Here we have two pieces in the press, one an op-ed column in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Bob Barr and another a story in The Nation magazine by Sasha Abramsky.
Who ever thought that the man known as the social conservative attack dog in Congress in the 1990s and the most prominent organ of the left would come together? That says something about the War on Drugs — namely, that it’s absurd.
Barr never really deserved his reputation as a culture warrior in the 1990s, a profile he acquired during the Lewinsky Affair because he appeared on late-night television shows several times a week (it seemed) to debate defenders and rationalizers of the president. (In my view, the scandal was a great big distraction, and a costly one in a dozen ways.) In truth, though, Barr was a Clinton critic long before Paula Jones showed up, and his criticisms then were about policy, such as the handling of China.
Moreover, for several years now Barr has been one of the fiercest critics of the Republican Party. After losing his Congressional seat in 2002, Barr began criticizing the Bush Administration for several domestic and foreign policy positions. He thinks the Iraq invasion was a disastrous miscalculation, he opposed waterboarding, he despises domestic surveillance and wiretapping, and, as he writes here, the considers the War on Drugs an abomination.
“Regardless of whether one is a ‘drug warrior’ or a ‘drug legalizer,’” he writes, “it is difficult if not impossible to defend the 38-year war on drugs as a success.” Drugs are just as easy to obtain now as they ever were, he observes, and the prison population has exploded 547 percent from 1970 to 2007, the “lion’s share” due to drug arrests. Law enforcement officials trot out those indictments and seizures as signs the war is working. Consider the logic: Swelling prisons signal success, even though availability hasn’t changed.
The Nation article takes up the prison population as an interesting factor.
“Onetime California governor and current gubernatorial hopeful Jerry Brown, for example, has spent decades trying to erase the public’s memory of his liberal tenure in the 1970s, when California’s prison population shrank to well below 30,000,” she writes. “As a part of that remodeling, he has assiduously courted the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association, the trade union representing the state’s prison guards. Now, with his war chest flush with CCPOA funds, Brown won’t do anything to challenge tough-on-crime orthodoxies.”
It’s a good point. Any government program with this level of funding and systemic reach (from local police forces to Federal programs to prisons) is going to generate lots of folks whose livelihoods depend on the policy. That’s why the War on Drugs continues. Too many special interests need it and too many ambitious and comfortable politicians need them.
With California on the verge of bankruptcy, however, we might see some common sense and cost-benefit analysis come into play. With financial pressures hovering, Governor S. and state legislators may find that the political will is there to stop this fabricated “war” that has wasted so many dollars and so many hours and lives.
(Brainstorm illustration incorporating photos from Flickr users Nightlife_of_Revelry and Ctd 2005)