Marijuana, Religious Puritanism & Social Hypocrisy
In commenting on my post yesterday on a lawsuit brought against the government by a medical marijuana advocacy group, Marlowecan noted “the perversity of the U.S. laws on marijuana� and asked why there is so much energy and focus on a substance that is fairly innocuous and the existence of policies that are viewed as fairly crazy by folks in other countries.
I believe the answer lies somewhere between those twin pillars of American society: Religious Puritanism and Social Hypocrisy.
Both are evident in draconian laws that have filled prisons with casual marijuana users despite all the studies that show that marijuana is indeed fairly innocuous, is not a gateway drug that leads users to the hard stuff and can provide relief from the side effects of chemotherapy and other crippling treatments.
How do you explain this disconnect?
43 Responses to “Marijuana, Religious Puritanism & Social Hypocrisy”
You just explained it yourself: religious puritanism necessarily leads to social hypocrisy because people don’t automatically follow the dictates of religious puritanism. The larger problem here is legislating personal morality, i.e. personal behavior that does not directly affect other people. We don’t regulate sexual behavior anymore because as a society, we have determined that adults can and should be able to make decisions on these matters unencumbered by the government. Homosexuality is the last frontier here, especially in the Lawrence decision.
But on drugs the issue is a little more complicated because drug addiction literally impairs the rational mind from choosing whether or not to use the drug. However, if a drug can be consumed in moderation without risk of total addiction then I see no reason why it should be outlawed. Ironically, this probably means marijuana should be legal and tobacco illegal.
[...] Original post by Shaun Mullen and software by Elliott Back [...]
Shaun, I would be interested to see responses to your question.
Maybe you have to be born in the US to understand its marijuana laws? I love America and am fascinated by its history, but I simply don’t understand the “why” of its bizarre laws of marijuana.
No offense, but most of the rest of the world – at least those who know about it – considers the US barking mad on this score.
I asked the question out of my own ignorance, as this is clearly something I just don’t get. It seems almost religious in its intensity and irrationality.
[...] As a reader of The Moderate Voice, I felt let down by the 2 threads dedicated to medical marijuana. Yesterday, Shaun posted U.S. Government’s Reefer Madness Challenged citing this info on a lawsuit and his personal experience here. Today he posted Marijuana, Religious Puritanism & Social Hypocrisy and responds to a readers question of why there is so much energy and focus on a substance that is fairly innocuous and the existence of policies that are viewed as fairly crazy by folks in other countries: I believe the answer lies somewhere between those twin pillars of American society: Religious Puritanism and Social Hypocrisy. [...]
Someone commenting on Shaun in Right Voices: “I felt let down by the 2 threads dedicated to medical marijuana….For every study he shows that says it isn’t a gateway drug, I could show that it is.”
OK, this is the sort of thing I don’t get. The U.S. is a country where personal responsibility is valued more than any other country in the world. States have outlawed the insanity defence.
Here the commenter is making what – as I recall from my time at uni – what the ancient Greeks identified as the logical Fallacy of the Slippery Slope (in ancient Greek, of course
. I.E., there is no slippery slope…there is only a series of decisions. One cannot “slip” into anything…humans decide their destiny.
Yet, while the US values personal responsibility and individualism above everything — those under the influence of marijuana are represented as inevitably doomed (as it is a “gateway” drug) to move to cocaine, heroin, crack and destruction.
Does anyone else see the contradiction in US culture here? (Full disclosure: I have used marijuana off and on for about 25 years…go years without it…yet have never slid to using crack nor even noticed the gateway
Marlowecan:
There is no understanding U.S. marijuana laws because they are counter intuitive and counter productive.
While Elrod didn’t make a direct link between sex and marijuana laws, the relaxation and repeal of laws pertaining to private sexual conduct would seem to open the way to the relaxation and repeal of marijuana laws, and there is evidence that decriminalization of personal marijuana use is gaining support in some states. As it is, 12 states allow use of medical marijuana.
RightVoices:
I was unable to read why you “felt let down” because of technical problems at your blog. Please fix the link. Better still, join in the discussion here and share your angst.
Finally, here’s a link to a press release put out by the group that filed the lawsuit against HHW and the FDA. It mentions an obscure federal law called the Data Quality Act, which requires federal agencies to rely on sound science and allows citizens to challenge government information believed to be inaccurate or based on faulty, unreliable data.
