Just a few months after that December 2001 raid, The New York Times mentioned Maye, Jones and Prentiss in a front-page story about how the drug trade was wreaking havoc on the poor and rural south. That article, in contrast with my own reporting, shows how drastically a journalist’s own perspective can alter a story’s narrative. Certainly there’s no question that two families were devastated as the result of a drug raid gone wrong. But when I first came upon Maye’s story, it immediately struck me as an example of collateral damage from the drug war, not of the drug trade. One family lost a young, likable son and brother forever; another family had a young, likable son, brother and father taken from them for a decade. And the pile of bodies resulting from the policy of sending cops barreling into private homes in the middle of the night to stop people from getting high has only grown since the night Cory Maye shot Ron Jones.
I found Maye’s story while researching a paper about the overuse of SWAT teams and paramilitary search tactics. And so where the Times saw another cop killed by a drug dealer, I wondered why a guy who had no criminal record and no real drugs to speak of in his home would knowingly take on a team of raiding police officers, kill one of them, then surrender with bullets still remaining in his gun. It seemed much more like a series of mistakes resulting in a tragedy — a tragedy compounded by Maye’s subsequent conviction and death sentence.
The evil and societal damage of the drug war vastly exceeds that of the drug sellers (let alone users) and drug trade, all the more because it is well intentioned.
I have very mixed thinking about the ‘drug war.’ First, as a parent, I really, really, really don’t want my kids using drugs. I see no good coming from that. I also tend to agree with the position James Q Wilson seems to take, which generally speaking is that if you legalize drugs you are reducing the cost (to the user, and not just monetary cost) and like any economic system if you reduce the cost you get more of it. The argument that we can’t stop it doesn’t hold much weight for me, as we can’t stop burglary, embezzlement, fraud, and murder either, but that doesn’t mean they should be legal.
However, the argument that the societal and individual cost of prohibition (and the cost to say, Mexico and Afghanistan) is far worse than legalization would be is an argument that has a great deal of strength. I also see some truth in the argument that legalization with restriction to minors might actually give us less damage overall while making minors less likely to get involved in drugs than they are now. It seems we’ve had some success in discouraging drunk driving and we would need that and similar efforts to cover whatever additional drugs were now legal.
Next I notice that when people talk about legalizing drugs they seem to always talk about how harmless marijuana is and how it is probably less dangerous (in a societal and individual sense) than alcohol, which we clearly tried prohibiting at one time. Are we talking about legalizing marijuana or meth, crack, and heroine? It looks to me like legalizing pot is one thing, legalizing morphine and heroine is another, and meth and cocaine yet another. Or maybe cocaine goes in the morphine/heroine bucket. I’ve never used any of them and although I’m not a teetotaler I barely drink at all. People seem to talk about marijuana and then say “legalize drugs” and I can’t tell if they mean “legalize everything” or “legalize pot.”
If we’re talking about legalizing everything, that sounds much more dangerous than legalizing pot. But if we only legalize pot, does that really help any? Are the drug dealers and the Mexican drug lords making most of their money from pot or meth and cocaine? Are gangs killing each other over pot selling territory? Would the criminality stop or greatly reduce if we didn’t legalize everything? Or does everything need to be legal to get the benefit of legalization? Do we have to legalize cocaine to get the legalization benefits? How bad is cocaine compared to marijuana and alcohol?
There’s also the option I’ve heard discussed which is to eliminate incarceration for use/possession of drugs, but to have the legal penalty be enforced addiction treatment. While treatment is often unsuccessful, my understanding is that repeated treatments aren’t necessarily less likely to succeed (e.g. a treatment only has a 7% chance of succeeding, but later treatments also have a 7% chance of succeeding, so eventually…). This doesn’t seem like a horrible option, but you’d still have to come up with a way to make the trade unprofitable for the dealers.
Also, I know there’s a thread of thinking out there that our understanding of addiction is quite wrong.
So: you legalize it, you get more of it–is it worth it? Are we talking about all drugs or just some? Which ones? If a subset, does that really solve the issue or not? What will the unintended consequences be? Do we really understand drug addiction or not?
