them there and then not helping them when they get back, imprison 1% of its population and still suffer the worst violent crime in the industrialized world, support a bloated public education system whose inflated costs make us the envy of the small handful of countries whose students perform even worse than ours do, trash the Geneva Convention to combat terrorism, suspend civil rights to make us safer, ban smoking while subsidizing tobacco, punish drug users while prescribing amphetamines to children, and let one of our major cities become a doomsday scenario. So, um, I would argue that no, there are no actual ethical responsibilities involved with making policy, but hey kids, prove me wrong.

  • Mike

    You can’t compare the death rates of alcohol or cigarettes and smack. Smoking is the cause of 1 in 5 american deaths b/c we’ve all been puffing away for decades and the big C has caught up. One bad shoot up with heroin and you dead. you can’t tell me smoking one too many cigarettes in a night kill someone (well, it can…but it’s highly unlikely). that’s what i meant by killing people outright. Also, the amount of heroin users in the US is a mere fraction of smokers. that’s like saying more white people die than navajo, therefore a white person is more likely to die. I’m pretty sure if you take an equal amount of heroin users and cigarette smokers, the H users will die WAY faster than the smokers (get on that science…)

  • http://www.evansiple.com wgatsum

    Yeah, but you also can’t compare the benefits. Smoking a cigarette gives you a momentary reprieve from the hustle and bustle of a busy modern life (not mine, of course). You get maybe 10 minutes to contemplate the nature of reality or sketch out a five year plan, or maybe you even get a few moments at the bar to occupy your hand long enough to talk to a girl without putting it on your cock.

    Of course, good old alcohol is another matter. Depending on how much you can stand, alcohol can provide you hours of keeping your hand off your cock. Who wants his hand on his cock when everything is this fucking awesome. Fuck that bro. Ah’ma kick back, check out these sexy little ladies, shit, maybe even chat ‘em up a little. What’s that? Yeah, I’m unemployed, but it’s all good, because I saved my cash and moved in with my parents. Why the the fuck not right? You only live once and ahm gonna live this one the fuck up. So tell me about you. Before you know it, I’ll be back at my folks’ house knocking plaster off the walls I mean shit I’m hard as fuck I can’t cum to save my life and this chick is panting like a race horse so I know I’m the fucking man. Yeah, gonna spend the morning on my knees at the porcelain altar, but it’s cool because my stomach ran out of contents hours ago and all that’s coming out is bile and mucous. Thankfully my hands reek of puke because I thought I would I would never get that girl stink from under my finger nails. I’ll swear I’m done with this, but it will only be a matter of days.

    But now let me tell you this, pal, and you fucking listen. When the beast gets his fangs in you, you’d chase that dragon to the goddamn gates of hell, being savaged by legions of flaming stone cocks to keep that ride going. Every velvet breath is a purple chorus of ecstasy and the heavens open up and trouble is a fable that old people tell. A billowy sea beckons and the rocket explodes! And Sweet Jesus! you’re a goddamn hero of the underworld and red eagles are pouring fairy dust down like snowflakes and you know you ain’t never gonna see the moon glare like that and your white horse streaks through shreds of midnight, decimating stars like wisdom, crushing back a universe, the deafening screech, hammering, mad and ever spinning outward. Life is flames and love is plains and there ain’t no dead or alive here because dead and alive don’t mean nothing to the dark and he’s got two more in the back just like them, fire and ice, he says. Alone in a gentle brilliance and ribbons of pulsing slide down our eyes. Lights been on all night but we don’t need it anymore and you feel your breathing, the itch of the fine hairs on your torso. You start to sense yourself from the inside, a buzzing in your head, the sag of your gut, the weight of your being. Daylight skulks in the corner, peers through beams from the flapping blinds and threatens to make us see.