Note to Mark Kirk: The War on Drugs Has Failed

Seeking cover from his small fry attempt to look like a big fry to the Chinese, Kirk's relying on an oldie, but baddie, the war on drugs. Kirk's new bill is to increase penalties for something he calls high potency marijuana, that's marijuana containing more than 15 percent THC. Kirk is taking advantage of a report from the Marijuana Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi that seemed to show that marijuana potency was increasing. The thing is that the report has been overblown by right wingers like Kirk. It shows that the average marijuana potency is only 8.52% (see page 6). The only way to get over 15% is by including what they call hash oil. Hash oil is rarely available.

Kirk's bill is likely to do what most of Kirk's proposals do, nothing.

Further, it's already commonly accepted, even among conservatives, that the war on drugs has been a big failure. Even the right wing editors of the Wall Street Journal think the war on drugs has failed:

The first step in the search for alternative solutions is to acknowledge the disastrous consequences of current policies. Next, we must shatter the taboos that inhibit public debate about drugs in our societies. Antinarcotic policies are firmly rooted in prejudices and fears that sometimes bear little relation to reality. The association of drugs with crime segregates addicts in closed circles where they become even more exposed to organized crime.

In order to drastically reduce the harm caused by narcotics, the long-term solution is to reduce demand for drugs in the main consumer countries. To move in this direction, it is essential to differentiate among illicit substances according to the harm they inflict on people's health, and the harm drugs cause to the social fabric.

Walter Cronkite also had some words about the failed war on drugs. He compares it to the Vietnam War:

And what is the impact of this policy?

It surely hasn't made our streets safer. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people...disproportionately people of color...who have caused little or no harm to others - wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals.

With police wielding unprecedented powers to invade privacy, tap phones and conduct searches seemingly at random, our civil liberties are in a very precarious condition.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this effort - with no one held accountable for its failure.

Amid the clichés of the drug war, our country has lost sight of the scientific facts. Amid the frantic rhetoric of our leaders, we've become blind to reality: The war on drugs, as it is currently fought, is too expensive, and too inhumane.

But nothing will change until someone has the courage to stand up and say what so many politicians privately know: The war on drugs has failed.

Not only is Kirk unable to admit that the war on drugs has failed, he's joining in as a last ditch attempt to look relevant. All Kirk has done with this bill is take some dubiously distorted statistics to fashion something that sounds good to suburban parents, but does nothing to handle the problem. We'd do better improving health care and payments for preventative medicine so doctors can detect abuse problems early on.

If you want a more rational approach to our local drug problem, skip Kirk and go to Dr. Keller, a medical doctor and the Lake County Coroner who actually knows something about drug abuse. Here is what Keller said about how to handle our local drug abuse problem:

This substance abuse epidemic must be attacked with prevention, education, and increasing the likelihood that someone who abuses drugs gets treatment by increasing the availability of treatment and eliminating the stigma of seeking help and getting treatment.