Paper required for graduate degree in Criminal Justice

DISCLAIMERS GALORE!!!!!!

I was taking the M.S. (Criminal Justice) On-Line but from several long blocks down the road of one of the best criminal justice university colleges in the country, in the world perhaps. From the same Ivory Tower Professors;....while I was running my business.

What was MANDATED for the paper I did not like. I was mandated to write about

"Drugs, Crime, and Drug Policy"

[I wanted to "save" the USA...in time...the long time this treatment plan wold take if it were even considered plausible which it won't because those who begin it will be long dead and so will their grandchildren before fruition is achieved...]

However writing about Drugs, Crime, and Drug Policy was of little to no interest to me.

I asked the professor if I could pay homage to that idea and then go on my way to what I deemed important and significant. With his OK I did just that; ergo the first part is a waste of my time in my opinion... then. Later I found that the mandated topic dovetailed into what I wanted to posit towards my treatment plan.

We were only allowed about 60 double space pages to accomplish a goal for which a book was IMO needed.

So, in my opinion, what I wrote has much lacking. I may write a book on the subject, depending. 
The paper received an "A", maybe because it was a pass or fail paper, I do not recall.

What I would have written is far from what I wrote because of the limitations imposed by the University.

However it is a start. I would be proud if someone with "power" could expand the concept into a reality.

That it could become a reality is founded in what occurred in Cincinnati long ago ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_reform )...1870....http://www.360degrees.org/timeline/era6/era6_i.html

My paper is very flawed. I think of it as a very rough draft towards what I may do when I can.

At this moment, after attending the farewell of a good young man who died too soon...making it back to my computer to add this to what I am trying to accomplish, I will cease for the night.




All Rights Reserved__Plagiarism is a bad, very bad anti-social thing to do........Just Say No to Plagiarism!!! ___________________________________________________________

University of Cincinnati

March 8, 2007

Criminal Justice

Demonstration Project

Drugs, Crime, and Drug Policy

     The criminal justice system has a drug policy whose enforcement is purported to be a solution to the problems society suffers from the damage done by those individuals who have been damaged by illicit drug use (Reuter, 1999; p. 18).

     Society takes those damages seriously and has assigned a value to them. This value is the cost of operating the War on Drugs. Federal, state and local agencies involved in this war expend over 36 billion dollars a year. Hundreds of thousands of people arrested for drug violations are wards of the federal, state and local criminal justice systems that warehouse them in concentrated areas called prisons (Mitchell, Syllabus). The individual cost of housing and caring for these people may be around $40,000 a year and not included in the $36 billion

     Reuter writes about drug measures in “Drug Use Measures: What are they really telling us (1999)?” A war can be only poorly fought without intelligence gathering. Reuter lists agencies that collect “intelligence” or data such as National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM), Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), The Community Epidemiology Work Group (CEWG) and the Office of National Drug Control policy (ONDCP). These groups and agencies collect data that can be used to understand and predict trends in illicit drug use. Reuter warns that counting numbers of people who use illicit drugs in order to measure the American drug problem is potentially misleading. He suggests that a better methodology might be to understand the differences in illicit drug use damages that are borne by the offenders and by society by the offenders. Different types of drug use differ in the problems created for individuals and individuals differ in the amounts and types of damages they create for society (Reuter; p.18).

     Understanding the five drugs that are most abused and the use of those drugs by the general population and hardcore users is a start towards understanding drug policy making, its strong points and its weaknesses. This paper will take the position that government would do well to understand the strategies of American and Japanese capitalism, none of which have prospered by funneling vast amounts of capital into losing propositions, year after year, decade after decade. And those who do not plan long term (Americans) are replaced by those who do (Japanese and Chinese).

     Contrast the average American who is raised on public media that makes it emotionally necessary to obtain gratification immediately, to the Japanese craftsman-artist who may plant trees from which wood is prepared and cured, not for him but for those to replace him many generations later. The cured wood is not for his son but his son nurtures the trees as they grow and he makes certain the planks of wood cut by his grandfather are safely sheltered during their curing process insuring the quality of product which might be made by his grandson. Although these generations of craftsmen are repaying their far seeing ancestors by preparing for the future generations, they are enjoying the results of the efforts made generations earlier by their ancestors. It would be the first generation, the second, third, maybe fourth and fifth generation that would not have the full benefits of those looking ahead to provide for future generations. The first generations would not benefit fully from what the future generations would receive, yet they toiled for their prodigy so that their world would be a better one, an easier one in which they could realize their full artistic expression with fewer obstacles.

     This paper will offer a drug policy that follows the long outlook of the Japanese example. The broad program involves the principle of psychological cognitive behavioral therapy that has proven successful on an individual level and in criminal justice programs that provide education to young and/or poor mothers regarding child rearing with a resulting decrease in juvenile delinquency. Indirectly but with certainty this program will undermine the foundations for anomie as defined by Merton. The first generations exposed to this program through the public school system, albeit a school system not as is now in place, will be the tinder, the second generation might well be the spark, the third and fourth may catch fire and eventually there will be generations whose pro social behavior might amaze today’s society.

      This theory is not utopian nor a 100 percent fix. Given that criminal justice experts take pride in what the numbers actually are when recidivism is reduced by a program at a measured 6 or 8 percent, it might well be worth the deferred gratification to slowly eliminate about 92 or more percent of criminality through cognitive behavioral therapy applied across generations during the time the new public school system provides its comprehensive services to society, one generation at a time. The formula for this possibility is to take the emotion out of drugs, use the forty billion plus dollars per year previously used as effectively as a rubber spear to vanquish an immortal dragon, and revamp the schools with what is needed for the long term project of full education that actually leaves no one behind for any reason. Can this work? First we should take an appraisal of the present state of society and drug policy.

     Of the five top illicit drug groups, marijuana attracts the most users. Six percent of Americans 12 years or older have used marijuana in the past month and fifty six percent of all illicit drug users were users of only marijuana and no other illicit drugs (Mitchell: Drug Use Trends;).  Alcohol is a legal drug available as such to adults. While Marijuana attracts the most illicit drug users, alcohol has the distinction of doing the most harm and has a place in this section towards the end.

     Marijuana acute harms

     Acute emotional harms resulting from marijuana are rare, likely because American marijuana has less THC than found in countries where emotional problems are recorded with more significance (Levinthal; p. 158). Acute physical effects of marijuana are not significant as the lethal dosage of marijuana is about twenty thousand to forty thousand times the normal dose. (Levinthal; p.156). Heart beat does increase at high dosages and blood pressure will increase, decrease or remain stable depending on the position of the user’s body, sitting, standing or prone. Dryness of the mouth, dilation of blood vessels in the eye and an urge to drink are common (Levinthal; p.157).

     Psychological and behavioral effects.

     A feeling of well being, and/or euphoria is reported. There may be an increased awareness of the user’s environment with a more sensitive ability to perceive sight and sound. Occasional irritation of the funny bone and a belief in one’s profoundness and superior creativity occur frequently. Decreased levels in attention and memory are significant. Fragmentation of speech is common and complex motor skills are not likely to be executed satisfactorily (Levinthal; p.157).

     Marijuana chronic harms

     A decline in sensory-motor skills lasts past the time the marijuana high has extinguished.   Heavy consumers of marijuana find impairment in memory and attention tests 24 hours after last consumption. (Levinthal; p. 158). THC builds up in the body because of the slow elimination rate of marijuana. This residual THC could elevate the THC consumed resulting in more efficient highs. This process negates the long held belief in increased sensitivity to THC. Tolerance is instead consistent. Withdrawal effects are minimal relative to stronger drugs such as heroin. Some irritability, anxiety, loss of the munchies and stomach pain may begin within one day and last for two days.

Compared to alcohol, opiates or stimulants, marijuana consumption in the U.S. is low on the withdrawal scale and the behaviors and obsessions towards drug seeking and consumption associated with alcohol, stimulants and opiates are relatively mild (Levinthal; p.160).

     Reproduction systems are adversely affected in both men and women however fertility affects have not been observed (Levinthal; p.161). Immune system affects have not been studied on a long term basis and present studies indicate no major harm to the immune system. The process of deep inhalation of marijuana smoke unfiltered creates a number of risks. Breathing in general can be affected while asthma may be accentuated. The damage of marijuana smoke from one joint can be likened to five cigarettes for carbon monoxide intake, four cigarettes for tar exposure, and ten cigarettes for microscopic cell damage in the airway linings. The risk for cancer is of yet unknown (Levinthal; pp.160-161).

     Cocaine acute harms:

      Intravenous injection of cocaine creates a rush of energy filled intensity within seconds. This peaks in a few minutes and wears off after half an hour. Use though the nose creates the high in three minutes, with full intensity within fifteen to thirty minutes and worn off in about thirty to forty minutes. Effects can be well being or in some cases panic attacks arise. .When the cocaine level lessens mood changes can be depression and/or irritability. During a peak year in cocaine consumption one out of every five suicide showed levels of cocaine. Sexual activity was thought to be enhanced by cocaine although it is now understood that a placebo affect is behind any sexual association with cocaine (Levinthal; pp.81-82).  Cocaine negatively impacts the heart and other organs through sympathetic arousal. Blood vessels constrict pupils dilate blood pressure increases, sweating may be observed and cardiac arrhythmia may occur. Cerebral hemorrhage and congestive heart failure are possible outcomes. Cocaine negates the body’s ability to calm down and the effects can be diverse though most commonly observed in the user’s poor straight line driving abilities (Levinthal; p. 83). Cocaine use associated to death is shown in the records of DAWN (Levinthal; p. 17). Death is an outcome from the drug’s effect on the body; powerful excitation, abnormal heart rhythms, labored breathing results in cardiac arrest or cerebral hemorrhage. Epileptic seizures may result from higher body temperatures (Levinthal; pp. 81-82).

     Cocaine chronic harms:

     Decreased sexual performance and a lack of sexual desire come about after chronic use of cocaine. Negative mood swings are produced by chronic cocaine use. Paranoia, depression and irritability are results from chronic cocaine use. Cocaine psychosis is one of the more unpleasant chronic possibilities unless the users enjoys snakes and bugs writhing under their skin. Nasal membrane harm is common with cocaine snorting (Levinthal; 83). 