I wonder if so much effort it focused on marijuana because it is the most commonly used of the illegal drugs. Although you would think that the level of enforcement should be related to the hazards of use.
There’s another thought–in the US at least, marijuana is strongly associated with the 60′s counterculture. Even I, when asked to visualize a marijuana user, imagine a long-haired man in a tie-dyed shirt. The association is that strong.
So, the reaction against marijuana may be part of the reaction against the counterculture.
But marijuana was disparaged even prior to the appearance of the counterculture, so perhaps it’s more complicated than that.
“Filled prisons with casual marijuana users”??? Please. Got any actual statistics to support that allegation? In fact, in every jurisdiction I’ve ever looked at, you’ve generally got to work very hard to be sent to jail, committing multiple offenses, over and over, blowing every chance you’re given through probation or otherwise.
That’s not to say that there’s nobody locked up in jail because of “casual marijuana use,” as there are over-zealous prosecutors and judges out there. But prisons “filled” with marijuana users is patently not so.
According to the US DOJ, almost 700,000 inmates in state prisons were convicted of crimes of violence. Almost 300,000 were in prison for property crimes, with about the same number in prison for drug crimes.
Based on my own experience working in the criminal justice system, both as a prosecutor and the pardon attorney (among other roles) to our last governor, most people in jail on drug charges are there for dealing, and repeated dealing at that. Some committed other violent or property offenses, but plead guilty to the drug offense as part of a plea bargain. The only folks I ever saw serving time (beyond a weekend in the county jail waiting to make bail) for simply possessing drugs were heroin users, as our state had very stiff penalties for small amounts of heroin.
A White House Office of Drug Policy Report, Who’s in Prison for Marijuana provides detailed statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice providing the real statistics.
There are arguments to be made for legalizing marijuana. I don’t agree with them, but they’re there. But one of those arguments is NOT because we’re locking away routine pot smokers and throwing away the key. That’s just not true, and claiming it weakens your other arguments.
There’s also a racial heritage to marijuana. Long before it became associated with white hippies in the 1960s it was associated with black jazz performers in the 1920s. It was banned in the 1930s mostly because it was a ghetto drug, not because suburban whites were using it.
Pat is correct about incarceration. Marijuana possession rarely lands you in jail.
Alan G:
Studies of drug use in a population are notoriously unreliable, which is why some studies declare that marijuana is a gateway drug and other studies state that it is not.
That said, there is agreement that millions of Americans have smoked or presently smoke marijuana. The numbers vary wildly, but because there are not millions of hard-drug users, the gateway claim would seem to be debunked.
This is not an original thought by any means, but what it comes down to for me is this: Many if not most people are able to take responsibility for their actions, including the use of marijuana. A smaller number are not, although that often is because they are “hard-wired” for being addicts. This group includes includes alcoholics and hard-drug users.
PatHMV:
One casual pot smoker in prison is one too many. Why do you and your colleagues lock up innocents like these?
Shaun-
Genetics probably plays a big role. I’ve heard there are other factors too–the setting in which the drug is taken, the reasons for which it is taken, etc.
But getting back to my thesis, do you think that hostility towards marijuana is related to hostility towards the counterculture?
And did you, Marlowecan, et. al. ever have long hair and wear tie-dyed shirts?
Shaun, if your argument is that even one is too many, then make that argument. Frankly, I think you have made that argument. I don’t feel like addressing that argument as it is not a debate in which I have that much interest.
But don’t engage in wildly excessive hyberbole about the actual facts of who is incarcerated for what. It cheapens your other arguments. For instance, why should I believe your claims about the medical benefits and lack of harm associated with marijuana smoking when you display such careless disregard for the facts connected to marijuana incarceration? It suggests that maybe you’ve done as little research on the medical issues as you have on the incarceration issue, and so weakens your credibility.
That does not, of course, make your other arguments either wrong or right; it affects your credibility as a presenter of facts, not the ultimate merits of the arguments.
Oh, and Shaun-
You might want to know that criminal prosecutors (especially state prosecutors) are well known to have political ambitions, particularly towards governorships.
For all we know, this is some sort of opening salvo in PatHMV’s political campaign…OK, it’s a real stretch that someone would open a political campaign here.
But it’s good to keep in mind. I used to tease a prosecutor friend of mine, “You want to put people in the electric chair so that you can get into the governor’s mansion.”
