War on Drugs doesn’t need a surge – Allentown Morning Call

The War on Drugs has been one of the most lopsided defeats ever.

We're talking Grenada vs. U.S. Custer vs. Sioux. Phillies vs. Everyone.

We've spent well over a trillion dollars and several decades in return for overflowing prisons, dead law enforcement officers, thriving drug dealers, urban battlegrounds controlled by gangs of thugs, grossly inadequate rehabilitation efforts and no reduction of drug use.

More and more people have figured this out. According to Gallup polling, a majority of Americans supported legalizing marijuana by 2013, and that number had reached 60 percent by last year. These attitudes have been playing themselves out in state legislatures all over the country.

Pennsylvania finally legalized medical marijuana last year, making it one of 29 states and the District of Columbia to do so. Eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use, and other states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts.

I was a passionate advocate for Pennsylvania's medical marijuana law, and I thought it was important not to muddy the waters by injecting recreational use into that discussion. But I've been clear about where I stand on that subject. As I wrote years ago, decriminalizing marijuana is a good start, but I wouldn't stop there.

If we legalized, regulated and taxed marijuana and other drugs, we not only would have a hefty injection of new funding for desperately needed treatment and educational programs from those tax revenues, but we'd also reap a windfall from savings in prison and law enforcement spending. Gangs and other criminals that depend so heavily on drug-dealing would find themselves out of business or operating at a severe competitive disadvantage.

Noting the monumental task facing state budget negotiators this year in the face of a growing deficit, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said at a Capitol press conference, "If I told you that the budget negotiators from the Legislature and the governor's office will have $200 million of found money that does not harm one other state program or one other state tax, would they throw that money out the window or find a way to utilize it?"

He said, "The one area ... that will bring in revenue and actually cut costs at the exact same time would be the regulation and taxation of marijuana."

Former Allegheny County prosecutor, now criminal defense attorney Patrick Nightingale of the nonprofit Law Enforcement Action Partnership, an organization of criminal justice professionals who advocate for solutions across a broad range of drug policy and criminal justice issues, argued that DePasquale is underestimating the windfall when you consider the savings in incarceration and law enforcement costs.

He concluded, "It's a win win win for Pennsylvania if we can get out of our conservative reefer madness mentality."

LEAP, founded in 2002 as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition by five police officers dedicated to educating the public about the harms of drug prohibition, became Law Enforcement Action Partnership in January to broaden its areas of advocacy.

Even if recreational marijuana legalization is a bridge too far for some of you, I suspect the vast majority of readers would agree that we at least should decriminalize possession of marijuana, eliminate mandatory minimum sentences and clear our prisons of a lot of nonviolent offenders.

Two bills have been introduced in the state Legislature that would reduce a conviction for possession of small amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a summary offense, punishable by a relatively low fine instead of potential jail time.

Unfortunately, as with many other areas of progress in our society, this growing realization that drug policies of the past aren't working hit a big, not-so-beautiful wall with the election of Donald Trump and his appointment of troglodytic Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Far from approving the trend toward scaling back the War on Drugs, Sessions wants a troop surge that would include prosecuting more drug cases, seeking more mandatory minimum sentences and directly confronting what he considers a deadly trend toward legalization of the evil weed.

Sessions said at a Senate hearing last year that our elected leaders should make it clear they take marijuana prevention efforts seriously, by "the creating of knowledge that this drug is dangerous, you cannot play with it, it is not funny, it's not something to laugh about ... and trying to send that message with clarity that good people don't smoke marijuana."

Nightingale told me, "It's as if we woke up in 1983 with Jeff Sessions. 'Good people don't use marijuana.' 'It's a gateway drug.' 'I don't believe it has medical value.'"

Nightingale, who also is executive director of the Pittsburgh branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said, "We can look at three, four years' worth of data from Colorado to understand that loosening marijuana laws is not resulting in an increase of criminality, it's not resulting in an increase in hard drug use. In fact, it's the opposite."

He was particularly critical of a memo Sessions sent out last month to federal prosecutors that reversed the Obama administration approach to low-level drug crime. Sessions wants prosecutors to charge violators with the most serious offenses they can prove and seek the most substantial sentences.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder responded at the time, "The policy announced today is not tough on crime. It is dumb on crime. It is an ideologically motivated, cookie-cutter approach that has only been proven to generate unfairly long sentences that are often applied indiscriminately and do little to achieve long-term public safety."

Nightingale said Sessions thinks locking more people up for longer stretches will help solve our drug problems. "We absolutely know from 45 years of failed drug policy," he said, "that is not going to work."

This is no time for a troop surge. It's time for a carefully negotiated peace.

bill.white@mcall.com 610-820-6105

Bill White's commentary appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays

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War on Drugs doesn't need a surge - Allentown Morning Call