     Amphetamines:

     The acute harms of amphetamines are similar to those of cocaine although lasting longer than those for cocaine. During the eight to twenty four hour interval body temperature increases, faster heart rate and breathing underlines the sympathetic arousal effect, and blood pressure increases. Euphoria, lessening of appetite and dramatic increase in energy and alertness is evidenced. Chest pains, convulsions and stroke are among the potential lethal bodily changes when amphetamines are ingested. ER admissions because of amphetamine problems doubled from 1990 to 2002 according to DAWN records (Levinthal;p.92).

     Chronic effects, especially with the methamphetamine version of amphetamines, are particularly nasty. Hallucinations similar to those which arise from cocaine psychosis are possible as is compulsive disorder and paranoia that can be coupled to violence. Amphetamine psychosis labels these symptoms which can also include wild mood swings and strange delusions (Levinthal;p.93).

     Opiates: Heroin, Oxycontin and Morphine.

     The opiates are categorized as true narcotics which induce a state of dreams or sleep. Most important is that they alleviate or reduce dramatically the feeling of pain. Narcotics consist of opium including morphine, codeine and thebaine which are natural derivatives of opium. Another category  includes slight derivatives of morphine such as heroin. A third category consists of synthetic drugs that produce effects of opiates but are not related chemically to opiates (Levinthal;p.103). These are naturally called synthetic opiates or synthetic opiate-like drugs and have come about through the search for a drug that will not be abused yet still be capable of medicinal use (Levinthal;p.103). In 2003 the estimate for heroin use within the past year was about 300,000 users (Levinthal;p.107).

     Acute affects:

     Intravenous injection produces an immediate feeling of warmth and a tingling sensation similar to orgasm. After a couple minutes there is intense euphoria and then drowsiness. Sexual drive is diminished. Initial consumption may cause nausea and vomiting, it is usually an unpleasant experience for the new user. Itching is possible and irritation of the eyes can occur. Pupils may become pin point. Breathing becomes depressed and is a large factor in heroin overdose deaths. Blood pressure is also depressed (Levinthal;pp.111-112).

     Chronic effects:

     Chronic heroin abuse is marked by the tolerance that develops, affecting euphoria, the amount of analgesia and respiratory depression. Withdrawal is rarely a lethal process (Levinthal;p.113).

     Lethality and toxicity of heroin can be understood if acute effects can be distinguished from chronic abuse. Heroin has an effective dose (ED) and a lethal dose (LD). The ratio is small. The LD is about ten or fifteen times as high as the ED. Combining Heroin and other drugs such as cocaine or alcohol  increases risk of death according to DAWN data. Heroin by itself is not lethal during normal use by the abuser. It is the LD that is usually avoided but which is the foundation for heroin deaths. Narcotics including heroin do not destroy organs as does alcohol and amphetamines (Levinthal;pp.114-115). 

       Many people, especially college students and others in the same age bracket, experimented with cocaine, although most only used the drug occasionally the rest became hardcore users. Cocaine experimentation slowed significantly by the middle of the 1980’s.and has remained low. Unfortunately the group of cocaine users remained level because about 33% of those who experimented earlier were now using continually. Users who were better educated and therefore aware of the discovered and published dangers involved with cocaine quit using the drug. On the other hand those who had not quit were being supplied with a cheaper and more addictive variation in cocaine called crack. Crack caused serious problems for the users who were mostly from poor urban neighborhoods. Cocaine was causing a disproportionate amount of health issues and crime problems. (p.18). DAWN data has shown that stabilization in the rate of drug use among the general public does not mean that the problems associated with the drug use will stabilize. In fact the problems as indicated by ER and ME data from Dawn show increases in the problems associated with cocaine and heroin in hardcore users (p.17-18).     Around 50% of deaths connected to cocaine and heroin occurred in users over 30 in the early 1980’s but more than 65% occurred in those older than 35. This increase was reversed by younger users where deaths went from 23% to 8% among those 18 to 25. However African American incurred an increase from 23% in 1982 to about 44% in 1996.

     Drug indicators such as ADAM and DAWN show that long term users of cocaine are having increasing problems. Statistics gathered from emergency room (ER) and from medical examiners (ME) underline these problems in the increase of deaths and emergency room admissions. Cocaine admissions went from about 15,000 in the early 1980’s to about 155,000 in 1996. (Reuter; p.16). 

     The use of marijuana in the United States seems to have remained unchanged. A closer look shows that adults have been using marijuana less and young people have been taking marijuana in increasing numbers. As methamphetamines became more popular the war on drugs saw the rise in youth marijuana use alarming. That pricing for heroin has gone down as quality has gone up raises the flag that youth will consume heroin in increasing numbers. In fact methamphetamines remain regional problems while marijuana use does not predict future cocaine use. Inhalants are the least used drug while marijuana is the illicit drug used most.  

     Hard-core users, those who stubbornly persist in the use of their drug of choice, have clearly chosen marijuana. According to the National Household Survey of Drug Use and Health, chronic marijuana use is described by a use of at least 3 times a week. In 1990 there were about 3 million hardcore marijuana users. This number gradually increased until there were over 5 million hardcore marijuana users in the year 2000 (Professor Mitchell’s annotated notes on Drug Use Trends. p 8). The NSDUH data indicates that over half of illicit drug use, about 56%, is exclusively marijuana. These users are not using other illicit drugs; they are hardcore marijuana users who persist in using one illicit drug (Professor Mitchell’s annotated notes on Drug Use Trends. p. 5). At this time marijuana use is at its peak since about the late 1970’s to early 1980’s (Professor Mitchell’s annotated notes on Drug Use Trends. p 4).

     Chronic cocaine and heroin users have stayed at a steady number. Cocaine peaked in 1988 at about 4 million according to data from the Office of National Drug Control Policy and leveled off to about 3 million around 1992. The ONDCP data shows heroin users at about 1.4 million in 1988 and leveling off to about 1 million users by 1992  (Professor Mitchell’s annotated notes on Drug Use Trends. p 8). The data from ADAM indicates that arrestees in the younger ages are increasing heroin usage only minimally (Reuter; p. 18).

     Peter Reuter states what is most important to acknowledge and understand towards quantifying drug use. The measure of a society’s drug problem is not understood in estimates of numbers of individuals involved in drug use but in the understanding that drug use causes different damages or varying types and amounts of damage to individuals. And just so, that drug use differs in the types and amount of damages done to society by those damaged individuals (p. 18). Rather than focus on estimated numbers of users, Reuter suggests that legislators partner with the social science community so that the increasing data being accumulated on drug use and trends by the federal government can be used to understand changes in drug problems on a local basis (p. 18).

      There are harms associated with most all illicit and legal drugs that range from almost never and slight to chronic organic damage contributing to death. The drug that actually does the most damage to the most people in the greatest spectrum of manners is the legal drug, alcohol, whose control has been limited only by taxation (Levinthal; p. 253) and easily circumvented age laws.

     Alcohol:

     Alcohol depresses the central nervous system. However, there is an illusion of stimulation because part of the brain that controls inhibition is depressed allowing for a lack of inhibition that is perceived as stimulation. There is impairment of thinking and much poor judgment. Enough alcohol can depress the respiratory system resulting in death. Acute alcohol poisoning is lethal because of the asphyxiation brought about through inhibition in the respiratory centers of the brain.  

      A milestone in the history of alcohol abuse occurred about the mid 1600’s when the Dutch flavored the end product of improved distillation with juniper berries creating gin, an intoxicant  that was fast to affect the brain and cheap to produce and acquire. The economically disadvantaged could easily afford enough gin to further disadvantage their positions in life. So much so that the vast amounts of gin consumed in the mid 1600’s had all levels of society swimming in the chaos of gin induced social destruction similar in manner to the introduction of crack to poor urban neighborhoods. In England, by the mid 1700’s the use of gin was 22 times that used 65 years earlier. Imagine a gin shop every five houses in urban England. McDonalds has nothing per capita that can compare nor does Starbucks or just about any modern business of consumable retail outlets (Levinthal; p. 227).

      Beer consumption is about 88% of alcohol consumed in America (Levinthal; p. 229). Coming of drinking age usually occurs while many are at university. The consequences are disturbing. Among full time four year university students encompassing both drinkers and non drinkers, about 500,000 students are unintentionally physically harmed while 1400, with high blood alcohol levels were killed. Deaths were usually related to road accidents. On top of these figures are about 600,000 students who were assaulted without intent by other students who were too drunk to differentiate their normal actions from assault. Intoxication also lead to about 400,000 students partaking of sex while unprotected (Levinthal; p. 231).

     Accounting for harm done after the youthful years of experimentation with adult responsibilities, it is found that chronic use of alcohol leads to alcohol cirrhosis, a deadly liver disease, alcohol hepatitis, major cardiovascular problems, and cancer of the pharynx and larynx are some of the harms created by alcohol abuse (p. 255). Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome rewards some heavy drinkers with a number of cognitive impairing ailments. Fetal alcoholism damages children before they are born making any normal experience of life impossible (p. 256). A large percentage of violence, assaults, murders, domestic violence, sexual aggression and child molestation involve alcohol intoxication. About 40% to 70% of these crimes are facilitated by alcohol (p. 241).

     There is little doubt that alcohol creates the most human and societal harm of all the drugs presently known.

Drug use patterns and risk variables

     The terms “drug use”, “drug abuse” and “drug dependence” can be confused and/or abused without definitions. Various researchers and texts have different definitions for these terms. Drug use does not indicate that the drug user is necessarily dependent on the drug being abused. Drug abuse and drug dependence is defined and that definition will be explored. As of 1999, when the US population was about 221 million adults, 76 million people had tried marijuana while the remainder had not tried the drug (Earleywine: p. 65). Of the approximately 76 million people who tried marijuana about 1 in 4 had used marijuana in the past year and about 1 in 7 had consumed marijuana in the past month. (Earleywine: p.55). Clearly these figures do not describe a drug dependency problem regarding the use of marijuana for most Americans.

     A definition of drug dependence is important towards distinguishing whether or not the drug user is drug dependent if there is to be an understanding of the risk factors for drug dependency. Precursors of drug use have been confused with the causes of drug use as have stepping stones and gateways to drug use (Earleywine: p.49).

