From: Christic Institute <christic@igc.org>
Subject: CAUSES & CURES: FACTS ON DRUG WAR
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:49:58 GMT

/* Written 12:44 pm  Apr  8, 1992 by christic in cdp:christic.news */
/* ---------- "CAUSES & CURES: FACTS ON DRUG WAR" ---------- */
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CAUSES AND CURES: FACTS ABOUT THE WAR ON DRUGS

Christic Institute, Washington, D.C., April 8, 1992

                            *    *    *

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE WAR ON DRUGS

In 1970, the federal government spent about 44 percent of its
anti-drug money on law enforcement and interdiction. By 1991, the
percentage claimed by law enforcement had swollen to 68.3 percent. 

The prison population in the United States has tripled in the last
ten years. Today the incarceration rate in the United States is the
highest in the world at 426 per 100,000--even higher than South
Africa at 333. This increase in the prison population is for the
most part the result of drug-related crime.

But the strategy of jailing small-time users and dealers is not
working. Violent crime--including drug-related crime--increased by
10 percent from 1990 to 1991. Addiction to illegal drugs has
increased by 30 percent since the ``War on Drugs'' was proclaimed.

The federal prison population is expected to nearly double again by
1995, with the percentage of drug offenders increasing from 47
percent to 70 percent. The average cost of keeping a drug offender
in a federal prison for one year is $50,000. The cost of treating
a
drug addict for one year is between $3,000 and $15,000.

A total of 92 percent of those arrested for crack possession were
black while 85 percent arrested for possession of powder cocaine
were white. Crack penalties are extremely severe, however, while
penalties for cocaine possession are relatively lenient.
Distribution of five grams of crack, worth about $125 on the
street, results in a five-year mandatory sentence. A white dealer
or user would need to possess 500 grams of powder cocaine, worth
about $50,000, to earn the same sentence.

                            *    *    *

TREATMENT AND PREVENTION

In 1970, drug treatment, prevention and education claimed 56
percent of the federal drug budget, but only 27.2 percent in 1991.

According to estimates from the National Association of State
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, over 5 million women were turned
away from treatment in 1989--250,000 of whom were pregnant. Less
than 1 in every 100 drug treatment facilities provide the child and
obstetric care needed to treat addicted mothers and pregnant women.

Treatment is available for only one-fourth of drug addicts in
prison, meaning that 300,000 addicts who have served time since the
``War on Drugs'' was proclaimed have been, or soon will be,
released into the population without any opportunity to cure their
addiction.

                            *    *    *

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CAUSES

Between 1980 and 1988, the number of Americans living in poverty
increased by 23 percent from 26 million to 32 million. In 1990 the
income share of the richest fifth of the United States population
was the highest ever recorded, while the share of the poorest fifth
had fallen to its lowest level since 1954.

Between 1979 and 1987 the nation lost more than a million
manufacturing jobs. A 1985 Field Foundation study found that one
half of all black men between the ages of 16 and 65 are chronically
unemployed.

                            *    *    *

DRUG PRODUCTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Military operations in drug-producing countries have not reduced
the supply of cocaine or heroin in the United States. The D.E.A.
reports that cocaine production in South America nearly tripled
from 1988 to 1990 and increased by another 28 percent in 1990.

Coca has become the most profitable cash crop in the Americas,
replacing even coffee as chief export. Wages in the Colombian
cocaine industry are estimated to be 10 times higher than
comparable work in the legal economy. Economic collapse in
underdeveloped countries forces peasants and workers into the drug
industry.

The U.S. State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics
Matters spends approximately 45 percent of its budget on crop
eradication, 35 percent on interdiction, and only 3.6 percent on
crop substitution and development assistance.

                            *    *    *

COVERT OPERATIONS AND DRUGS

A 1975 Government Accounting Office Study concluded that 70 percent
of all heroin smuggled into the United States and Western Europe in
1970 originated from areas ``controlled by C.I.A. mercenaries.''

The United States supplied more than $1 billion in military aid to
the fundamentalist mujahedeen guerrillas in Afghanistan. By 1991,
the New York Times reported, one in three heroin deals in the
United States originated in opium produced in regions controlled by
the mujaheddin.

In April 1989, the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on
narcotics and terrorism concluded that there was ``substantial
evidence''of drug trafficking by the Nicaraguan contras.

                            *    *    *

The Causes and Cures _Policy Report_ is available for $7. Each
section of the report is the result of work by expert panels on
covert operations, the social and economic causes of drug
addiction, and drug production in the Third World. Citations are
included. For a catalogue of books, magazines and videos on drug
trafficking, addiction and treatment, please use one of the e-mail
addresses posted below or write us at the following address:

                     Causes and Cures Campaign
                        Christic Institute
                  1324 North Capitol Street, N.W.
                      Washington, D.C. 20002
                          (202) 797-8106

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