While pot is relatively harmless, some drugs aren’t. One of my nieces is a crack addict. It’s taken a serious toll on her, but it has also devastated her kids. She abandoned her older daughters years ago and had two more children while actively using the drugs. To say, as some do, that drug use is a victimless crime is inaccurate.
I’ve seen this quote attributed to Einstein, MLK and others: “One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome.”
Regardless of who said it, we tried prohibition with alcohol in the early 20th century. It was not only a dismal failure because too many people were perfectly willing to circumvent the law, it also resulted in a great expansion of organized crime and corruption of law enforcement and judges. We’ve been trying prohibition of drugs for over 40 years now and the same things are happening once again.
I don’t know what the answer is, but what we’re doing now isn’t working. It’s time to stop being insane about drugs and to consider other options.
Larry, the answer is low concentration and delayed delivery to the brain. Think of the difference between beer and everclear; one of the reasons cigarettes are so addictive is that the nicotine reaches the brain in seconds when ingested via the lungs, hitting fast and hard.
(Incidentally, prohibition always drives the production of concentrated forms of drugs to reduce bulk and mass- Al Capone and Joe Kennedy were rumrunners, not beer distributors.)
Thus I would legalize coca leaves, not cocaine or crack; tincture of opium in alcohol, not smokable opium or injectable heroin; ecstasy tabs and not meth in any form at all. All the major types of intoxicants can be formulated in a low impact, low concentration, slow onset form. Think brownies not bubblers 🙂
I’m slowly changing my views on drugs and the drug war. As Jeff states above, I don’t want my kids doing them, and I’ve never done them. Dr. Pepper is a bad enough chemical addication, I don’t need anything else.
Further, I don’t want my kids drinking lots of alcohol and they don’t. I do drink beer, wine, and spirits fairly regularly. I’m aware that at one time, the USA had a rather violent war on alcohol. I would oppose that now, and so, I see the hypocrisy in not fully opposing the war on drugs. The problem, as I see it, is the particular drug one is referring. And for me, drawing the line is difficult.
I do think some drugs do need to be legalized. The best example is Marijuana. The best thing I heard as a “pro” is from a local “conservative” (self-described and described by many others, sometimes subs for Mark Levin) talk show host that gave this take: “Imagine your a cop, would you rather arrest somebody intoxicated on alcohol or marijuana?” My wife, an RN, concurred with that remark. Marijuana is much more a depressant than alcohol. Your typical weed user is lazy and hungry. However, alcoholics can be very violent. In short, the threat to society is less for that particular drug, especially compared to the criminal justice against using that drug.
But that’s just one example. The debate on each drug legalization can be long and painful. For now, I’m glad a man that protected his own family is allowed to go home. The drug war caused his injustice, but many other crimes were committed in the process of sending Corey Maye to jail.
While your idea has merit, I don’t know how well it’d actually work. Current drug addicts are used to the hard stuff and it seems unlikely they’d want the milder versions even if they were legal and relatively inexpensive. Legalizing the mild versions while keeping the strong versions illegal doesn’t seem like a viable strategy to end drug trafficing. If the past is a guide, most people seem to start with milder drugs like pot and go on to harder stuff later. Does many drug addicts start out with cocain, crystal meth or heroin? Likely some do but I suspect they’re a small percentage of all drug users. Legalizing the weaker forms could well lead more people to eventually want the harder forms as they search for a more powerful high. By way of analogy, how many alcoholics drink only beer?
Your approach could well increase use of the hard drugs over time and if those forms are still illegal, well, the war on (some) drugs will continue to escalate. Like I said, I don’t have the answer to this difficult problem.
It seems that, whenever people discuss the drug war, we’re always presented with two alternatives–either continue it, or end it. That generally translates into maintaining the current prohibition and special scheduling of narcotics, or legalize them.
There is, however, a third option (or set of options), and that is decriminalization. This does not necessarily make these drugs or their use legal, but rather, moves the transgression from the felony/misdemeanor category, to the violation category.