     Glantz and Colliver present definitions for drug use and dependency which will be presented soon. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by the American Psychiatric Association in its present version, the DSM-IV, defines drug dependence when three criteria out of a basket of seven are met. These include tolerance and withdrawal, use exceeding intention, inability to decrease use, consumption caused decrease in activities, loss of time, and persistent consumption despite these problems (Earleywine: p. 37). Drug dependence is not drug abuse although drug abuse is diagnosed by observing the user experiencing problems that may be similar to the above listed criteria.

     One of the following four criteria is enough to identify drug abuse; drug use that makes serious obligations problematic to fulfill, consumption in dangerous settings, legal problems and continued use despite these problems (Earleywine: p. 41). Hawkins et al., define adolescent drug abuse as the association of dysfunctions and problems with the use of alcohol or other drugs, or the frequent use of alcohol or other drugs in the teenage years (p. 64).

     Although marijuana is not a drug that is frequently abused nor is dependency on marijuana a problem for most users, marijuana has been perceived by society as being the stepping stone or gateway to drug dependence on harder substances such as heroin and crack (Earleywine: pp. 47-49).

     Glantz and Colliver argue that there is not one set of circumstances that can describe societal or biological paths to drug use or abuse and there is no one set of criteria that can describe the path from use to desistance. Drug use and abuse are so different that they should be thought of as a behavioral problem (drug use) or as  psychopathology (drug abuse) (p. 46). Glantz and Colliver are making a stark division between the terms use, abuse, and dependence where abuse and dependence are the same condition and use describes initiation and low involvement (47).

     Risk factors for abuse/addiction are high frequency of use, early initiation, parental drug abuse and possible parental anti social behavior, family history of drug use and psychopathology. Included are severe family problems with disruption and dysfunction, divorces that are difficult, neurobiological disorders, psychopathologies of various types. Childhood behavior problems. Multiple psychopathologies especially internalization and externalization disorders. Combining ADHD with aggressive behavior.  Post traumatic stress disorder. Social isolation for various interpersonal reasons (Glantz and Colliver; p. 47 – 48).

     The risk factors for initiation and what is labeled low involvement are some behavioral problems which can be labeled bad conduct. Having friends with behavioral problems and friends involved with drugs especially if these friends have behavioral problems. Peer pressure for drug use and the availability of drugs. Poor school achievements, mainly grades. Low quality parental relations or attachments or parents who are inadequate as parents. Rebelliousness and unconventionality (Glantz and Colliver; p. 47).

      It is made clear that drug use does not dictate a move towards eventual dependence (Glantz and Colliver; p. 48).  Glantz and Colliver point out that data indicates only a minor percentage (7.5%) of the population (15 to 54 years in age) met dependence diagnostic criteria in their life time while 51% of the population reported illegal drug use. Data from Anthony et al., show tobacco as having a 31.9% lifetime dependency rate, the highest on the table with heroin rating second at 23.1% (Glantz and Colliver; p. 47). What becomes clear when examining a great deal of the research is that there is agreement among researchers that cigarettes are the most addictive substance used in the US.

     Glantz and Colliver state that just as there is no one reason or risk for drug use and abuse, there are likely multiple reasons why drug users do not transition to dependence. There are protective factors that are important in preventing abuse (Glantz and Colliver; p. 50). When strategies attempt to target initiation there is some success. Problematic are those who have not initiated but are on a path to drug abuse which is different from most. They can be influenced by drug abuse risk variables and the preventative factors may not be applied to them. Risk and protective factors are in context of the individual’s development which includes the characteristics of the parents (Glantz and Colliver; p. 51). Unfortunately these aspects of the cycle which perpetuates abuse, drug or otherwise are rarely addressed in preventive strategies. Preventive/Preventative Rehabilitation does address this cycle. Glantz and Colliver, may be missing the point when they suggest searching for a phenotype of drug abuse (p. 55). They suggest that we are at a pivotal moment, about to experience new quantum steps forward, understanding even more subtypes and patterns of drug abuse (p. 57). This author believes that their foundation for hope leads only to more money and time spent on intellectual self gratification having little to no affect on helping present and future generations of victims.

          Chen and Kandel describe the pattern of drug use from ages 15 – 16 to ages 34 – 35, a nineteen year span (p. 41). Practically no one initiated the use of drugs, illegal or legal, once they attained the age of 29. For both men and women, medically prescribed substances were most likely to be the path of initiation. Heroin and non prescribed tranquilizers had the highest rates of use for initiation. Cocaine was initiated by 1% of men and women after age 29 reflecting lifetime male users of 3.1% and lifetime women users at 3.8% (Chen and Kandel; p. 43). Of note is the pattern of tobacco and alcohol use. Initiation of cigarettes and alcohol in the group studied by Chen and Kandel was between ages 14 and 15. The highest frequency of use peaked at age 16 for cigarettes and age 18 for alcohol (and marijuana). Daily use of cigarettes persisted among 40% to 50% of the group through age 34 while marihuana and alcohol use persisted the same length of time for only 5% and 10% respectively (Chen and Kandel; p. 44).  Life time prevalence of alcohol use was about 98.8%. Life time prevalence for cigarettes was about 78.4%. In contrast, one of the most perceived addictive drugs, heroin, had only 1% lifetime prevalence (Chen and Kandel; p. 42). Except for cigarettes most drugs are consumed with less frequency and less quantity (Chen and Kandel; p. 46). Chen and Kandel believe that cigarette smoking causes the most health related harm to US society, whether in regular or persistent use patterns, than any other drug, most of which decline in the prevalence of high frequency use (Chen and Kandel; p. 46).

     A 1988 study in New York was administered to 7611 seven through twelfth graders. The study was a multidimensional exploration into drug use patterns relative to beer, wine, hard liquor, cigarettes, marijuana, stimulants, inhalants, cocaine and crack, psychedelics, sedatives, tranquilizers and heroin (Kandel & Yamaguchi: p. 851).  The study found that age of initiation is an important variable in the life course of drug use. The students were classified into 5 groups that were hierarchical and mutually exclusive; those who never used drugs. Those who used only alcohol and/or cigarettes. Those who used marijuana. Those who used cocaine and those who used crack. Cigarettes and alcohol along with marijuana were initiated about 2 years earlier by those who had progressed on to cocaine and crack.  The age of initiation for cigarettes was about 12.9 and for alcohol it was 12.5. Marijuana was initiated at 14.6 years of age. Harder drugs were initiated about a year or more after marijuana (Kandel & Yamaguchi: p. 852). 

    Predicting drug use. Parental perspectives and modeling by the mother in particular have been associated with children’s use of marijuana, pills, and alcohol. The mother’s drug use was a significant predictor of her children’s drug use and behavior during the onset of adolescence  (Newcomb: p. 67). Another predictor for drug use is family disruption  (Newcomb: p. 67).  As adolescence progresses, the parents have less influence on behavior however, the child’s peers begin to gain influence (Newcomb: p. 68).                                                                                                                                               

     A predictor of drug dependence is the use of tobacco as initiation towards drug addiction (Newcomb; p. 52). Newcomb believes that tobacco use is a major form of addiction and dependence and significant in directly causing most of the organic mortality in the US (p.52). Initiation into drug use can be predicted by the following variables each of which can be a foundation for either protecting against drug use or facilitating drug use: biogenic influences; psycho behavioral factors; social and or cultural milieu; and interpersonal forces (Newcomb: p. 53). Adolescent drug use should be seen as a part of a whole set of what Newcomb labels “General Deviance or Problem Behaviors”, which accompany drug use in adolescence (Newcomb; p.65).

     Granfield describes natural recovery for many abusers dependent on various substances. The basic idea is that natural recovery may be much more successful than all the recovery programs such as AA or those warning passages about drinking and driving in the AAA auto travel books.

Drugs and Crime Causal Relations

     The research that explores criminal activity and the use of illicit drugs has, for the most part, found strong correlations between drug use and crime. The association of crime and drugs had been examined in the manner of the chicken and egg question; which came first or which caused the other (Levinthal; p. 302: Inciardi and Pottieger; p. 1840)?

     First, a look at the association between the illicit use of drugs and crime.

During the 1980s drugs and related homicides in New York City had been assumed to be positively correlated, especially with crack. This belief was founded on speculation, not on empirical data (Goldstein, et al; p. 681). The public, in the first part of the 20^th century associated drugs as the cause of crime and this belief continued for a very long time. In fact many people and some researchers still believe drugs cause crime. The Harrison Act of 1914 was a major catalyst towards making previously available drugs illicit. The Harrison Act required registration of those who manufactured or distributed opium and cocaine. It was the Harrison Act whose existence made it possible for the Treasury Department and then the Supreme Court to scrutinize the details of what had been an informal, legal, quasi medical but commercial enterprise only limited by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The Marijuana Tax of 1937 legitimized the popular but often exaggerated thoughts of the times, which sensationalized drugs like marijuana as having far more potential for causing criminality and bizarre behavior than was the actual reality (McBride and McCoy; p.259-260).  Criminalizing drugs such as heroin created bonds between the world of the addict and the criminal world. Those social milieus resulting from these societal induced bonds facilitated access for the members of crime and addiction to enter each other’s world and partake of new crime and vice experiences (Faupel and Klockers; p. 55).  The resulting violence, corruption and civil rights problems are founded in societal defined deviance according to a radical interpretation of the crime drug interaction. McBride and McCoy write of this drug crime relationship as “radical theory” whose solution is to decriminalize drugs (p. 272).

    The large amount of empirical data that was collected over the last number of decades was examined by many researchers who wrote on the associations between drugs and crime. According to the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program, (ADAM) about 67% of male adult arrestees had, at the time of their arrest, recently consumed at least one of 5 illicit drugs. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that incarcerated offenders use drugs much more than non offenders. Eighty percent of inmates claimed to have used drugs at least once and seventy percent used drugs on an ongoing basis during some part of their lives (Levinthal; p. 301). Drugs were behind 31% of the homicides, the leading cause of death in Philadelphia during 1972 according to Zahn and Bencivengo (in Goldman; p. 143).White and Gorman state that criminal justice statistics show offenders to be much heavier drinkers and drug users than the non offending public (p. 194).