Alan G:
I came of age in the late 60s when the counterculture was at its height and, to an extent, let my freak flag fly. I spent much of the 1970s traveling throughout the U.S. and encountered many people in many settings who were not hippies by any means but smoked pot. That was 30 years ago, and if anything, the demographic of the marijuana smoker is even broader today. As a matter of fact, I know a judge, a cop, a college professor, a steelworker, a park ranger, a doctor, and a bank mortgage officer who are casual marijuana users.
So my equivocal answer is that enmity toward the counterculture is not a major factor.
One other thing, and I direct this in part to the PatHMVs of the criminal justice system. No one likes being lied to, especially when it’s their government. The U.S. government has lied through its teeth about marijuana since the 1930s and the millions of people who have smoked a joint from time to time without wanting to hold up a bank, drown their children, shoot heroin or assassinate the president know that they are being lied to.
It is not accidental that many other so-called first world countries have liberal marijuana laws when it comes to personal use. There just isn’t any reason to portray marijuana as a bogeyman. But in the U.S., that Religious Puritanism-Social Hypocrisy thing is alive and well, and the law enforcement-criminal justice system is a willing co-conspirator.
Alan G said: “And did you, Marlowecan, et. al. ever have long hair and wear tie-dyed shirts?”
Uhh…I actually still have a tie-dyed shirt that I wear around the house…and there’s a lava lamp in the corner…and I do sorta have a fondness for brownies….
So what are you insinuating, AlanG? That I am secretly one of you tune-in/turn-on/drop-out Bolshies?!! A closeted liberal?!!!
Can’t a man like Day-glo design and Scooby snacks and not be one of you hippie-dippy Democrats?!!
An Outrageous Slur, Alan!!! Typical liberal smear job.
Joe…where are you Joe?!!!
Alan,
Did you miss the part where I used to work in the governor’s office? I am very much involved in politics. I am not running for office now, and I may never run for office. But maybe I will, or maybe I will be appointed to some office. For that reason, among others, I do try to be cautious when I speak. Personally, I think that is a better practice than the ranting we see so much of on the web, but that’s a matter of personal preference, I suppose.
Is that the reason I prefer not to engage directly on whether marijuana should be legalized? I’ll leave that answer up to you…
And for the record, I earned my stripes going after corrupt politicians and other white collar criminals; I never had nor sought a death penalty case.
Shaun, as a prosecutor, it was my job to enforce the laws passed by the legislature. While prosecutors are properly endowed with a fair amount of discretion, they are not properly entitled to simply ignore a given law because they disapprove of it. Your beef is with the legislatures, not the prosecutors, except where some prosecutor goes out of his way to stick the harshest penalty possible on a minor offender. But as I noted in my earlier comments (supported by links to the actual statistics), those cases are fairly few and far between. It’s a very rare prosecutor who tries to make a name for himself by cracking down on simple marijuana possession.
Shaun said: “It is not accidental that many other so-called first world countries have liberal marijuana laws when it comes to personal use.”
I gather that US laws have caused all sorts of problems in Canada, where things are much more liberal…and they would probably totally decriminalize were it not for US pressures.
I was reading about British Columbia, where the Hells Angels and Vietnamese gangs have massive hydro grow-ops for the US market…with the two groups battling it out in the streets.
Speaking of medical marijuana, I read a funny story about the Canadian situation where the Government of Canada built a farm in an old mine to produce medical marijuana for Canadian with medical needs for it (Google for the story). Despite the investment of millions, the weed was shite and those Canadians with medical certificates to use it still bought from the street.
The Moral: Free Enterprise is better than State Socialized Business any day!
Here’s a couple of links to the Canadian story. Canada is actually the first country in the world to regulate medicinal marijuana. Ironic that it is so close to the U.S.. (More ironic that the government can’t produce a decent weed crop despite its millions and all its scientists. Socialism…I tell ya
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3114922.stm
http://www.medicalmarihuana.ca/govtpot.html
Marlowecan-
Ah, I thought so!
Did you ever shop for clothes at Carnsby Street? Or was Carnsby Street where the hipsters went for clothes, I can’t remember.
Pat-
Yeah, I know most prosecutors don’t deal with the capital cases, it just sounded poetic to compare “electric chair” and “governor’s mansion.”
My friend wasn’t into politics, but his boss the state prosecutor was in a big way. He told me the joke around town was not to stand between his boss and a camera, otherwise you’ll get run over.