Fines can be levied based on the dangerousness of the drug (with marijuana use fines the lowest), total quantities, and/or intent to distribute. I believe that could help ameliorate the issue of “cheap” drugs flooding the market as Jeff noted.
It could also tone down the violence associated with the drug war. Right now, the fear of getting caught, leads to greater violence on the part of those who participate in the drug trade. Most are faced with the choice of shutting up and going to jail for years, or trading in a supplier, and putting a target on their backs, and risking execution forever.
By using stiff fines instead of stiff prison sentences, it becomes more of a “price of doing business”, and not worth dying or killing for. By toning down the violence, that puts law enforcement officers and innocent bystanders in less danger.
If government used the lightest touch necessary to ensure law and order, I believe we would all be better off.
The nationalized Drug War is half the reason we have the illegal alien problem with Mexico – it breeds armies of Capones. The other half is Mexico’s lack of economic freedom. Mexicans are fleeing the two major barriers to a thriving economy.
If you want an end to prohibition, don’t ever use the phrase “end the drug war.” It sounds like you want to give up on fighting drug abuse. Speak of privatizing it. Drug abuse can be fought only by changing the culture. You can reduce the supply all you want, but the unchanged demand will constantly spark new innovations to get around Elliot Ness.
I’ve wondered if the criminalization of drugs is a deterrent to recovery from drug abuse. The more you want to hide a problem, the less likely you are to seek help – and crime ranks high on the list of activities people want to hide. If drugs are decriminalized, will more people seek help?
Alan, a thoughtful comment. Something has to change, but it’s not going to be fixed overnight. Expect the transition to last a generation.
@Jeff Mauldin
The thing is that most of all these objections that you raised, which have long been used by legalization opponents is starting to get some actual data back from the real world as more and more states and countries are starting to decriminalize. In fact, they are starting to decriminalize because they can no longer afford in these times of economic downturn the enforcement and incarceration costs needed to support their morale postures. But the thing is that these areas that have been legalizing drugs have really not seen any great uptick in the usage among average citizens and in fact in some areas actually are seeing a reported decline in average usage. It’s almost like it is human nature that if you tell someone not to do something then they will go ahead and do it just out of spite or curiosity. Sort of like at the end of Time Bandits when the kid yells at his parents, “Mom, Dad, don’t touch it! It’s EVIL!”, and they are like, “Oh really?” and then reach in touch and blow up.
Now it seems to me that most people that use drugs really only do it briefly a few times, get it out of their system, and then go on with life. They do it more because they seek the enrichment experience of being able to say, “This one time, in band camp….” Off the top of my head, I believe the total number of aggregate hardcore addicts is like in the 15% area of total people who’ve experimented with one drug or another. In other words, the threats posed by addiction are fairly low in comparison to the sensationalist propaganda presented by LEO’s and the MSM. The “Super Crack” scare of the ’80s is a great example of how the rhetoric can go into ludicrous levels of hysteria when the subject of drug usage becomes front and center.
Now, for the addict I believe that they have become chronic habitual users not because they just want to ride the high, but because they are trying to self medicate to compensate for some type of chemical imbalance in their brain. A great data point to support this assertion is in the fairly sizable number of veterans diagnosed with PTSD who’ve admitted to picking up a marijuana habit after returning back from overseas. That means they weren’t users before and then became user’s afterwards to help deal with the effects of the all the things they saw and did while waging a violent war. But there are several categories of psychological depression aside from onset of combat related PTSD. Chemical imbalances in the brain or mental/emotional trauma brought about my mental/physical abuse may very well lead people to, whether they know that’s what they are doing or not, seek a treatment for their depressed psychological state. A great many of these people have probably even tried using a legal remedy but found it lacking and moved onto illegal drugs to seek a remedy. So, we are basically throwing thousands of people in jail every year who probably need a psychologist more than they do a warden.