      General population studies have shown that about 5% or less of those in the general population, who consumed only alcohol or no substance at all, were involved in violent or property crimes for the preceding year (McBride and McCoy; p. 266). Of those using cocaine and marijuana and also consumed alcohol, 25% had been involved with a violent or property crime in the preceding year (McBride and McCoy; p. 267).

     Data from the past two decades consistently show the causal behavioral relationship between drug use and crime as one in which offenders had committed crimes either before their use of drugs that includes marijuana, heroin and cocaine or their criminality began as their drug use was initiated (McBride and McCoy; p. 267).  Drugs did not cause criminality but did affect the length and extent of criminal activities. The actual relationship between drugs and crime is not as simple as; criminals use drugs because drugs are part of their life course in deviant behavior (McBride and McCoy; p. 268).

     A more comprehensive perspective on the drug relationship to violent crime, “A Tripartite Framework”, was developed by Paul Goldstein. Goldstein investigates the social context in which drug use becomes associated with violent criminality by means of three models; psychopharmacological model, economic compulsive model and the systemic model (Goldstein; 1985). This tripartite model is best applied to addicted and committed users. The value of the tripartite framework is that the social contexts of drugs and violence can be examined, on a national level (Goldstein; p. 144), towards the goal of creating programs more effective in reducing the harm of both drugs and violence. That the harm caused by drugs and violent crime is one which needs addressing is underlined by citations in Goldstein (p. 144). Over 2000 homicides in 1980 were drug related, resulting in the waste of 70,000 years of life (based on a life span of about 65 years). About 460,000 assaults, created 140,000 victims who required 50,000 days of hospitalization because of the drug to violence relationship. Clearly there is need for a conceptual framework to lead researchers (p. 144) towards remedying the harm that is so large as to be difficult to comprehend without meaningful human measurements such as the waste of 70,000 years of life.  This waste of life occurred during a span of only one year nationwide (Goldstein and Hunt: 1984 in Goldstein; p. 144).

     Goldstein describes the psychopharmalogical model as one in which consumption of specific drugs by some individuals leads to violent behavior. Alcohol, stimulants, barbiturates and PCP are drugs most likely to create the excitability and irrationality that precedes the ensuing violence (Goldstein; p.145).

     The economic compulsive model describes violence associated with the need to purchase expensive drugs that are used compulsively such as heroin and cocaine. The motivation behind the violent criminal act of robbery, for instance, is not the need or desire to commit violence, but the need and desire to obtain costly drugs (Goldstein; p.145).  Opiate addicts are less likely to commit violent crime, especially if stealth can obtain the necessary means in a much safer manner (Goldstein; pp.146-147).

     Violence is part of the structure of the systemic model. The systemic model describes the business of illegal drugs. Criminal drug businesses substitute violence for what the legal drug businesses would require for economic survival. For example; insurance, brand name and patent protection, civil law suits, enforcement of normative codes, mediation, employee motivation and firing, the criminal justice system, the complaint department, and competitive strategies are all substituted with violence in various degrees including homicide (Goldstein; pp.147 – 153).  Costly drugs that are compulsively desired and consumed and easily packaged and concealed, such as cocaine and crack would likely be the bulk of the trade but the systemic model applies to all illegal drug business operations. Goldstein et al., indicate that about 65% of the systemic violence cases in New York City involved mostly crack and 28% were mostly cocaine cases. Seven percent of the cases involved other drugs such as marijuana and heroin (p.668).

     More than half of assault and homicides occur with at least one of the participants under the influence of alcohol. In local jails 40% of inmates stated that they had been under the influence of alcohol while committing a violent crime and 33% admitted to property crimes while using alcohol (White and Gorman; p. 178).

    There is an explanation called the common cause model that Jessor and Jessor (1977), in White and Gorman, use to explain the clustering of deviant behavior originating from a common set of personality and social variables, negatively associated to pro social behavior (P.193). Some interpret this as seeing crime and drug use not causing each other at all but positing that both are caused by a deviant life style in which social risk factors facilitate deviant behavior which encompasses both drug use and criminality (Levinthal; p.304).

     Faupel and Klockers are targeting the street junkie when they state that those individuals will be the focus of law enforcement effectiveness unless the US drug policy efforts change towards education and treatment (p.65). Faupel and Klockers might be leaving out the most important message; that US drug policy will remain worse than useless unless education and treatment replace current policy. It is apparent that the cycle of violence associated with drugs began with the Harrison Act of 1914. The legislature has upwardly evolved drug enforcement by the criminal justice system with accumulating laws that create harsh criminal sanctions on drug use.

     Conclusions can be drawn from the research on drug crime relationships (White and Gorman; p. 196).

     Of drug users involved in crime, drug use did/does not originate criminality.

     Criminality almost always occurs before drug use is initiated.

     Except for alcohol related violent crime there is not any particular drug that is the foundation for drug crime.

     Psychopharmacological crime is most highly associated with alcohol (White and Gorman; p. 196).

     The paths to drug use and crime are multidimensional for which no one model can represent and they are dependent on the individual whose biological, psychological and social backgrounds are varied and diverse (White and Gorman; p. 195).

      Research data covered in this paper have shown that the most damage or harm caused by drugs originates in two legally consumed drugs; cigarettes and alcohol. Until 1914 the drugs which are now the target of multi billion dollar prevention programs, not conceived with the goal of rehabilitation but for the goal of incarceration, were as legal as the two drugs that cause the most harm now, yet those drugs are consumed under threat of stiff penalties while it is perfectly legal to consume cigarettes and alcohol under most conditions.  

     Researchers such as White and Gorman (p.195) have identified parent-child relationships as instrumental in risk for either drugs or crime. Parent-child relationships involve the transference of the parents’ cultural values to the child along with other interactions determining the eventual outcome for the child’s future pro or anti social development. The family unit is a subculture of the communities of the United States. The culture of the United States is instrumental in the development of its society whether the entire society or the family unit and the combined family units represent the US culture. If the question is; since our crime policy is based on the concept that drug use causes crime, which is questioned by those who argue that crime causes drug use, in opposition to those who  place causation on a particular set of third factors i.e., common cause theory, then which is it? One must see what the empirical data has illustrated, which is that nothing is clear other than crime occurs before drug use and crime facilitates drug use and drug use can facilitate crime and common cause factors may come into play or overlap many other variables.

     Within this murkiness of causal exploration few researchers dare to question societal values and family values for a number of possible reasons. But it is here where the answer to causation is likely to be understood and addressed. It might be better to understand the methodology necessary to address family and societal values in a manner that does not conflict with the sacredness of all that makes up a free society. The choice may be to solve this ethical and constitutional question so that the root cause of the drug crime relationship can be addressed and remedied or to continue to measure failure in how many tens, or hundreds of thousands of years of life and days in hospitalization our future generations must pay.

Drug Economics: Supply and Demand, the two fronts of the War on Drugs

      The strategy of the WoD is to manage the control and elimination of illicit drugs by means of focused attacks on two fronts; Supply reduction and demand reduction. The premise of the former front is to reduce or eliminate the supply so that there are little to no drugs to be abused. This supply reduction offense is waged by the criminal justice system at all levels of American government, federal, state and local. The four strategies employed in this front are: Source control; in which tactics such as crop eradication, the monitoring of precursor chemicals used in manufacture of illicit drugs and certification of foreign aid receiving countries relative to their cooperation in helping the U.S. control the production of illicit drugs (Levinthal: pp. 329- 331).  Interdiction of illicit drugs in the process of being brought into the US by means of four federal agencies which include the Drug Enforcement Agency, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. military. Street level drug- law enforcement; is the responsibility of federal agencies, state agencies, and local sheriff and police departments. In addition, drug task forces are formed from the various agencies to cover multi-jurisdictions (Levinthal: pp. 333,-336). Correctional control; of drugs is the fourth strategy of supply reduction whose tactics include arrest, mandatory minimum sentencing, incarceration, and drug courts (Levinthal: pp. 340,-343).

     The second front of the WoD is directed towards demand reduction whose strategies are prevention and treatment. Prevention; is the responsibility of a U.S. federal agency, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) which covers alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse (ATOD). There are three levels of prevention, focusing on three different populations of drug users. Primary prevention addresses those who have little to no risk for drugs. Secondary prevention encompasses populations in which drug use has not become a serious long term problem. Tertiary prevention is specific to the prevention of relapse for those involved in treatment. In addition, ATOD attempts to reduce risk factors by instilling resilience, a protective factor (Levinthal: 350). The programs under ATOD are school, community and family based (Levinthal: pp. 353-362). The workplace is another forum for drug prevention and treatment (Levinthal: pp. 365- 368).

     Operation Pressure Point originated from the increased traffic of drugs in the lower east side of New York City during the 1980’s. Zimmer describes the operation as an order maintenance strategy that did accomplish to some extent what it was created to do (p. 47). Zimmer notes that application of this program may not work in all places and may not have permanent affects in any place (p. 65). Zimmer states that no studies of police have actually identified any programs that will, on a continual basis, do what they are designed to accomplish. These treatments may help in some places at some times. Police strategies come with no guarantees.

      The War on Drugs devoted to source control and eradication are flawed and more than useless (Coffin; pp. 1-3). In fact, efforts to eradicate drugs at the source not only moves the crops to even more remote locations, destroying the rain forest needed for the relocated illicit crops, but increases disharmony among the affected poor communities (Coffin; pp.1-3). Growers desperate for money move their crops. Moving illicit crops means leaving previously destroyed forest areas to cultivate undisturbed forest areas which are destroyed in a cycle that ultimately impacts the ecosystem for everyone. Illustrative of this futility is that about one half million acres of coca was eliminated in South America while cultivation expanded 87%. Interesting is that there was no reduction or increase in cocaine users. Their numbers remained stable despite price changes (p.1). The benefactors of U.S. policy overseas have been dictators and insurgents. The losers have been the environment, public opinion overseas of U.S. policy in specific and the U.S. in general (p. 2). Coffin concludes that U.S. policy should divert financial resources away from overseas eradication and invest in harm reduction, education and treatment

(p. 3).

