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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Economists Slam War on Drugs |
Current rating: 0 |
by MORML
(No verified email address) |
13 Apr 2001
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Cost-Effectiveness of Incarceration Doubtful, National Academy of Sciences Report Says
Note: Hash Wednesday upcoming on April 18
On the Quad, University of Illinois
Noon
Be There or Be Square |
Washington, DC: America now spends twice as
much money annually to combat illegal drugs as it spent
fighting the Persian Gulf War, yet there is no evidence
indicating that existing policies are either working or
cost-effective, charge authors of a newly released study
by the National Research Council.
"It is unconscionable for this country to continue to
carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost
without any way of knowing whether, and to what
extent, it is having the desired result," said Charles
Manski, chief author of the report, and a Board of
Trustees Professor in Economics at Northwestern
University. The White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) commissioned the study in
1998.
According to the report, drug enforcement activities -
which comprise the bulk of federal and state anti-drug
efforts - have grown exponentially since 1980. Authors
note that there are now 12 times as many drug offenders
in state prisons than there were in 1980, and that police
arrest approximately 1.6 million Americans per year on
drug charges, three times as many as they did 20 years
ago. Government funding to pay for these activities has
grown from 1.5 billion in 1980 to nearly 20 billion today.
Nevertheless, "the nation is in no better position to
evaluate the effectiveness of enforcement than it was 20
years ago, when the recent intensification of
enforcement began," the report said.
Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of The NORML
Foundation, cited these conclusions as further evidence
that existing anti-drug strategies - particularly criminal
penalties on the use and possession of marijuana - must
be re-evaluated. "Taxpayers spend between $7.5 and
$10 billion annually arresting and prosecuting individuals
for marijuana violations," St. Pierre said. "Almost 90
percent of these arrests are for marijuana possession
only. This is a clear misapplication of the criminal
sanction and a tremendous waste of fiscal resources."
Prepublication copies of the report, entitled
"Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We
Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us," are available online
from the National Academy of Sciences at:
http://www.nas.edu. The National Research Council is a
branch of the NAS.
For more information, please contact Allen St.
Pierre, NORML Foundation Executive Director, at
(202) 483-8751. |
See also:
http://www.nas.edu
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