Letters
By Daily Bruin Staff
Aug. 9, 1998 9:00 p.m.
Monday, August 10, 1998
Letters
Myths from the war on drugs
The recent statements by U.S. Drug Czar, General Barry
McCaffrey, against the Dutch policy of harm reduction for drugs
prove beyond a doubt that the American War on Drugs is being
conducted with willful blindness to the facts.
McCaffrey is wrong on every count. Not only is the U.S. murder
rate three times higher than that of the Netherlands (not the other
way around, as he claims), our incarceration rate (645 people of
100,000) is also much higher than theirs (73 per 100,000). Our
rates of heroin addiction (430 per 100,000) are higher than theirs
(160 per 100,000).
McCaffrey says our model has "resulted in lowering the rates of
drug abuse in America by 50 percent." This, too, is false; our
statistics only measure the willingness of people to admit to a
felony in an ever harsher punitive environment, not actual use. The
measurement of increased deaths and hospital admissions tells a
very different story. Even by the drug warrior’s own statistics,
the signs are not good. For example, heroin use among eighth
graders is reported as having increased.
What will it take for the American public to start demanding of
their leaders that drug policy be made according to pragmatic goals
rather than ideological zeal and distortions? Do we need to turn
into Colombia or into a totalitarian state, before we wake up?
Silvio Levy