     Mark Kleiman illustrates the classic replacement process that is even more applicable to drug crime than other crime such as predatory crime. There is an economic foundation to drug traffic that remains true regardless of deterrence and incapacitation. An increase of incarcerated cocaine dealers in prison has failed to increase the price of cocaine (Kleiman; p. 1). Suggestions as to what would cure the problem are solutions that will only take more money from citizens and put it into the accounts of those who build jails (p.2). Outdoor dealing is more harmful and disruptive than indoor dealing and it is the outdoor dealers who appear to use more violence or at least violence that is readily observed. Kleiman points out that police should focus on dealers that use violence and those who use juveniles for advantage of age loopholes as these dealers are the most destructive to society They are also more difficult to successfully prosecute (p. 2). Benefiting this strategy would be evaluation of drug enforcement agents on outcome measures in market prices, availability of drugs, level of violence and disorder and use of juveniles rather than on output measures, i.e., arrests (p.3). 

    Mazerolle et al., state that the future of drug crime maintenance lies not in unfocused community policing but in focused problem oriented policing interventions partnered with third parties (p.1). Mazerolle et al., describe the limitations of many studies reviewed by them that would make drawing conclusions from the results of the reviewed studies to other places and people and times difficult if not impossible. This is an example of a not uncommon caveat in most research papers that should be eliminated hopefully sooner than latter. Regardless, studies on community policing, hot spot policing or community hot spot policing and other variations of focusing police attention with or without community partnerships have all shown some promise and little long term effectiveness (page 28).

          Reuter sees a promising sign of enlightenment in the U.S. population when he states that Americans are fed up with drug policies that make no sense. He sites California proposition 36 which addresses the radical thought that nonviolent offenders should be in treatment rather than prison (p.23). The concept of filling jails with young poor minority boys and men reeks of inequality and inhumanity. No justification for these human rights atrocities exist (p. 23). Like so many other researchers Reuter understands that drug policy is punitive and divisive by race, age and class. It is intrusive and costly without redemption and ineffective compared to drug policies of other nations. Reuter states that supply side strategies are a large part of U.S. drug policy, a strategy that fails. It is demand side policies that seem to reduce users in that incarcerated cocaine and heroin dealers are a large proportion of the users (pp.15-16). About one fifth of the number of those who have alcohol problems have their lives disrupted by heroin and and/or cocaine. That would be about two and a half million American cocaine and/or heroin users, whose numbers appear to remain static regardless of criminal sanctions or rehabilitative efforts (p. 6). This is a relatively small substratum of the U.S. population.

     Drug abuse prevention and treatment efforts in the U.S. have been ongoing for about the last 100 years. That new programs are introduced and old programs are either discontinued as failed or, in the case of D.A.R.E., perpetuated without regard to efficaciousness; it would behoove those who wish to prevent drug abuse, or crime, or more to the point, both drugs and crime, to understand why that which has been in place towards this goal has not worked. The logic of this problem solving approach is utilitarian in that it saves massive amounts of money, time and effort on useless forms of employment and activities if followed through to a conclusion that is shown to be effective and is based on empirical data brought forwards through sound scientific methodology (Levinthal: p. 352). It would not hurt if logic, devoid of the emotional component of “drugs and crime”, was liberally applied in drug crime problem solving.      

           An attempt to problem solve drug law enforcement issues in order to differentiate between strategies that work and those that do not work was the goal of a review of the evaluation studies covering drug law enforcement by Mazerolle, Soole and Rombouts. The objective of this systematic review was to reconcile the enormous amounts of money being spent in the U.S. and in Australia on controlling illicit drugs.  The overview of drug law enforcement includes interdiction and seizure policy both overseas and in the US; Directed and reactive interventions; Proactive, partnership intervention policy; Individualized interventions and a mixture of interventions such as reactive/directed and proactive/partnership strategies (Mazerolle, et al.; p. 2). These five major categories of drug law enforcement have been researched over time and published in many languages. Mazerolle et al., sought a broad international range of literature covering drug law policy on national to local levels worldwide (p.7). Such a thorough literature examination enabled the authors to come to some conclusions concerning which drug law enforcement policies work better than other enforcement strategies. For instance, proactive  interventions where there is partnership between the police and the community or other third parties seems to be more promising in reducing drug and non drug problems, in places of drug problems, than reactive directed approaches. The all too common caveat follows.  The authors inform the reader that the quality of research is usually poor in drug enforcement and the evaluated range of interventions is limited. More quality research across more varieties of drug interventions is required (p. 36-37).  The purpose of mentioning this recurring caveat is not derogatory but illustrative of the size of the overall drug crime problem.  The immensity of the problem  is of a vastness that defies logical comprehension. It is as if the criminal justice system is trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  All the King’s men could not do it but they scurried around looking busy for fear of being blamed for not accomplishing the act.

     A meta-analysis of school based prevention programs was made by Wilson et al., (2001). The school is the place where prevention services for children are provided (p. 250). It is here that potential problems can be spotted and anti social activities checked before becoming criminal. The finding of this meta-analysis was that school based prevention programs seem to be effective for conduct problems such as nonattendance and dropping out, for reduction of alcohol and drug use (p. 267). Programs that showed consistent positive results were those that applied cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to promoting pro social behaviors such as self control and social competency. In contrast non cognitive behavioral counseling, social work and other therapy interventions had negative effects. Wilson, et al., while hesitant to recommend any of the strategies found positive in the Meta analysis because there were not enough studies to base strong recommendations, pointedly state that they predict that cognitive behavioral and behavioral modeling methods used in instructional programs will make those programs more effective. The modeling methods or training by means of exposures to new behaviors that are repeated and include feedback and rehearsal and the use of cues to bring on behavior over long periods of time and in a variety of settings coupled with cognitive behavioral techniques will be effective in preventing targeted anti social behavior (p. 268). It is noted that not one program alone will be as effective as a mix of a variety of programs implemented in the school setting and the question may become which mix of programs in what sequence during which stage of development is most effective (p.269).

     There were greater effects when the populations targeted were more at risk (p. 268). Most programs that are school based seem to target a population within the school, be it particular grades or at risk factors rather than the entire school population (p. 258). Programs were targeting a wide range of problem behaviors (p.250). It appears that although some programs using effective techniques were positively affected by increased exposure over time, no program was implemented over an entire developmental stage of any student population. Rehabilitation is described in the next chapter. The third primary goal of rehabilitation from drug abuse, or any anti social behavior, takes one into the five stages of change. Some thought might make school based prevention programs (not to mention criminal justice logic) analogous to what is described and tentatively included in the very last chapter of this section.

     Specific to treatment of drug problems are the goals of rehabilitation and what can be called the stages of life (Levinthal: p. 368). There are three primary goals in rehabilitation from drug abuse and dependence; first, is attending to the physical and psychological damage accumulated over time. The second is the elimination of psychoactive substances the abuser has been using or could use. Third is instillation of the necessary determination required to change a life style that may include at risk people and places (Levinthal; p. 368). In regards to Change there are five stages; the stages of change that must be traversed by the individual besieged with drug problems. These stages reflect the human condition when confronted by any major problem that demands or needs to be changed or eliminated: Precontemplation; Contemplation; Preparation; Action; and the Maintenance stage (Levinthal; pp. 368 – 370). There is universality in these five stages which will comprise part of this paper’s proposal framework for change in drugs and crime policy. Universality is critical to policy change that might be effective for the largest percentage of any population.

    Stephens, Roffman, & Simpson, 1994 (in Earleywine; p. 249) describe an empirical study which used two treatments, relapse prevention and social support on groups of heavy marijuana users, who experienced no problems with other substances but for whom marijuana caused great difficulties. Of note for this paper are a number of factors regarding this study. First it is one of the few empirical studies on drug treatment. Second is that 36% of those who not only wanted and sought treatment, but also remained in treatments were able to be successful in eliminating their problems caused by marijuana. In terms of criminal justice statistics this rate is understood as successful  (Earleywine; p. 249). Third, the techniques of treatment for the relapse prevention group made use of the cognitive behavioral model while the social support group was related to the 12 step program. Earleywine mentions motivational interviewing as a technique to develop motivation where there is none (p.265). In the study by Stephens, Roffman, & Simpson the subjects were all motivated so this technique although not important for their relatively successful study is important for enhancing treatment in general and would likely be a good companion therapy to cognitive behavioral therapy, along with the five stages of life concept (Levinthal; p. 368) and is a technique that will play a role in this paper’s policy change goal.

           The conception of drug courts was the result of the “get tough on crime” policy that originated in the peak of criminal statistics during the 1980’s.  Drug courts were meant to alleviate the criminal justice congestion created from this policy which reaped heavily from those most easy to harvest; the drug crime participant (Wilson, et al.,2006; p. 1). It was some time after conception that the drug courts incorporated treatment interventions. There are now over 1,300 drug courts providing non adversarial intervention and paths to treatment (p.2).  Treatments provided which showed most positive results were related to cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques (p. 17). There was a positive correlation between drug courts and the reduction of future drug problems. Returning the individual targeted by drug use to society was beneficial relative to the traditional alternative of prison and probation (p. 22). Not surprisingly the prison system has been and is still a place for those offenders of many varieties having a common link to drug use and for whom drug treatment is preferable to the alternative. Indeed 40% of incarcerated individuals in American prisons are in need of drug treatment. When such treatment is not made available the odds of recidivism is high (Mitchell, et al.; p. 4). Of those treatments made available in prison those that were Therapeutic Community (TC) based treatments were most effective (p.27). TC might be the best drug therapy in prisons because of the characteristics of prison (Hopper & Lockwood; p. 290-291). Participants are isolated from the violence and drug use common in prisons. Cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques are employed in treatment to change behavior (p. 295).

     Law Enforcement Agencies can affect drug supply to some extent, however the growing, harvesting, manufacture and importation of drugs into the country that are not interdicted are enough to keep users in supply. The demand reduction front seems to be stable on the prevention flank and showing positive results on the treatment side. The drug courts and some forms of therapy have proven to be effective in reducing recidivism. No treatment intervention program makes claim to percentages or numbers that the public would likely believe are high enough but as is often related, small percentages represent many individuals whose lives are repaired and returned to society and their families. This is very important if the criminal justice system is to have any legitimization. Yet the other side of the percentage vs. “number of individuals” presentation is that large percentages represent even more impressive “numbers of individuals” that appear to be growing despite the impressive and ever increasing costs of the War on Drugs and improved rehabilitation treatments. One would have to be without compassion to argue the benefits of 40 or 60 billion dollars being spent each and every year on the WoD, incarceration, and all that is involved and connected but not included in this monstrous number of dollars not even pretending to be some kind of an investment in anything society particularly wants or needs. Compassion would dictate another path directed by logic and what we know works now.

