And our present policy is directly responsible for medical doctors being unable to prescribe appropriate medications for their patients who are either in pain or are suffering from a number of devastating diseases. If there is any universal agreement in any area of drug policy, it is that the education of our young and our not so young people is critically important in combating drug abuse, and that to an appreciable degree for non-addicted users, it works. Social pressure is another effective deterrent to drug abuse, as is drug treatment, which has been determined by the Rand Corp. in a 1994 study to be seven times more effective than drug prosecution, even for addicted drug users. It may be that the recently documented increased use of marijuana by teenagers, and the frustration and resignation shown by their parents, has resulted from less emphasis upon drug education. If so, maybe we should at least consider investing our increasingly scarce resources where they will be most productive, instead of routinely continuing to spend enormous and never-ending tax dollars on the incarceration of nonviolent drug users.
All responsible citizens understand the necessity of holding people accountable for their actions.
However, our citizens are becoming increasingly aware that the criminal justice system is simply not able to make meaningful progress in this area because of the obscene profits to be made in selling illegal drugs. As a result, thousands of Americans such as Dr. Milton Friedman, former Secretary of State George Shultz, Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore and former San Jose Chief of Police Joseph McNamara have signed a resolution calling for the investigation of change by a neutral commission. There is wide support for the investigation of change-our present policy simply will not stand scrutiny. We are the ones who elect our governmental officers, so the responsibility for their silence and inaction is ours to bear. However, this can be changed.