He wasn’t a good prosecutor and a terrible administrator and eventually he lost a re-election bid.
Alan G said: “Ah, I thought so! Did you ever shop for clothes at Carnsby Street? Or was Carnsby Street where the hipsters went for clothes, I can’t remember.”
Carnaby Street…no, never…and I’m not that bloody old, thank you very much!
So it’s ageism now, is it, Alan? You’re not content just to smear those who like colourful designs and brownies, hmmm?
Pernicious liberals! Is there no depth to which you will not sink?
Alan said: “…was Carnsby Street where the hipsters went for clothes”
It was Portabello Road in the 80s. Nice memories. Now gentrified and gross, I imagine. I remember being shocked at the release of the movie “Notting Hill” a while back about that area of London – currently extremely trendy – since in the early 80s the neigbourhood was burned by race riots.
The Dire Straits had a nice song about that area called “Portobello Belle”:
Bella donna’s on the highstreet
Her breasts upon the off beat
And the stalls are just the sideshows
Victoriana’s old clothes
And yes her jeans are tight now
She got to travel light now
She got to turn up all her roots now
She got to turn up for the boots now
She thinks she’s tough
She ain’t no English rose
But the blind singer
He’s seen enough and he knows
Do a song about a long gone Irish girl
But I got one for you Portobello Belle
She sees a man upon his back there
Escaping from a sack there
And Bella donna lingers
Her gloves aint got no fingers
Why? Let me count the ways:
1. Because people want you to conform to THEIR views of what is proper and right.
2. Because they have the right to protect your health no matter what, unless you are using a cell phone in the car in which case, have at it.
3. Puritanism. It is un-Godly to feel good in this life or to take any substance that makes you feel good.
4. Because there are many billions spent on the drug war and we now have a “Drug Industrial complex” dependent on that money.
5. Because its so much easier to bust a pot smoker (even if he doesnt go to jail) to pump up your arrest and conviction stats on the drug war, than to have to deal with truly violence inducing drugs.
6. Because cops love to roust teenagers.
7. Because it was really popular in the 60′s and the so called “Silent majority” will never ever let go of the sixties and will forever seek vengeance against those who were part of the so-called counter culture (and who lost Vietnam for us too). Idiots.
8. Because the drug companies can make billions selling us back the components of pot minus the feel good.
9. Because people are ignorant and uneducated and believe the gateway drug crap. Remember George Carlin: “Mothers milk leads to everything.”
10. Because giving people legal pot might well reduce the number of people who use hard drugs and then what would happen to our glorious drug war?
I will believe to my dying breath that the war against pot is pure insanity, and reflects all that is bad about the attitude of people towards the exercise of freedom by others.
The solution? Legalization. Restricted sales to age 18-21. No public use. Private use only. And if you do something stupid while on pot, just as if you do something stupid while drunk, or on the cell phone in your car, or while smoking a cig in a car, well then you pay your price. Other than that: LEAVE ME ALONE.
Apologies about the above post. OT, yes. Getting too old. Please return to the fray….
Jammer:
Great answer to my question.
It is probably my lack of caffeine today, but this still does not make sense to me.
If PatHMV is correct in regard to the liberalism of US laws on marijuana, PatHMV still implicitly acknowledges that these laws are like a political “third rail” by being vague in statements on them (which, of course, I totally understand and would not press for more clarity).
But why are marijuana laws a “third rail”? Why do people obsess about whether Clinton inhaled or not? It is like there is a whole fetishism (in anthropological terms) about marijuana in the US?
Or is this just my wonky perspective?
Perhaps I should smoke weed in public then? And if the police say anything, I can blame it all on TMV.
I would add that the popular sentiment right now is not for libertarianism when it comes to consumption of drugs. While alcohol remains fairly well accepted, access to it has been cut back, in the past 10 years or so, to those aged 21 and older, up from 18 when I was a teenager. And the public sentiment is very much in favor of much greater regulation of tobacco. My own state (based on a strong push by a Democratic governor) outlawed smoking in restaurants just this past year, and many states have already done that. Some even prohibit smoking in bars, and there is a push to even prohibit it in cars, at least where children are present. The public is also pretty much in favor of “sticking it to” the tobacco companies, ostensibly for lying, though nobody ever really believed their lies. Higher taxes, reduced access, and restrictions on advertising show a public mood generally in favor of further restrictions on access to the drug nicotine.