          For instance we know we can have the automobile dealership take an engine apart, replace all the broken and worn parts and eventually have an automobile that will be similar to the one we once drove. We know that we do not have to change the oil in the engine every three thousand miles, and that we can just ignore the oil issue altogether because we can spend $6,000 or so dollars to have the engine rebuilt. Why spend $25 every three thousand miles or $150 in oil every year when we can rehabilitate the engine for $6,000 every 12 to 18 months?  We are not talking 8% to 16% rehabilitation rate here. Dealerships and mechanics generally have a 99.9% rehabilitation rate. What could this country do with all that rehabilitation money anyway? Promote pro social behavior? Improve health care and education for all citizens? It would seem that national priorities are in need of significant re-evaluation.

 The War on Drugs and its associated harms.

     The public increasingly understands the damage being done to the constitution when racial groups and minorities are harmed through law enforcement policy that seems to persist and cling to its historic patterns of discrimination. At the start of the twentieth century the Chinese minority was targeted for opium use and within a decade the idea that cocaine caused blacks to rape white women was popular. Then the German immigrants, who set up beer breweries, were blamed for all the ills of alcohol damage. Marijuana was perceived as that which incited the Mexican population to violence committed with the super human strength imbued by the drug (Levinthal; p. 31). The ensuing emotional response to these perceived threats of drug induced crime and violence were used as methods to scare society. By creating fear in the public the politicians can manipulate the public against minority groups. More recently, crack has been used to frighten the public into voting for politicians who claim to want to push for harsh laws in the war on drugs (Reinarman & Levine; p. 538). Reinarman claims that such scare tactics, or moral panic tactics, have actually been used for the past two hundred years (Reinarman; p. 58).

     The FBI Uniform Crime Reports illustrates the racial percentage in drug arrestees from 1976 to 1992.  Black arrestees increased by percentage through this time period at a fairly steady rate. The black percentage then increased from 30 to 42 percent from 1985 to 1989. Along with this increase in percentage the absolute number of black arrestees increased from 210,298 to 452,574. This represents an increase of over 100 percent. In contrast the number of white arrestees increased by only 27 percent (Tonry; pp. 107, 108).

      A more stark contrast exists between these statistics and those representing actual drug uses by Whites, Blacks and Hispanics. The Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that almost all drugs represented in their data are used by higher percentages of whites than blacks and Hispanics (Tonry; pp. 109 & 110).  Despite this the arrest rates for offenders indicate that blacks were being incarcerated at a much higher percentage than whites. The rise is charted in Tonry beginning in 1965. By 1988 blacks arrest rates were five times higher than those for whites (Tonry; p. 111). 

     The roots of this major increase in drug arrests, the disparity against minority group arrestees and the rapid rise in prison population are found in 1982 when President Reagan began the most recent war on drugs. Although the number of arrests increased from around 5 hundred thousand to over 1.5 million from 1980 to 1996, the brunt of the law came down on blacks and Latinos. Blacks experienced a jump from 650 to 2,970 per 100,000 population as opposed to whites who increased from 350 to 463 during the same twenty year period beginning in 1980. Latinos were as likely as blacks to be imprisoned on drug charges. Of the drug offenders in prison about 80% are black or Latino (Beckett et al,:2005; pp. 419 & 420).

     Tonry speaks to the inevitable rise in incarcerated blacks when the war on drugs was being fully fueled, as the ease of making arrests in black neighborhoods was significantly greater. More arrests can be achieved with less energy in black neighborhoods where space for indoor dealing is limited. Much drug activity occurs outside in plain sight of the police who are judged on the number of arrests they make rather than the quality. The police would need to invest much more time and effort to gather the information needed from blue collar and upper class neighborhoods where drug business is usually conducted indoors amongst a group that knows each other fairly well over time. More time and effort for fewer points (pp. 105-107).

     Tonry believes the war on drugs was one which should not have been begun because by the start of the war the drug side was already in decline and had been since the early 1980’s. This decline can be seen in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Cocaine, alcohol and marijuana declined significantly while heroin was stable. Even cigarettes showed a similar decline as charted by cocaine, alcohol and marijuana (pp. 83-90).

     Tonry makes the case that drug policy was a Trojan Horse disguising the true political nature upon which it was built. This is nothing new and the carnage that was done to the minorities at the beginning of the twentieth century, to the Chinese, the Germans, blacks and Mexicans, continues today (p. 123).

     Our present understanding of racial bias, disparity and inequality associated with the war on drugs has gained clarity through recent empirical studies by Beckett et al.(2006).

Beckett et al., explore the role of overt racist motives on the part of the drug law designers. Direct overt racist motivations may not be the cause of racial bias although in the absence of overt racist motives it may be that racial stereotypes give form to perceptions of particular serious or dangerous situations, especially when information and details are limited. These perceptions of race characteristics are implicit and unconscious processes, not conscious and overt perceptions of racial characteristics that may be dangerous (Beckett et al.,:2006; p. 106).

     In the goal of changing drug and crime policy this author keeps in mind a conversation he had with a black psychiatrist who stated that when he sees a group of young black people dressed in a certain fashion or acting in some particular manner, he will cross the street to avoid passing by the group. His perceptions are that those young people may not have the same pro social, possibly cultural, behavioral traits as he and therefore may be dangerous. It might be important for future research to explore how members of the same minority or racial group interpret perceptions of crime based on racial cues.

     Studies researching implicit bias indicate that overt unconscious stereotypes shape the cognitive processes and therefore perceptions of many people who would be categorized as having little to no overt racial bias. Therefore the problem of racial bias may not be overt intentional racism but an imagery grounded in culture which generates unconscious stereotypes and thus drug arrests may be shaped, in small ways, by race having little to do with qualitative and quantitative differences in behavior that is offensive (Beckett et al.:2006; p. 108).

     The concept of culture mentioned by Beckett et al. might have potential ramifications in drug policy disparities and will be discussed in the section involving change for the future.

      Crack cocaine was the unifying drug for most all politicians to support the war on drugs in a grand manner. (Reinarman & Levine; p. 536 and Beckett et al.: 2005). Racial disparity was thought to be the result of the prevalence of crack cocaine in the black market in which blacks, much more often than whites, bought and sold crack in places easily observed by the police. (Becket, et al.: 2005; pp.435, 436).

     In 2006 Beckett et al. bring attention to the unconscious result of implicit racial bias. The result is a perception of who is a drug offender and what is the drug problem, to the point that whites involved in the drug trade, specifically the prescription drug market which, in Seattle, operates right next to the black crack market, are not consciously noted by the police; as if the white dealers and buyers are invisible (p. 130). It appears from Beckett et al.’s research that the practices of law enforcement agencies are not based on racially/ethnically biased foundations. Are they racially/ethnically biased in practice? Not in an overt manner but they have been touched by history and human frailty.

Pursuing the goals of the “War on Drugs” without the “War” part.

     There have been attempts, both in this country and others, to experiment with drug crime policy alternatives. Arrests for marijuana in 1996 comprised 43% of the entire 1.5 million drug arrests in that year (Earleywine: p. 235), therefore the best example of altering policy affecting drug use might be marijuana which was first “banned” in El Paso in 1914 and “prohibited” in all of Texas by 1919. In 1933 thirty two states had enacted laws that prohibited marijuana. Stronger anti marijuana laws were put into place in 1937 with the Marijuana Tax Act which required a large payment for this drug to be legally transferred. Without paying the tax the penalty became federal crime. Every state had prohibited marijuana by 1940. The perception had become that marijuana was as dangerous as heroin so the penalties became equal to those for heroin. This growing penalty for marijuana reached its zenith during the 1950’s in the state of Georgia where a second conviction for marijuana possession meant being put to death by the state. The 1960’s saw an attitude change for marijuana use. The public relations department for the weed was finding success measured by the public’s changing perception of the intrinsic danger(s) of the drug. Sanctions were decreased although arrests continued at a steady rate into the 1970’s.  Eleven states had decriminalized possession of marijuana by 1978 while federal laws remained unchanged (Earleywine; p.224). If a marijuana user desired to consume the drug it could be crucial in which decade and in which state he or she did the consuming as the legal consequences could be so radically different. As a group of states the United States may have been diagnosed by a therapist as being somewhat psychotic in its behavior towards marijuana consumption or even mere possession.

     US public perception was altered again but in reverse by the 1980’s as if someone had slipped LSD into the country’s moral fiber. The DEA declared Marijuana as the most serious problem the country was experiencing. Penalties increased and states reversed legislature as the country re-enacted a modern version of the Salem Witch Hunts.  (Earleywine: p.225).

       Can we make the War on Drugs more effective in reducing drugs and crime?

Not likely. There is little evidence that the War on Drugs can be made more effective in reducing drugs and crime while keeping the constitution intact. We have however explored how much harm the War on Drugs creates: Vast amounts of money have been squandered and too many lives wasted in the War on Drugs. The country has been impacted from the individual and family level through the educational stage of American youth because of the minimizing of funding for education so that the WoD can continue. The WoD has thus minimized the potential, to our society, of the brain power that would otherwise be enhanced. The wasted money should have been put to pro social use by educating every member of society with particular pro social goals built into the educational system.

