End the War on Drugs
By: Right Smack In The Middle
Tags: War On Drugs, Anti War, Small Government, Criminal Justice Reform, Police Reform

The Cato Institute’s 2017 Playbook for Policymaker’s outlines what needs to be done:

Congress should:

• repeal the Controlled Substances Act of 1970; • direct the administration not to interfere with the implementation of state initiatives that allow for the recreational or medical use of marijuana; • repeal the federal mandatory minimum sentences; and • shut down the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Below is a summary of their recommendations:

Repeal the Controlled Substance Act

Congress should take the same approach with recreational drug use as it does with the consumption of alcohol. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 asserts federal jurisdiction over every drug offense in the United States. Repealing this act will give the power to regulate recreational drugs back over to individual states.

There are several reasons why the Controlled Substance Act should be repealed:

While alcohol prohibition was a constitutional amendment, there is no constitutional amendment that gives the federal government the right to regulate recreational drugs across all 50 states. Drug prohibition leads to higher crime levels. Addicts are immediately criminals who must pay for an unregulated, black-market product. Those involved in this black market are not provided legal options to settle disputes in a non-violent manner. The DEA is a misallocation of resources. Their staff would be better served to assist with counterterrorism investigations or recruited into local police departments to work on violent crime cases. The war on drugs costs taxpayers some $27 billion with little to show for it. This number continues to rise year after year. Alcohol prohibition paved the way for mobsters to make millions in the black market. Drug prohibition channels more than $40 billion a year into the hands of a criminal underworld. Drug dealing makes for a lucrative endeavor for young minority men, leading to a growth of gangs looking to make money from a black-market business. The interaction between police and minority citizens continues to rise, exacerbating racial tensions in America.

Respect State Initiatives to Regulate Recreational Drugs

Voters in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, the District of Columbia, California, Massachusetts, Maine, and Nevada approved ballot initiatives that legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. What is disheartening is the refusal to allow sick people to use marijuana as medicine. This decision should lie between patients and their doctors. More than 70% of cancer specialists stated that they would prescribe marijuana to patients if it were legal.

As of now, 29 states have authorized licensed physicians to recommend the use of medical marijuana for seriously or terminally ill patients. The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2015 sought to provide immunity against federal prosecution for individuals and businesses in states where marijuana was legalized. The bill was reintroduced in 2017 and serves as one of several pieces of legislation that seeks to amend federal marijuana policy.

Repeal Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

Mandatory minimums grant too much power to prosecutors and do not allow a judge to accurately weigh punishment based on the nature of the crime. They also transfer power to legislators and regulators who are not involved with individual cases and are not familiar with specific facts pertaining to a case. Mandatory minimums result in sentences that are grotesquely disproportionate to the gravity of offenses.

The Cato Institute provides a more nuanced argument for ending the War on Drugs, which can be read here.

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