Given this general attitude in favor of regulation, I wouldn’t expect to see much movement towards greater legalization of marijuana right now. Of course, over the next few years, perhaps the increased regulation of tobacco, if successful at reducing the number of smokers, might lead to a greater willingness to legalize marijuana under similar or tighter regulations.
jammer, I think summed it up nicely.
We can regulate the sale of alcohol, cigarettes and pharmaceuticals, so why single out marijuana for special treatment?
All these substances have potentially negative effects, but we deal with it through regulation, not criminalization.
Legalization would also eliminate at least one the arguments for claims that pot is a gateway drug: the proposition that those who sell pot are likely to also have other, more dangerous, drugs to offer for sale and would seduce the buyer into expanding his habit.
If you take pot out of shady alleys and into the open, this corollary is eliminated.
Pat wrote:
Wow. Like I didn’t see this one coming from a mile away.
DISCLOSURE TIME:
So it turns out that Pat and I have actually debated this topic before. Over at the Centerfield, the two of us had some rather . . . interesting . . . debates regarding the War on (some) Drugs. Needless to say, I failed miserably in my efforts to convince Pat that the Drug War is wrong.
Pat,
Don’t you see the inherent conflict of interest here? You’re defending a government program that just so happened to pay a part of your paycheck. While civil libertarians argue against the War on (some) Drugs based upon ethical, utilitarian, and legal grounds and work to end it (or at least reform it), you’re stuck defending the status quo. Of course you’re not going to rail against a system that gave you your job. You’re not simply defending the Drug Warriors. You ARE one of the Drug Warriors. You helped put people in jail.
America is supposed to be a country where people are free to live their lives the way they want to, not the way the government tells them too. Where do you derive this right to dictate to people what they can and cannot do, and then fine or imprison those who disagree with you? Are you merely enforcing our nation’s drug laws, or are you not voting for the very politicians responsible for these laws?
You can argue all you want with Shaun’s statistics about what proportion of our prison population is made up of nonviolent drug users versus what proportion is made up of violent drug users.
The fact of the matter is that there ARE nonviolent drug users in prison.
The fact of the matter is that you CAN go to prison for nothing more than selling bongs over the internet.
The fact of the matter is that the War on Drugs has paved the way for paramilitary raids, which have been responsible for the deaths of numerous nonviolent drug users, children of nonviolent drug users, police officers, and innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when SWAT teams raided the wrong house.
These needless deaths are not anomalies. They are the inevitable result of politicians who will stop at nothing to force their arbitrary set of morals on the rest of us, civil liberties be damned. They are the inevitable result of politicians who claim they understand economics but don’t even seem to understand the concept of supply and demand. They are the inevitable result of politicians who feel they can legislate a problem out of existence, so long as they attach the words “War on” in front of it.
Perhaps because you are a former prosecutor who is familiar with the legal system, you feel that you have a unique perspective on this. But the way I see it, those of you who support the War on (some) Drugs have already had a chance to tell your side of the story. The federal government (in the form of the ONDCP) uses taxpayer dollars to campaign against referendums seeking to liberalize our mairjuana laws. Often, the information coming out of the ONDCP is either false or misleading. And even when such referendums pass overwhelmingly in western states, the federal government (both under Bush II and Clinton) simply ignore these referendums and send their DEA agents out west to arrest individuals who have been granted permits that explicitly grant them the right to grow medical marijuana.
I think you overestimate the support for our nation’s Drug War, Pat. It’s not just pot-users and libertarians who are speaking out against it. There’s actually an organization made up of current and former police officers, DEA agents, judges, and prosecutors who oppose our government’s War on Drugs.
The 1920′s should have taught us that prohibition doesn’t work. Apparently some of us didn’t get the message.
Nic,
The fact that I was paid by the district attorney’s office doesn’t make my opinion any more biased than the fact that some pro-legalization folks simply like to toke up makes them biased in the other direction. We all have different perspectives on issues for a wide variety of reasons. We are all “biased” in one way or another in favor of the opinions we hold, and all of us have had those opinions shaped by our background, upbringing, work, and other personal experiences.
The facts I have provided are accurate. I made no comment on the merits of drug laws, generally. I wrote about my personal experience not to shore up support for the drug laws, but to correct the factual misstatement that the prisons are “filled” with people who did nothing more than possess marijuana. That’s just not true, and nobody has yet refuted that fact in this thread.
