THEN AND NOW: "PROHIBITION" AND THE "WAR ON DRUGS"
Imagine it is 1932, and the Democratic Party has adopted repeal of Prohibition as part of its party's platform, calling for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment because it has caused crime, corruption, and violence. But Robert H. Silberling, a prosecutor and leading enforcer of Prohibition, does not agree. He thinks critics who want to legalize alcohol are just surrendering to the worst in human nature and letting down those who have died in the Prohibition war to make us safe. We would be conceding to an enemy that has ravaged our cities, debilitated our work force, and imperiled our way of life. He believes just a little more money and men will allow us to win the war. "Efforts among all levels of law enforcement must be coordinated."
Robert H. Silberling is actually a special narcotics prosecutor in New York City today. I have merely substituted the word "alcohol" for the word "drugs" in his 1996 argument to the New York Times, objecting to proposals to end drug prohibition. His reasoning is familiar. We hear it from other supporters of the drug war, even though that war causes crime and corruption eclipsing that of Prohibition at its zenith.
Prohibition, a Lesson Forgotten
Both Prohibition and our current War on Drugs brought staggering repercussions and problems that didn't exist before World War I. Nine decades ago, drug trafficking was unheard of. Before 1914, no one was in prison for drug offenses; there were no desperate drug addicts unable to obtain maintenance drugs from physicians; no one feared that drug abuse would corrupt and despoil our youth; no black market for drugs existed; drug merchants hadn't yet accomplished pervasive corruption of officials; there was no selective prohibition, exempting alcohol and tobacco; and there were no drug armies. Clearly, it is the suppression of the vice, not the vice itself, which is the original sin.
During Prohibition, bootlegging was centered in states bordering Canada. It was also regionally controlled for those who produced their own booze, such as in Chicago and New York. For example, Al Capone controlled an estimated 75% of the Chicago judges and had the same number of police on the take.
In 1920, the total money spent on Prohibition at the federal level was $3.59 million. By 1930, it rose to $44.03 million-a 1134% increase-and federal prison construction was about to double. Meanwhile, the nation's prison population had risen from 18,000 in 1921 to 81,000 in 1932, an unprecedented increase for the time. Law enforcement demanded more money to fight its war, and Congress gave it to them. Convictions under the National Prohibition Act increased from about 12,000 in 1921 to 51,000 in 1932. As prohibition wore on, prison terms increased in length.
The $515,000 appropriated for narcotics work in 1920 was nearly twice the amount authorized in 1919. This was the foundation that propelled the drug control empire and expanded the institutions that now have a vested interest in the policy. Prosecution of drug and alcohol dealers was pursued with alacrity, and by 1930 about 33% of the penal population in federal prisons were serving alcohol time, another 22%, narcotics time. President Hoover's stringent law enforcement policy led to five federal prisons and penitentiaries being so overcrowded that construction was started in late 1930 (during a depression) on six more.
Did law enforcement and the money allocated for Prohibition have an effect? Certainly not! Initially consumption went down, but over the 13 years that Prohibition was enforced, it rose to levels comparable to pre-Prohibition.
The War on Drugs is Launched
In 1972 President Nixon coined the phrase "War on Drugs." In 1981, President Reagan's drug budget was $1.6 billion. His main weapons were interdiction and eradication, two failed policies of the 1970s. By the time he left office, his drug budget had climbed to $6.6 billion a year, a 412% increase, with no end in sight. Although cocaine use declined in numbers during the 1980s, imported cocaine increased. Then the advent of crack in 1985 lowered the price, causing a surge of drug use. As cocaine imports and abuse rose during that period, so did the violence associated with drugs.
The U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada are 5,523 miles long and the U.S. coastline is 12,383 miles long,. Interdiction was somewhat successful in stopping marijuana from coming into the U.S. because marijuana is bulky and easily seized, but police agencies failed miserably in stopping cocaine, which is compact and easier to handle. Cocaine production increased probably threefold over the last 18 years up to 1998, allowing the average wholesale price in the U.S. to fall by 75%. Successful enforcement efforts against marijuana seem to have made cocaine cheaper and more available.
