Attorneys for prosecution, whereas for 97.5 percent, drug trafficking was the most serious offense .In terms of drugs involved for defendants actually convicted of federal drug offenses, 30.6 percent involved marijuana, 22.4 percent involved crack cocaine, 21.5 percent involved cocaine powder, 12.5 percent involved methamphetamine, 7.8 percent involved opiates, 0.5 percent involved hallucinogens, and 4.8 percent other substances . Unsurprisingly, the percentage of incarcerated drug offenders serving time for possession appears to be significantly greater in state as opposed to federal prisons. Analyzing data from the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, Mumola and Karberg report that in 2004, 5.3 percent of drug offenders in federal prisons and 27.9 percent of drug offenders in state prisons were incarcerated for possession. The authors found that of drug offenders held in state prisons, 61.8 percent reported that cocaine or crack was involved in their offenses, and the analogous figures were 18.6 percent for stimulants, 12.7 percent for marijuana or hashish, 12.2 percent for heroin and other opiates, 2.2 percent for depressants, and 1.7 percent for hallucinogens.One must interpret these data with caution. First, just 20.7 percent of drug offenders in state prisons reported having no prior criminal history . Second, given the pervasiveness of plea bargaining and the evidentiary ease of prosecuting possession relative to other offenses,vertical hydroponic system the percentage of convicts incarcerated in state prisons whose most severe offense truly is possession remains somewhat illusive.
Locking up approximately half-a-million drug offenders has a direct budgetary cost in the billions each year—approximately $6.6 billion for state drug prisoners and perhaps that sum over again for federal prisoners and convicts serving time in jail.In addition to the costs of incarceration borne by government and prisoners, a large toll falls on the families of those incarcerated, partly in terms of lost incomes, many of which were lawful ones . Fifty-nine percent of male state and federal inmates in prison for drug possession or trafficking have minor children, whereas in the general prison population, only fifty-one percent have children, indicating an additional cost stemming from high incarceration rates in the form of children with absent fathers . There is also a startling racial disparity in imprisonment for drug charges. In state prisons, African-Americans account for 38.6 percent of prisoners overall and 45.1 percent of prisoners convicted of drug offenses , though they represent just 13 percent of the U.S. population .There is also evidence that a substantial portion of racial profiling problems result from the targeting of drug sellers through criminal enforcement efforts, which could be greatly reduced under a less punitive drug policy. With the aim of devising rational drug policies based on practical experience rather than predominantly ideological concerns, countries throughout Europe are experimenting with drug policy in a variety of ways. In general, European countries have less punitive—and more harmreduction oriented—approaches to drug policy than the United States. The Action Plan adopted by the German government in 2003 to deal with Germany’s drug problem is representative of this approach, claiming: “The ‘Action Plan on Drugs and Addiction’ advocates a realistic drug policy. It responds more to the concrete reality of life than to any ideological principles. Every addict must have access to appropriate therapy options” .
The plan encompasses both legal and illegal substances, recognizing that far more Germans suffer substance abuse problems related to tobacco and alcohol than illegal drugs . Portugal has become the poster child of European drug reform following its July 1, 2001 decriminalization of formerly illicit substances.Rather than handle drug possession and use as a criminal matter, the police in Portugal give a civil citation to those caught using or possessing a quantity of drugs less than the average amount sufficient for ten-day use by one person. As Greenwald notes, these civil citations instruct recipients to appear before a “dissuasion commission” within seventy-two hours. The dissuasion commission, which is designed to avoid all appearances of a criminal tribunal, is made up of a lawyer and two members of the medical profession, and it may order those caught with drugs to pay a fine or undergo a course of treatment. Greenwald reports, however, that fines are a last resort designed to be suspended except for addicts and repeat offenders, who can have their fines suspended as well, if they agree to treatment .Even European countries that have not followed the extreme depenalization approach of Portugal have experimented with less punitive and more treatment-oriented drug policies. In Switzerland, for example, cannabis use remains a criminal offense . However, Switzerland experimented with a regime of open sales of small quantities of illicit drugs, such as heroin, in Zurich’s Platzspitz . This experiment lasted only five years, from 1987-1992, because the park became unsightly and was viewed as an embarrassment by the city. Instead of resorting to strict punitive measures for drug use, Switzerland then instituted a heroin maintenance program that allowed heroin addicts to receive daily heroin shots supervised by a nurse in a clinical setting. Switzerland has since expanded this program due to evidence that crime rates and unemployment rates among participants drop during participation . Similar programs have been instituted with encouraging results in Vancouver, Canada, and the Netherlands . But the trend toward decriminalization of drugs is not universal: the United Kingdom has gone in the other direction in recent years, at least with respect to marijuana, by increasing the maximum penalties for marijuana use.