Yes, as I have acknowledged from my first comment it is possible to go to jail just for selling bongs or pot possession; the point I have made is that it is very, very rare. You’re still free to argue, as Shaun did earlier, that even one such conviction is a terrible injustice, but you should do so without engaging in hyberbolic claims about the prisons being “filled” with such offenders. They’re not. They’re just not.
One can acknowledge this fact and still argue against drug laws. One can even argue that anti-marijuana laws are “root causes” of a lot of the property crimes that lead to incarceration; if pot was more easily available, the price would fall and fewer burglars would rob to support their pot habit, I suppose the argument would go.
As for national support for or opposition to drug laws, I simply pointed out that the nanny staters have had a lot of success of late. Transfats are banned in New York City, smokers are relegated to the outside in more and more states, regulations on 18-21 year old drinking is on the increase. Do you disagree that this has happened, that this is the trend?
PatHMV said: “As for national support for or opposition to drug laws, I simply pointed out that the nanny staters have had a lot of success of late.”
But Pat, there seems to be more to US drug laws than a statist model.
Europe is NannyState Central. I mean, the UK is filled with bloody CC cameras, with Big Brother watching every move; Continental countries have costly cradle-to-grave welfare systems…yet all have more liberal drug laws than the US! Look at Amsterdam.
This is why I ask about the cultural roots of US marijuana laws…as they does not seem, at least to me, to fit within the Libertarian vs. Nanny-State dichotomy.
There seems to be something else at the root of it?
Further to the above: I’m not arguing Pat, I am just asking (hence the closing question mark). It seems you and Nic have been around this block before, but I am finding this thread quite educational.
That’s an interesting point, Marlowecan. Part of it is probably just a combination of history and inertia. As others in this thread noted, there’s the early black jazz associations with marijuana smoking which may have been part of the reason for the initial prohibition, which strengthened in the wake of the upheavals of the 60s. Now we have a default position of outlawing marijuana and simple social inertia is preventing any radical changes to the status quo.
As I suggested in an earlier comment, I do think it is possible that our increased nannyism with tobacco and alcohol may lead to a convergence in which we slowly open up to more acceptance of marijuana use, albeit under very heavy regulation (age restrictions, etc.).
Shaun pointed out that people don’t like being lied to. Not only that, but they also tend to not believe those who lie to them when they make other claims. It’s the DEA who cried wolf. When they lie about marijuana then young people won’t believe them about other drugs that really might be bad for them. How’s that for an example of the law of unintended consequences?
Pat,
I completely disagree.
The War on Drugs is a government program. It is funded with taxpayer dollars. Federal taxpayer dollars go on to fund the Office on National Drug Control Policy, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and all the people who are employed by these government bureaucracies. Likewise, state and local taxpayer dollars go on to fund the War on Drugs at the state and local level, including:
- the salaries of the law enforcement officers who arrest drug users, the salaries of the district attorneys who prosecute drug users
- the overcrowded prisons that house these drug users once they’re convicted
- the salaries of the prison guards who work in this overcrowded prisons that house these drug users once they’re convicted
- the new prisons that have to be built because the old prisons are overcrowded with drug users who were convicted
- the salaries of the prison guards needed to staff the new prisons that have been built because the old prisons are overcrowded with drug users who convicted
It’s a government program, just like Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or No Child Left Behind or one of Bush’s faith based initiative. Only unlike the War on (some) Drugs, these government programs don’t result in SWAT teams kicking down people’s doors in the middle of the night and occasionally shooting dead non-violent drug users and innocent bystanders. And on this point, I do have some statistics to back up my point.
If it weren’t for the War on (some) Drugs, many of these people wouldn’t have jobs. And if our politicians didn’t support the War on (some) Drugs, there would be no War on (some) Drugs. And if voters didn’t vote for these kind of politicians, there wouldn’t be any politicians to support the War on (some) Drugs. And if the voters weren’t convinced by proponents of the War on (some) Drugs that this government program was a good idea, they wouldn’t for vote for such politicians.
But wait a minute. If the proponents of the War on (some) Drugs are personally benefiting from this program be virtue of the fact that it helps pay their salaries, isn’t that a conflict of interest? Isn’t it safe to say that their position on this government program might a little biased?