The Drug Enforcement Agency established a presence in most drug-producing and conduit countries during the 1980s because of its major role in Reagan's foreign policy. But the corruption of these countries' drug agencies and the inability of the DEA to deal with the CIA in many producing countries allowed 95% of the drugs to flow into the U.S. unmolested, according to the Government Accounting Office. The GAO estimates that Peru, Columbia, and Bolivia have increased cultivation by 10% a year to keep up with world consumption. Thank you, Mr. Reagan.
President Reagan's interdiction policy didn't stop the flow of drugs; it only diverted drugs from Florida to the Mexican border corridor. His foreign policy to decrease drug imports was a complete disaster by any standard. A flood of cocaine hit the American shores in unprecedented amounts. Imported marijuana decreased, but domestic marijuana increased. Marijuana became California's and Kentucky's leading crop.
The War on Drugs Escalates
President Bush's international drug policy centered on eradication, a repackaging of Reagan's failed policy. Bush tried to project the U.S. drug policy throughout the world. Domestically, his policy switched emphasis from kingpins to users. Under William Bennett, the first drug czar, Bush's merchants of discipline were unleashed to increase arrests, making it easy to run up numbers and convictions. Just as in Prohibition, it's the show that counts, not results or decreased drug use.
President Bush spent $44.2 billion on that show during his term in office, making him, at that point, the biggest drug-spending president in U.S. history. Close to $39 billion a year in local and state funding,was spent on the drug war. This was more money, adjusted for inflation, than was spent on Prohibition in its 13-year history. But no one questions the current spending. The subject is outside the political debate.
Bush's drug policy was a disaster similar to Reagan's. His eradication programs wasted $2 billion in South America. Cocaine production there was up, and so were imports. The effects of the Afghanistan covert CIA action sent a flood of heroin imports into the U.S., bringing a heroin explosion during the 1990s. Because the Bennett-Bush policy went after users, who were easy targets, prisons were breaking at the seams. Hardcore use of drugs increased because purity and availability went up, and the prices of cocaine and heroin fell to the lowest point in 15 years. The parallels between the purity of liquor during Prohibition and the current purity of heroin are unmistakable. Now, just as then, prices fall as competition increases.
The War on Drugs Now
President Clinton's $16.1 billion 1998 drug budget is a 7% increase over the 1997 budget and a 7500% increase over President Nixon's first drug budget proposal in 1972 of $200 million. The total drug budget for Clinton's first four years was $56 billion. This made him the biggest presidential spender of all time on the war against drugs, surpassing Bush. Between 1989 and 1998, the federal government spent close to $116 billion. The combined local and state spending on drug policy is close to $350 billion.
Just as happened during Prohibition, police agencies are corrupted by the transaction of huge amounts of money. But the current drug scene dwarfs Prohibition because of its worldwide implications. It is estimated that the drug trade is now bigger then the $600-billion-a-year oil trade.
This same escalation occurred during Prohibition until common people broke through the government's propaganda and believed what they saw-that Prohibition was causing more harm than good. They didn't think changing the approach was "sending the wrong message" or was a "surrender to alcohol." They felt that if a particular policy didn't work, something else must be tried for the common good. In February 1933, the Twenty-first Amendment repealed Prohibition. On December 5th , Prohibition ended in the United States.
When Prohibition was repealed, the violence associated with it dropped, but we didn't learn. We didn't learn that repression brings about more violence, that drug profits caused by prohibition are a destructive power within a democracy, or that drug policies have little effect on users. America exists in a time vacuum with no public memory. Each drug crisis is depicted as a new phenomenon, a direct threat to our moral structure.
Today, the solution to the horrifying effects of our drug policy is inescapable: the War on Drugs must be repealed. That single step will stop the violence associated with drugs, the waste of billions of dollars, and the ugly transformation of the U.S. into a police state. But we are blinded by a dogmatic minority trying to impose their own values, morals, and social agenda on the rest of society, much like the temperance movement that led to the social upheaval of Prohibition in 1920.
They found out in 1933 that tolerance is the key. When are we going to learn?
Winter Contents 1998 -- NCX -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor