NORML: Decriminalizing Pot Will Reduce Prison Population, Have No Adverse Impact On Public Safety, Study Says

[thebonobo]

Washington, DC: Decriminalizing so-called ‘victimless’ crimes, particularly those related to drug use, can reduce the US prison population without adversely affecting public safety, according to the findings of a study published this week by the JFA Institute, a Washington, DC criminal-justice think tank.

“According to the US Department of Justice, approximately 30-40 percent of all current prison admissions involve crimes that have no direct or obvious victim other than the perpetrator,” the report finds. “The drug category constitutes the largest offense category, with 31 percent of all prison admissions resulting from such crimes.”

Previous data released last year by the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses.

The report states, “[V]iolence that surrounds drug trafficking in the United States is largely absent” in Western European countries that have liberalized their drug possession policies. The authors further note that the decriminalization of drugs, particularly marijuana, in regions that have enacted such reforms has not been associated with an increase in crime rates.

The report speculates that decriminalizing illicit drugs, along with enacting modest reforms in sentencing and parole, would save taxpayers an estimated $20 billion per year and reduce the prison population from 1.5 million to below 700,000.

Currently, more than 1.5 million Americans are serving time in state and federal prisons, up from fewer than 200,000 in 1970. (Another 750,000 Americans are incarcerated in local jails.) Yet, despite this increase in incarceration, the US crime rate today is approximately the same as it was in the early 70s, when the prison boom began.

A previous JFA report, commissioned for the NORML Foundation in 2005, concluded that depenalizing minor marijuana possession offenses would not increase marijuana use and would enable law enforcement to reallocate criminal justice resources toward addressing more serious crimes.

Link

[kerMingle]

I think that what is stated here is interesting. While I am not personally a marijuana user, I feel that it should be legal and I feel it would be legal if there was a good way of taxing it. I feel that it being illegal makes it a gateway drug allowing our youth to associate with people who do some of the harder drugs.

This brings me to my question: Is there a line that needs to be drawn between what drugs should be legal? Speed and heroin are extremely damaging drugs. The first time heroin is taken the user become physically addicted. Speed damages the body beyond compare. How do we handle the health care costs associated with the people using these very dangerous drugs?

[Cynthia]

Actually, there is no such thing as a drug that instantly addicts a person. Addiction is a physiological process which takes time to occur in the body. The cells need to become habituated to the presence of the drug, so you will always see tolerance before you see physical addiction in the body.

There is, of course, 'mental addiction', which is a somewhat fractious debate in and of itself. A pleasurable experience that we seek to repeat, like sex.
NYT article on addiction
Stanton Peele

The current definition for addiction in the DSM-IV is an uncontrolled compulsive behavior that leads to harm of the person engaged in it. So, if you can spend each weekend drunk without losing your job, destroying your body, or destroying your family then you could be called a compulsive drinker but you're not an addict.

So, heroin, which is definitely addictive is not the instant gateway into a life of stealing TVs and mugging drunks that is so vividly imagined in the popular mind. William Burroughs said that it takes about six months of steady regular use (3-4 days per week) to develop a strong physical dependence to heroin. (Which would give you the life-long compulsions/temptations to relapse that we imagine.) [These figures are highly debatable in themselves; but to give you one knowledgeable persons opinions on the subject.]

WRT 'speed', which is slang for amphetamines/methamphetamines, they're not 'drugs of doom' either. These are the drugs that initially started out as 'diet drugs' which doctors used to prescribe to overweight people. They're perennially popular with the type-A personality set as they make you feel mentally sharp and full of energy--not dissimilar to cocaine. Many of the drugs doctors prescribe today to treat ADHD are in fact descendants of this family of drugs. (Ritalin for instance)

The problem with the drug debate as it is defined in the US currently is that it is not as simple and clear-cut as we make it out to be. The blanket statement 'Drugs are bad.' is simply not accurate or helpful as a policy prescription. Even heroin has medical uses as a strong painkiller much like morphine. And the popularity of crystal meth probably stems more from the fact that it is cheap to make and easily synthesized from relatively common chemicals. Although a friend of mine who used to be addicted to it did say that 'If you enjoy having sex for hours on end then you might enjoy crystal meth.' So it's appeal is clearly not strictly limited to the mundane concerns of manufacture.

On the whole, I am of the opinion, that this problem is not going to go away. That past government 'education' initiatives have lead to a great deal of misinformation; which prevents rational discussions about the nature of drugs. And that, this situation is very unfortunate as real people are hurt by these policies. And that these same policies have had an extremely corrosive effect on our government, civic life and justice system.

