Today in The Wall Street Journal, John Walters, former director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under Bush II, announces “Drug Legalization Isn’t the Answer.” Rising violence in Mexico and the recent report headed by three former presidents in Mexico are putting the effectiveness and cost of the War on Drugs back into the national discussion, and Walters’ op-ed unambiguously argues for the wisdom of existing policies.
From the opening paragraphs, however, the bias is clear. Walters reasonably cites statistics showing declining drug use among young people in recent years, but then proceeds to the following statement:
“For decades, we did not want to believe that alcohol or drugs could have the power to take over our lives, despite the evidence we witnessed when our loved ones grappled with drug addiction. We did not understand how this disease could alter personality and steal individual freedom.”
Who is he talking about? What reasoning person or institution has denied the existence of alcoholism and drug abuse?
He doesn’t say, but instead proceeds to a dark and vague enemy, “the powerful forces that have for decades presented drug use as thrilling and fun.”
Who are they? Again, Walters doesn’t say. Rather, he highlights the progress that has been made in the criminal justice system and the health-care system in intervening in drug use. He explains how:
“Nationwide there are more than 2,000 drug courts pushing low-level offenders to get treatment when drug use brings them into the criminal-justice system. … the criminal justice system has become the most powerful force in the country supporting addiction treatment.”
What is missing here is whether the criminal-justice system is the most effective and humane way of handling drug addiction. Are 2,000 drug courts something to brag about or something to regret?
As for the health-care system’s role, Walters says:
“Intervention is spreading in the health-care system with the prospect that screening for substance abuse will become as common as checking blood pressure for hypertension.”
This is a frightening statement, and not only because of the blithe and happy manner in which it is uttered. It used to be that conservatives regarded expansion of government into private lives as a great evil. One reason was that they understood what happens when human beings enter the government and exercise power over time. Elected and appointed officials begin to identify with the policies they design and implement. They begin to believe in their work as identical with the public good. More government power, then, means more public benefit.
Here we have a perfect illustration. That Walters can praise “substance abuse” screening becoming as common as blood pressure readings without a whisper of worry over the coerciveness of the situation and the vulnerability of the patient is a stern lesson in government psychology.
What happened to the conservative argument about Big Government when it came to the Drug War? Let’s remember that the Drug War is, indeed, a government program, an immensely costly one. Forty years ago, the neoconservative movement gained steam by applying solid social science to government social programs such as welfare, criminal justice, public housing … and it fostered needed reforms. If there ever was a program that needed a similar inquiry, this is it.
(Brainstorm illustration incorporating photos from Flickr users Zaldylmg and Tanya Ryno)