Gordon Brown’s government decided to reclassify cannabis from a Class C drug to a more serious Class B drug, resulting in a maximum penalty of fourteen years of imprisonment for marijuana supplying, dealing, producing, and trafficking, and five years for possession . However, while the potential for such penalties exists, the British Home Office describes the “likely” enforcement steps: for a first possession offense police will issue a warning, for a second they will issue a Penalty Notice for Disorder , and for a third, they will arrest the individual . Thus, even in one of Europe’s strictest drug regimes, arrests and criminal punishment are reserved for repeat offenders. While many European countries have more liberal policies toward drug possession, they generally continue to have strict penalties for drug trafficking―though these are appreciably less severe than their counterpart American punishments. As the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction puts it, “over the past ten years, most European countries have moved towards an approach that distinguishes between the drug trafficker, who is viewed as a criminal, and the drug user, who is seen more as a sick person who is in need of treatment” . For example, in spite of their relatively liberal policies toward drug users, the maximum drug trafficking penalty in the Netherlands is, nominally at least, 16 years . Even in Portugal,cannabis grow set up drug trafficking remains a criminal offense because it involves possession in excess of the average dose needed for ten days of personal use . Relative to America, Europe has focused more on helping rather than punishing problem users, while still attempting to disrupt large-scale drug networks. Europe is not the only region of the world to have largely eliminated or reduced the penalties associated with possessing and using certain drugs. Latin America has also trended toward decriminalization in recent years. The Argentine Supreme Court decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in August of 2009 . The court based its ruling on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to punish adults for private use of marijuana if that use does not harm anyone else .In declaring unconstitutional a law that provided for sentences of up to two years for drug possession, the court also opened the door for possible decriminalization of other substances, because the specific law overturned was not limited to marijuana.
Lower courts might expand the ruling to other drugs. Following the court ruling, the chief of the Argentine cabinet praised the decision for challenging an American-style war on drugs by ending “the repressive policy that the Nixon administration invented” . A few days prior to the Argentine court ruling, Mexico enacted decriminalization legislation specifying that individuals in possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine will not be criminally prosecuted . The new Mexican regime is similar to the Portuguese decriminalization in that those caught by police possessing a small amount of drugs will be encouraged to seek treatment . After being caught three times with drugs, the user will be required to attend treatment. Unlike the prior presidential administration, which sharply criticized earlier attempts by Mexico to decriminalize drugs, President Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, said that the Administration would evaluate the new Mexican law using a “wait and see” approach . In recent years both Brazil and Ecuador have also signaled that they may follow the path of Argentina and Mexico toward decriminalization . Taken together, these developments reflect the dissatisfaction many Latin American governments have with America’s punitive war on drugs: a war that was started in large part to combat drug production and trafficking emanating from Latin America. While it is too soon to tell what effects the Argentine and Mexican reforms will have on use rates in those countries, we will show in subsequent sections that the European experience casts doubt on prohibitionist fears that drug use will inevitably jump sharply. The social costs of recreational drug use in America have been staggering and unabated. According to the ONDCP’s most recent estimate, the economic cost of illegal drug use in the United States in 2002—including lost productivity, health effects, and crime-related costs such as policing expenditures and incarceration—was $180.9 billion, having grown at an average rate of 5.3 percent annually since 1992 .The costs of two legal drugs—alcoholand tobacco—are of a similar order of magnitude. The most recent comprehensive estimate of Harwood puts the annual economic cost of alcohol use at $184.6 billion in 1998.Rice estimates the annual economic cost of smoking in 1995 was $138 billion. Placing these figures in constant 2008 dollars provides a set of crude estimates of current annual social costs of alcohol , tobacco smoking , and illegal drugs .Commentators have rightly pointed out that such cost figures give a misleading impression of precision, ignore the benefits of drug use,and provide scant direction for actual drug policy.We offer these cost estimates for a crude sense of the scale of the problems under the current regime and as a reference point from which to examine the various types of costs associated with drug use—their relative magnitudes, who causes them, and who bears their burdens. It is also worth noting, however, that while such aggregate figures aspire to capture the domestic costs of illegal drugs, the costs imposed on foreign countries by the combination of America’s exceptionally large demand for illegal drugs coupled with its severe attempts at prohibition are also high and growing. Organized criminals from the Taliban in Afghanistan to drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico are enriched by America’s drug consumption and prohibition policy, with many highly unpleasant consequences. The current American administration has shown some signs of appreciating the magnitude of the role played by American drug demand in fostering crime in foreign countries. Following the recent wave of increasingly deadly gang violence near the Mexican-American border, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton surprised the media by candidly admitting that American drug consumers support crime in Mexico fueled by drug profits .Consideration of these foreign costs might bring total social costs of illegal drugs to equal or exceed those of alcohol. While steps toward legalization of currently illegal drugs would likely increase consumption, estimates vary about the extent of this change and how its concomitant costs would compare with gains from decreased law enforcement costs, productivity and other gains from reducing the levels of incarceration, and potentially substantial decreases in the crime and violence stemming from decreased profitability and scope of black markets.Though our best guess is that moving towards legalization would substantially reduce crime, it is possible that aregime shift to depenalization or legalization would increase toxicologically-induced crime and thereby offset expected decreases in black market crimes.