Imagine that I was an employee at a giant corporation that sold widgets. But the problem is–word is spreading around town that these widgets don’t work. In fact, some people are arguing that these widgets are so poorly designed that they make worse the very problem they were created to fix.
Given that this widget corporation pays my salary, isn’t it fair to say that my defense of the corporation would be biased?
Of course, the difference between the War on (some) Drugs and the widget corporation is that taxpayers aren’t forced to fund the widget corporation.
So as a bit of clarification, I’d just like to know, is the reason that you’re so defensive about this issue that you simply believe that the War on (some) Drugs isn’t as bad as we’re making it out to be? Or do you, on general principle, approve of this government program?
OK, so I found some empirical data to clear up some of the confusion about what percentage of people in prison are nonviolent drug users. But first, a few caveats.
1) This data comes straight from the United States Department of Justice’s own website.
2) The data only includes state prisons. Federal prisons are NOT included in this data.
3) I wasn’t able to find any data from the 2006 year. I did, however, find data from the 2003 year.
This data comes from the Bureau of Justice, which is a bureau within the Department of Justice.
It can be found at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm
Percentage of sentenced State inmates in 2003
(categorized by most serious offense):
Violent…….52
Property……21
Drug……….20
Public-order…7
Total……..100%
Number of drug offenders in 2003……….250,900
Total number of state prisoners in 2003…650,400
In other words:
- 1 out of 5 state prisoners in the United States are non-violent drug offenders.
- Roughly a quarter of a million people in United States state prisons are non-violent drug offenders.
That’s what the data says. I leave the rest of you to use it however you may wish.
nicrivera certainly is on the trail of a point. What hasn’t been mentioned is that when a person is arrested for charges of dealing, even if it’s a non-violent offender who’s never sold anything but pot and doesn’t have a weapon on them or someone who is even suspected of dealing when no drugs are found on them there is a property seizure. Often this property (Especially if it’s cash.) is never returned or only returned after long drawn out court battles. The problem has been around so long that Sixty Minutes did a piece on it years ago. A man who charters planes and flies them had a plane seized when some people who’d chartered his plane turned out to have drugs in luggage that he never inspected. There was no evidence that he’d known about it. He had no criminal record. But the DEA took his plane and kept it even when they didn’t charge him with anything. The kept it long after the trials were over and it could be called evidence. He only got it back by suing and he had no livelihood while this travesty went on. There was the nursery owner who had a large sum of cash on him because he got a discount from a vendor if he paid cash. When he went to fly down to make a large purchase that was an unexpected opportunity to save some money he paid cash for his airline ticket (Remember, this was long before 9/11.) and was reported as being suspicious. Even after his story was confirmed they didn’t want to return his money. The stories go on and on of the abuse of the seizure system. Why should the people who do these things be trusted in anything? I know I don’t believe a word they say. Ever.
Nic, my point (as was Shaun’s) was completely on marijuana users in prison. Very few of the 20% (and the figure you cite is also found in one of the studies biased ol’ me cited earlier) of prisoners incarcerated for “drugs” are simple, plain old marijuana users. Most of that percentage are actual drug dealers.
Also, as one of the other articles I cited (which you will dismiss out of hand because it comes from the White House Office of Drug Policy), it explains, as I knew already, that many of the people in jail for “drug offenses” in fact did commit other offenses. Quite often, a prosecutor might plea bargain a case and dismiss the worst of the charges in return for a guilty plea to one of the lesser charges, like drug possession. This might happen for a number of reasons. For example, a guy might be arrested for possession of a firearm during a drug transaction. Those offenses generally carry a pretty stiff penalty with a mandatory minimum. Under the circumstances, the prosecutor might want to cut the guy some slack… he’s a valuable witness, he’s young without much other record, etc. In that case, the prosecutor might drop the charge with the mandatory minimum in return for a plea to the drug offense and a lesser amount of prison time to be served than would be required under the mandatory minimum. That shows up in the stats as a “drug offense” resulting in prison time, but in actual fact it was the possession of the gun which really led to the prison time. Some of those 20% are also in there because the drug offense was their “third strike,” after having 2 earlier convictions for violent or property crimes. The offense which “officially” got them in prison was the drug offense, but had it not been for the earlier serious crimes, they wouldn’t be going to prison at all.