@Doug Jones:”Think brownies not bubblers “
Hmm, no this is wrong. Ingesting a decent pot brownie will yield a fairly intense high that will last 4-8 hours versus the 1-2 hours from smoking it. In fact, the notion that tinctures are not potent forms of administering these drugs is laughable. Back when all these things were legal it was usually the tinctures and oils that most people sought and the idea of smoking them or injecting them was rather foreign. In fact, it was foreigners from Mexico that first adopted the idea of smoking Marijuana. Law enforcement at the time that used the imagery of “dirty Mexicans” smoking their stinky weed and selling it to your kids that was used to start moving the usage of THC as a drug into a negative light. Prior to that people were getting their 8 hour trips dropping a tincture of THC. Same is true in Opium where it was mainly within the popular culture of the Asians to smoke it at Opium houses. But for the majority of Anglo’s they stuck to ingesting it with tea or soda. One just needs to read a few lines of Edgar Allen Poe to see that drinking it is every bit as effective as smoking it. But if I had a choice between the two I’d stick with eating it. Not only do you avert the chances of getting mouth, throat, and/or lung cancer but you get to better regulate your intake of the drug experience without the harsh irritation of hitting a pipe every 45 minutes and stinking up your surroundings.
So, what we see is how free markets found the optimal method of administering these drugs. It’s the government intervention and heavy regulatory environment that forced suppliers and consumers to settle on various, none optimal forms of administering these drugs. Why it almost seems like there is a libertarian argument to be made in here somewhere as to the negative market distorting effects of gov’t intervention. 😉
Drug wars are bad. SWAT teams for every Federal Agency, State, County and major municipality is worse.
SWAT teams are VERY EXPENSIVE. What government agency can afford to have a SWAT team sitting around and doing nothing? What politician will stand up in opposition to entrenched law enforcement elites?
The single thing that everyone needs to realize is that SWAT teams will be used.
In your neighborhood.
HeftyJo, yes, ingested marijuana lasts longer and *may* be more intense- but that is mainly because most of the THC has not been destroyed by heating. Inhalation and IV’s are the fastest delivery mechanism, but smoking does decompose a large fraction of the drug… so it’s no surprise that sellers of such drugs encourage wasteful consumption!
Tinctures and oils are strong, yes, but they give the consumer more zing for the buck, and deliver that zing slower, which is important from a public health point of view, reducing the “rush”. I never said dilute forms are less potent, they merely slow the delivery to the brain. Legalized forms might have restrictions on concentration, a bit like the logic behind 3.2% beer.
I learned a fair amount about pharmacology while working for Realityworks (maker of the Baby Think it Over teen pregnancy prevention system) on an anti-smoking device. Promptly forgot most of it, of course.
I just learned about one major problem with marijuana of which I had never been aware: babies born to women who chronically abuse pot have severe developmental problems from which they never recover. In Maryland, these “THC babies” are immediately taken from the parents, and given the best life the state can provide…which isn’t much.
As tragic as that is, it doesn’t change my attitude of: legalize everything, buy provide penalties for harm caused by drug-induced behavior.
Oh, BTW. “I’ve seen this quote attributed to Einstein, MLK and others…”. I believe that’s “MfK.”
You do know, don’t you, that babies born to women who chronically abuse alcohol have severe developmental problems from which they never recover.
As tragic as that is, it doesn’t change my attitude of: legalize everything, bu[t] provide penalties for harm caused by drug-induced behavior.
This.
Does anyone know if there is an address or a person to whom one can send a contribution on behalf of Corey Maye?
I’m always amazed at people who say they worry about their kids getting / doing drugs. But they RARELY say it about alcohol. Why not?
Because they know at the end of the day that ALCOHOL is much harder to get.
IF we just make it ALL legal, put it in liquor stores, who ALREADY card for age btw, tax the snot out of it like alcohol, and use 50% of that tax for rehab and information. It’s a three step process.
Legalization, taxation, education.
And yes, I know about and have family and friends who have a drug problem. But I ALSO know beeraholics. No one is proposing raing the Bud Light plant at 4 AM!
If nothing else, it would make it MUCH harder for kids to get drugs to legalize them and make the distributors card them for age. And I realize a kid named McLovin WILL get stoned. But he’s in the minority.