Your question about a line in sand represents a canard IMO. The real debate should be about whether the punitive approach which we've used for the last 40 years has helped or hurt. And whether it is time to try something else.

To that end, I would propose regulating marijuana like alcohol at the very least. And, frankly, the rest of the drugs should be legalized too. As we could deal a major blow to --huge-- funding sources of illegal activity with the legalization of poppy/coca production in countries like Columbia and Afghanistan. With that out of the way we could begin to address the actual harms of drug abuse instead of the legal harms that we currently add to the problem. Not to mention the huge cost savings to US tax payers for de-funding this 40 year war on drugs.

[Gary F. Moraco]

Are these prisons not financed by corporate entities?What do they call themselves"entropymanures"?Leave the quality controls to me I'll grow some good medicine for myself.

[Spanky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHjiZg97yRA

[Rachael]

alright, let's do it!
Regarding the line between what drugs should and should not be legal, I think that with the decriminalization of "natural" drugs (in my mind, it is a fuzzy line, but if it is grown in people's closets and not synthesized on people's stoves, that would be an ok line I think for a start) society would take a substantial turn for the better in terms of the demand for such damaging substances. I think the situation would have to be allowed to settle and then reassess the need for further reforms after each drug or class of drugs was decriminalized. Plus, with all that money we'd be saving by not persecuting and jailing people who haven't hurt anyone, we could afford the health care, education, etc. so much more easily.

[Jamie Roberts]

The drug war won't end until people are as fed up with it as the war in Iraq and even then there's no guarantee b/c we're still in Iraq now. Too many people have too much money invested in the prison-industrial complex. This has to begin with neighborhood mobilization against heavy-handed police activity and a commitment to confront the drug-war head-on as being a war against the people that is in violation of the Bill of Rights.

[Spanky]

I agree. The same conservatives that rattle their swords for the war in Irag are the ones that support the war on drugs. It's all based on fear and money. They hold fear over the masses and generate millions in revenue for it.

Think about how the economy and the safety of everyone will deteriorate if will let those evil pot smokers out of prison. It is a money machine for the prison-industrial complex.......

[Shukrata Ipekileghen]

While I tend to agree with decriminalizing some drugs, lets not forget that drugs can be considered amoral. It is what people do under the influence that screws them up. A big push towards educating and not scaring people would be ideal.

Drugs can be fun and in certain cases can lead to "AH HAH" moments in some people. As Leary stated, Set and Setting and lets not forget a persons overall mental state. Social responsibility must be present, I think, for our society to be mature enough to handle decriminalized drugs.

[Mike(DELTA)]

If we gave marijuana the same guidelines as alcohol of tobacco I think we'd be ok and begin to limit the supply to kids, and cut off that nice juicy cash flow to criminals. I feel we already have the social responsibility needed, however that said there are dumb people pretty much everywhere.

As for other drugs....if they are produced in a lab they tend to be far more addictive than plant produced drugs, like thc and Psilocybin. In my opinion if it requires processing to make it more potent then it shouldn't be available.

Oh and one more thing, if you need a reference for drug info use this website. It has everything you could possibly want to know about most drugs.

http://www.erowid.org/

[Logan]

"Public safety" : a neat catch phrase for the implementation of propaganda drives to make everyone 'afraid'. C'mon, hasn't 'public safety' been used repeatedly in the war on the people? OMG ITS A MAN SMOKING A JOINT, WE'RE ALL DOOOOOMED!!!!

The Cannabis plant should be completely legal in all of it's capacities and resources, period. There is no truly justifiable reason to keep it from public use both in industry and leisure.

If looking at the leisure aspect in relation to safety, please compare it to alcohol. http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/32/

I imagine that there are at least a few policy makers and law enforcement tilting one back at this very moment. Safety my butt.

[monada]

well? do you fell that the problem realy is drugs enforcement?(i mean that is a little esoteric isn't it?).
i believe that it is a good example to a bigger problem . and if we will promote Little issues we will be a little community with a small leverage . there is bigger picture. do the government/law has the right to protect the individual's from therm self's? and does the law reflects the will of the individual's ? or maybe it has become a tool that function's as an social ( economic) equilibrium protector, that is driven by the interest of a system that has no single operator (there is no big brother people!) but a nature to keep it self in balance and in a productive growth. we have to show that there is an alternative so people might question there social perception