You can choose to believe me or not. I speak from experience, having observed the system at a number of levels. As a general rule, you have to work really, really hard to get sent to prison. As I’ve acknowledged from the beginning, there are exceptions created by over-zealous prosecutors here and there. But on the whole, if you were to take a random sample of the prison population, you would find an exceedingly small percentage of the inmates were there for simple marijuana possession.
Jim… What if I said: “I’ve seen so many examples of potheads going on to become hardcore drug addicts. The stories of potheads wasting their lives away as stoned-out losers go on and on. Why should the people who do these things be trusted on anything? I know I don’t believe a word they say. Ever.”
Pretty stupid, right? Even though there are indeed loser potheads out there who go on to become hard-core drug addicts. I would be insane to hold all marijuana users responsible because of the abuses of some small number of them, right?
Same deal with prosecutors. There are thousands of district attorneys offices around the country. Most are filled with good, decent people, trying to bring justice as best they can. But some are run by publicity hounds and zealots. Is it fair to judge the many for the failings of a few?
I’ve never seized and forfeited an innocent owner’s property because it was unknowingly used to ferry drugs. I’ve never seized unexplained cash just for that reason, either. I join in condemning such practices.
But hey, if you want to only listen to people who already agree with you and assume that all members of all groups besides yours are bad, you go right ahead. Don’t let me stop you.
PatHMV:
In discussing the criminal-justice system in more general terms, I acknowledge that we are moving away from the question I posed, but allow me to put my oar in the water one more time.
Your perspective as a system insider is a welcome one and our differences over marijuana use and prosecution aside, I value your dedication.
There are a lot of bad people out there, including hard drug pushers who prey on the gullible and those most prone to becoming addicted, and we need to be able to remove these beasts from society. You obviously believe deeply in the system, warts and all, if you are able to sleep at night, which I trust you do.
But I too have a perspective on the system and I have no trouble sleeping.
My general conclusions are as follows:
* The criminal justice system is badly broken from top to bottom.
* Justice too often is dispensed based on race and ability (as in many thousands of dollars) to hire a lawyer who can push back against overzealous and malicious prosecution and buy a defendant’s way out of prison.
* This is nowhere more true than in capital cases. America’s death rows are full of non-white men who are there simply because they came from the wrong side of the tracks.
* Judges in general are too easily bought, too often affiliated with political and other special interests, and too often lack necessary qualifications.
* My experience with prosecutors is generally better, but too many (as other commenters have noted) are motivated not by dispensing justice impartially but by wanting to become judges or high-ranking politicians.
* The American bar is a disgrace. Lawyers have worked hard to lower their profession to the territory occupied by used car salesmen. You can’t take a sh*t in this country without having to hire a lawyer to wipe your ass. I do consulting work on legal malpractice, which is a thriving field because of the extraordinary number of ethically-challenged lawyers.
* There never have had been enough public defenders, and while many lawyers and/or their firms believe in doing pro bono work, the poor and indigent are underrepresented.
Keep up the good work, but don’t expect me or others to roll over when we see the injustices in what passes for a justice system, because God knows there are plenty.
Pat,
I will concede that you are right on the issue of plea bargains. I agree with you that since drug users might face multiple charges (some of which may later be dropped due to a plea bargain), some of the prisoners grouped into the “drug user” category, might also have committed other offenses.
However, the example you cite to prove you point is bit baffling to me. You write:
Isn’t possessing a firearm ALSO a nonviolent offense?
I’m confused on where stand on the issue of civil liberties, Pat. You’re a Republican with conservative leanings, right? Is it your belief that possessing a firearm is against the law? Or is it your belief that possessing a firearm while in the commission of a crime is against the law?
The example you cited just goes to show how completely idiotic our legal system is. The person in the example you cited is guilty of selling drugs–a VICTIMLESS CRIME which I feel the government has NO business prosecuting. The person also is guilty of possessing a firearm–also a VICTIMLESS CRIME which I feel the government has NO business prosecuting.
The person in your example isn’t a criminal. Nothing you cite in your example suggests that he’s done anything to harm anyone else or infringe upon the rights of anyone else. He’s selling (or prehaps buying) drugs, and he has a firearm in his possession–two things, that in free society, would be completely legal.
[...] Finding myself in an inquisitively philosophical mood, I asked the other day why America has draconian laws that lead to the imprisonment of casual marijuana users despite all the studies that show that marijuana is fairly innocuous, is not a gateway drug and can provide relief from the side effects of crippling medical treatments. [...]