     The War on Drugs is an illusion in a number of ways. First the war on drugs takes our attention away from controlling crime. Controlling crime includes the War on Drugs. If we buy into the mostly false and definitely simplistic assumption that drugs cause crime the focus on drugs and crime will continue without abatement of drug use. The phrase “War on Drugs” creates the illusion of a victory over “drugs” when in fact the most that can be hoped for is some amount of control over the drug use that causes damage to entire neighborhoods (Samuel Walker: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006; pp. 16 & 17). The War on Drugs puts members of families in prison thus contributing to the detriment of a large segment of society, including the surviving family members who are hardly in a position to recover from the consequent financial and emotional damages of the War on Drugs. If the most that can be hoped for, from the WoD, is limiting the damage drugs do to neighborhoods then why is the War on Drugs permitted to contribute to the destruction of families that comprise neighborhoods? That most of these victims are poor or minorities speaks to the necessity of using the financial and human potential wasted in the War on Drugs to educate and rehabilitate that segment of society who for no fault of their own were born into geographical areas and to parents not of their choosing but of great detriment to their development into pro social productive loving family members. Society should be focusing on funding and nurturing the basic fundamentals already known to be effective for promoting pro social behavior. If this makes sense it would then be logical to believe that eliminating the War on Drugs is necessary. If so, then decriminalizing drugs would seem to be appropriate. This has been done to some extent in a number of countries. The examples of decriminalization that will be explored show mixed results. Much harm of criminalization is relieved when drugs are decriminalized but the solution to the problem the War on Drugs attempts to address is not provided. The War on Drugs has a goal of eliminating or controlling crime through eliminating or controlling drug use that is supposed to cause crime. To eliminate drugs the criminal justice system had to make drugs illegal. This was begun over 100 years ago in order to subjugate minorities. Drug sanctions became ingrained into the legislature and in the sub-conscious of American Society where the idea of more sanctions could only grow. In the process of designing the War on Drugs so that crime could be fought or controlled, the War on Drugs created criminal organizations that financially flourished by thwarting the tactics of the War on Drugs. These organizations provided drugs to individuals who eventually were arrested for using drugs.  Arrestees experienced the labeling effects of words like “felon”, “addict, “criminal” and the denial of rights they had as citizens before conviction. Those individuals that had not been criminals previously had now become drug criminals and were treated no different than violent or theft crime criminals. It might be said the War on Drugs was creating more crime than it was preventing. The intended goals of the criminal justice system were lost or never really understood. The legitimacy of the criminal justice system lies in fulfilling the desires of the society. Society generally desires the space needed for family. A space that is safe, sheltered and providing for the family. What facilitates the realization of this desire is education which usually becomes a foundation for providing services to society. The rendering of these services are paid for with the means to keep the space of the family secure enough for the enjoyment of what has been enjoyed for thousands of years;  Art, literature, creativity and invention, exploration and understanding, community service, spirituality and emotional growth. Most important is the continuance of this state of being for or through the generations. These desires of the people, the citizens of the country are cultural values. These cultural values are not specific to a culture. They are not a part of “cultural diversity”. They are basic human needs that under certain conditions flourish on their own. Cultural diversity represents different cultures but not cultural value diversity. When one culture has values that promote the anti social behavior such as the killing of society members for actions that most people of most cultures would deem a minor infraction of the society’s rules for the continuance of a safe family space, then that culture which promotes killing has values destructive to those of most cultures. Cultural values do not dictate any religion if any at all. Cultural values are simply those ideals that most of society feel are important to keep a safe family space where individuals can go through the stages of life in a manner that promotes pro social behavior; this would be, should be, the ultimate goal of the criminal justice system.

     This then begs the question; is the criminal justice system promoting pro social behavior? The criminal justice system fights the War on Drugs with the ultimate goal being the promotion of pro social behavior. This paper indicates that in no way is the War on Drugs promoting pro social behavior. Is the criminal justice system then failing in promoting pro social behavior? The criminal justice system is definitely failing in the course of using the War on Drugs to this end. Because of the damage done to people by the War on Drugs it could be said that the criminal justice system is actually promoting anti social behavior. What about crime? We have seen that crime cycles up and down and when the down part of the cycle coincides with change in criminal justice system policy, the politicians stand up to take the credit. Would crime be different without the criminal justice system? Definitely crime would flourish without the police patrolling and making arrests. Has increased policing or different police tactics of the present and past greatly affected crime? We have seen that has not been the case.

What if no one showed up for the War on Drugs?

     In what might seem to be a contradiction, this paper asserts that the War on Drugs and the Criminal Justice System must be eliminated and it must be improved. The improvement in the Criminal Justice System would first be the elimination of the War on Drugs. Eliminating the War on Drugs in this paper means that the criminal justice system (not necessarily society) ignores all drug activity. Decriminalization is an attempt to have one’s cake and eat it too. Our prison system would then be only half full with the attending positive repercussions on financial and human resources put to use for replacing the criminal justice system along with the public school system.

     We have seen that the attempts to decriminalize drugs have their own negative repercussions. The arguments of the drug prohibitionists and the anti prohibitionists are not necessarily right or wrong nor are they absolutes. Can they be reconciled? Probably not. Is there an alternative to the criminal justice system that could achieve the goals of pro social behavior that the criminal justice system claims to hold dear? Two hundred plus years of criminal justice reform and changing tactics has passed and society seems to be more lethal in its criminal violence. This paper attempts to explore what would be more efficacious than what now passes for drug crime control.

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than

our abilities." (Albus Dumbledore from “Harry Potter” in Dr Fisher: Spring 2006 Module 3; p.1).

The following researchers have delved into the world of drug decriminalization.

Nadelmann, Ethan A, 1989 and 1998

Thies, Clifford F. and Charles A. Register.

MacCoun, Robert and Peter Reuter.

Boyum, David and Mark A. R. Kleiman.

Inciardi, James A. and Duane C. McBride.

Reuter, Peter.

     These researchers have examined drug decriminalization in the United States, in various states within the United States, in Holland, Canada, and Australia. Harm reduction tactics used in some places such as needle exchange programs and assisting users in making certain their Ecstasy is of proper quality are described. The differences between the US and other countries are listed (Nadelman; p. 1 & 2). The judicial harms caused by criminalization are stated. Reuter points out 25% of black American males born in the 1960’s were charged with drug selling when they were between the ages of 18 and 24. This would be only the drug selling offenses, not the drug use arrests (p. 268). The differences between the decriminalization proponents and the prohibitionists are hashed over again by some of the above researchers. As a whole the United States appears to be something like an elephant with two heads.  The right head wants to go to the right and the left head wants to go to the left so the heavy body, with all its momentum continues on its original path with only slight irregularities as change is attempted in the control of drugs, whether decriminalization in some states or reversion to more strict sanctions by other states. Where decriminalization is attempted, with some drugs in some places, there are positive effects in one respect but then there are certain repercussions, some less serious than others, and so forth and so on. Single et al., point out that studies of non users have found that the reasons non users do not use drugs is not because of its legal status. For non use of cannabis, which was the drug of choice in this study, the reason for not using was simply making a choice based on education concerning the adverse affects of using the drug. The study suggests avoidance of cannabis use was based on either a “fear of” adverse effects or non interest, but fear is ambiguous and drug education seems to be everywhere. The urinal splash guard or deodorizer bar holder states “Just Say No” so every time we urinate on it we get the message or give the message another message. Fortunately more sophisticated information is available and those who abstain may very well be educated enough not to fear but to just not care to expose themselves to risk. The non user who had no interest in using the drug just might be basing their decision on not caring to try something not normally put on the table for consumption, a choice or product of common sense (p. 158).

                 Nadelman sums up the results of the decriminalization studies of Europe and Australia as that which could lead the US towards policy that should forget about the number of casual users and instead focus on harm and crime related to drugs, along with associated disease, and mortality (p. 6). Nadelman reiterates the ever more self evident pointlessness of the WoD in that drug problems have increased not diminished (p. 1). Of special significance is his recommendation that America should realize that drugs are here, that they are not going anywhere and much good would come of creating policy based on “common sense”. Nadelman believes that such common sense policy making is actually possible (p. 1). This paper is reluctant to list the various details of what drug in what country is decriminalized but not made legal, or made legal except for x amount of grams and what consequences occur in increased drug use that may appear after a decrease is observed or a change in the average age of the user becomes apparent….. Nadelman is correct in his assertion that harm reduction is of prime importance.  How that can happen when the elephant continues to charge down its path is anyone’s guess. This paper claims that the elephant should be colored pink, attributed to drug hallucination and forgotten while harm reduction policy is constructed on common sense. Is there any common sense on making some cold medicine difficult to impossible to get because some individuals choose to use it in the manufacture of an illicit drug? The two most destructive drugs in America are freely available to almost anyone with more than two brain cells. Cigarettes and alcohol continue to maim and kill while tens of billions of dollars are spent trying to keep less harmful drugs out of the hands of citizens. Where and when unsuccessful in this goal the prohibitionists destroy citizen’s lives with legal sanctions that are not based on common sense especially when the difference in sanction can vary from low to extreme depending on place, time and financial resources. By the same prohibitionist logic this country could and should outlaw almost every can of almost any compound found in just about any hardware store not to mention several hundred other types of stores. If chemicals are put into the body there are consequences, whether the substance is a Twinkie or paint remover or tobacco. Legal alcohol causes death by auto accident and has destroyed more lives than illicit drugs. If the driver were on cocaine or meth or marijuana or paint thinner the driver should be cited just as if he was on alcohol. The laws only need to be enforced. It is a choice to take a mild illegal drug or a major destroyer such as alcohol before getting behind the wheel. Either is an irresponsible choice. Choice is the operative concept.

                   Back to sanity. The eventual goal should be educated decision making on the part of the citizen relative to what goes into his/her body. If the citizen can make decisions in the voting booth that can change the course of this country then the citizen can certainly decide about his/her bodily intake. If not, this paper suggests the path towards that end; therefore the topic of decriminalizing drugs is taken to the lowest level of control. One of ignoring drugs, but not ignoring the consequences of drug use or the education needed towards making choices about drugs, or anything of importance. This paper claims that education is part of a cycle that positively grounds the individual and the family, making interference by others unnecessary and annoying if not, as has been shown, extremely destructive.

     The new born individual mentioned earlier is truly an almost blank page. Before birth a personality of some sort has begun, genetics has been in effect, the mother’s diet may or may not change in anticipation of fetal development, all of which will affect the abilities of the child. The capability of the child to achieve pro social behavior, the ability of the child to learn to make pro social choices depends more on the nurture the child receives than on the genetics. As Dumbledore states, it is not the individual’s abilities that show the character of the individual, but the choices made by the individual.

      If the cultural values of the society is firm in its belief that people should not harm people for reasons such as avarice and greed or jealousy then the members of that society will incorporate that ideal into their decision making.  This will never happen just because there is a criminal justice system or because drugs are not available. It will only happen with multi dimensional education provided by a pro social system that includes the family and the school methodology of imparting all that which is the foundation for pro social decision making. Teaching pro social decision making is not teaching what decisions to make, it is imparting the capability of understanding consequences to actions based on knowledge of human development, the full gamut of what makes up a person from birth to death. It is not about teaching a particular religion or abiding by a conservative or liberal dogma. To know that smacking a child in the face (or verbal abuse) does damage and that hugging the child reinforces pro social behavior is the beginning of reducing drug use and crime. To make the choice between smacking and hugging is not a behavior that is easily made by most as too many public places allow us to see how too many parents react to their children under various conditions and situations.

     The example of the parent smacking a child creates the chicken and egg question all over again. What comes first? The parent needing to change their behavior which is unlikely or the child learning that hugs are likely to be received rather than smacks? This is the conundrum from which a radical idea might find a rational answer, although rational does not mean it is practical which in turn does not necessarily mean impossible. What would condemn that which seems impractical is any hoped for support from politicians who want votes rather than change. A promise of change is the carrot that brings in votes. Votes are meaningful for periods of two to four years. Politicians will do no better than the criminal justice system. In search of the root cause for pro social behavioral change has eliminated the war on drugs and the criminal justice system along with the politicians. We find ourselves back to the family unit which requires relatively simple and basic needs that do not seem so simple and basic in 2007. It would appear that the average American may be the catalyst towards change if the average American understood the cost to benefit of change.

     What might be the cost benefit of a radical change in how drugs, crime and the criminal justice system are perceived and replaced by a system of instilling pro social behavior that represents the answer to the riddle of what comes first; the parent, or the child who will become the parent? The parent and the child are already socialized into behavior patterns. Although various therapies and rehabilitation programs can change behavior the idea of smacking a symptom of a problem with a hammer, to cure the problem is one whose effectiveness has been shown to be relatively minimal. Eight percent to about nineteen percent success and sometimes more, depending on the program, can be expected. If this is the case what can be done? Understand that a program of preventive rehabilitation, that brings pro social change through cognitive behavioral procedures, must be implemented without regard for the relative ineffectiveness of the program in the short term, with the concept of an implementation that may change over time but never end. The parent eventually dies, the child who has been introduced to the pro social educational system eventually becomes a parent whose child not only goes through the entire pro social educational system but has received minimal damage from his parent who had received some amount of damage from his parent, but some parenting skills from the initial beginning of the program. Over time future generations will be more affected by the pro social educational system because they will have parents that have been fully educated through the pro social education system, educated and reinforced on multi levels, through the parents, the school, neighbors, social organizations, even peers.

     The overall concept of the preventive rehabilitation program is to change the behavior of a society over generations by means of therapeutic and educational process proven to be effective in small groups over periods of time that are relatively short. There have been no generational studies of this type. It would be impractical to study a 300 million population over several generations. The first goal is to recognize that one generation going through this system is like one stage in the therapy of an individual patient for instance. In effect society is the patient, and the coming generations are stages in the growth of the society, towards higher levels of pro social behavior. At some level the vestiges of anti social behavior would be filtered out. Likely not 100% as there will always be human variations, some combinations of genetics and environment that will create the possibilities for something like neurological chemical imbalance affecting behavior problems and changes that are clearly anti social. This will likely occur but the numbers will be relatively very small.

     Various home nursing programs in Great Britain and the United States have shown that when trained professionals teach disadvantaged mothers how to feed and raise children, the children are significantly less likely to have criminal legal problems. These programs are only short term. They educate very small numbers of mothers yet the children benefit from the education the mother receives.

      Imagine a program that teaches every child through all levels of school the details of human development and parenting.

      Those who support the implementation of this program will know they will die before the success of the program can reach full fruition. They will also know that their great grand children will be living in a safer society that will provide so much more freedom than has ever been experienced in this country. Freedom from fear and all the negative aspects of crime. The opportunities for education and growth that such freedom from fear and oppression can provide are a huge benefit for those yet to be born. We as a nation have been destructive for too long to too many. Knowing that the far future will be free from the past and present harms may be enough to mobilize the people to demand change, to tolerate the snail’s pace of the necessary time needed to achieve full effectiveness. There are never quick fixes to most problems and serious problems that are national in scope are usually the most serious of problems and therefore most likely to take a very long time to fix. Yet, long term problem application has been historically an illusive process and when positive results are produced it is often not because of any long term planning. Abolition for example was a process that needed immediate relief. Instead the process towards full equality has likely still not been completed.  There was no specific set of goals in a master plan towards which the country put forth effort other than acknowledging that slavery must be abolished. Progress occurred over centuries because of a small minority of those who were morally outraged. The outrage was contagious over a long period of time and could not to be ignored by the politicians who only acted under the pressure of public opinion. Each stage achieved was another brick placed in the foundation but there was no blue print or plan to be built around, there was no long term thinking. Politicians used the oppression that continued in various ways to build support for votes from the base consisting of the oppressed. Education was not a part of the plan either short term or long term. This author has been in a Cincinnati Public School room not too long ago to observe what definitely did not represent “education”. More recently, a substitute teacher, known to the author, was threatened with his life while teaching a class. That this happened indicates the role that schools play with the people who most need education. Warehousing whether in school buildings or prisons is an atrocity which must stop. The adult offender caged in a prison had once been a child who had gone through at least some of a public school program, part of a school system which may even believe it imparts education on a qualified and equal level.

     The designers of the War on Drugs likely understood that those who were socially disadvantaged would be those most easily arrested for reasons discussed previously. Tonry points out that the despicable background of the War on Drugs is one in which it was generally understood that in times of moral panic such as drug hysteria, society seeks refuge in persecuting a scapegoat. The target most prominent was the black population, educated in the public school system which was not qualified to educate children. White children generally were in school districts where tax dollars from housing made a significant difference in what quality of teachers were hired and what was included in the curriculum (Tonry; p. 186). Tonry states that the WoD would not have been implemented had the leaders of the country honored and paid attention to the disparity-causing policy that would, and continues to do so much harm.

     Tonry is grounded in his belief that the cure for disparity is not to be found in making policies for black Americans only (p.181). The problem is not so much color or ethnicity as it is the connection between crime and disadvantage. When the criminal justice system is color blind its policies will create much less harm not only for blacks but for everyone (Tonry; p. 182). There has been much progress in healing racial divisiveness but there is a perception among both blacks and whites that racial discrimination based on color is still pervasive. Tonry indicates that education, employment and residence patterns are three of the seven indicators of recidivism prediction that guide parole examiners (p. 186). Minority groups, black Americans in particular, experience the most disparity and it is this disparity defined in education, employment and residence patterns that is likely the cause of racial amicus. These three patterns set the stage for cultural conflict which is often mistaken for racism. If this is the case, then a major obstacle to overcome in creating a color blind society is acknowledging this aspect of disparity. Tonry’s argument seems to be that the connection that binds crime to disadvantage can be broken through a lack of disparity in education which would lead to employment and residence patterns that are deemed pro social by society.

          Hawkins et al., describe predictors of drug abuse or the foundation for adolescent drug abuse as the following; extreme economic deprivation, neighborhood disorganization, early childhood behavioral problems that persists, a family history of alcoholism, illegal drug use by parents, family conflict, low family bonding, academic failure, and early peer rejection (Hawkins et al., p. 96). Laws and social norms that facilitate drug abuse and the social pressure to use drugs are two predictors of drug abuse (Hawkins et al.; p. 97).

     It is predictable that the opposite of what creates the foundation for drug abuse may protect against drug use and abuse. Hawkins et al., provides the following as a protective shield against drug use: early family support, parent training, school based academic and social competence promotion are approaches that focus on children at risk for abusing drugs (p. 97). Personal attributes and social bonding to conventional society appear to protect against drug use (Hawkins et al.; p. 96).

     It is the content of these last two paragraphs that contribute much to the body of this paper’s proposal for the change of present mindsets that allow superficial, short term efforts to squander meaningful sums of time, money and lives to no end despite the acclaimed goals of fighting the war on drugs to end drug use, abuse and dependency. The research of so many criminal justice experts, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers etc., have provided the knowledge needed for the framework of what is likely to successfully replace the war on drugs and actually work. The politicians will see the predictors for drug use, listed two paragraphs above, and note that items like extreme economic deprivation and family conflict can not be fixed by passing laws of any kind. In terms of creating laws to fix these problems in the short term, the politicians are absolutely correct. Anomie, crime and drug use are no small matters for which any short term fix is available. The research that provides for what protects against drug abuse is available so the question becomes how to use that information to successfully fight the drug war or, maybe better, to ask how to produce the pro social member(s) for our society? Genetic engineering is unethical, out of the question and takes a long time. Yet it will take a long time to nurture pro social individuals so the embryonic concept of a long term effort must be grown within the body politic of our country. The financial costs of the war on drugs do not include the costs of rehabilitation which is one of the main two answers to drug abuse. Rehabilitation or incarceration is what out country implements with no end in sight although those who build prisons can expect to be making money for a long time into the future given our lack of imagination and will. If we could go back to the Prison Congress of Cincinnati meeting in1870, we would approve of those reform attitudes that were voiced then. If while we were there, then, would we likely know or guess that a century and a quarter later our criminal justice system would reflect the lack of much reform that had so much promise in its embryonic stage when conceived and implanted in the Prison Congress of Cincinnati, 1870? At each stage of reform this country has witnessed through its history, nothing that changed for the better changed quickly and sometimes not much change has occurred at all. Women’s suffrage, civil rights, various forms of rehabilitation have slowly taken root and developed into fruition even though those who first put forth the effort have long since died, often never to have seen the least bit of progression towards their goals. Yet change has taken place in the course of uplifting human dignity. To such an extent that Americans from the 1700’s could not fathom what is now compared to what was then. Unfortunately the path of these positive changes was not made of blue prints to be followed through the centuries with possibly the exception of the Constitution. And it just might be that a similar human rights document needs to become a national treasure. Something that creates the foundation for the rights of future generations to live an educated, drug free, crime free, fulfilling life in which their children are treasured and nurtured but not because something has magically and suddenly changed. The author of this paper believes in rehabilitation but acknowledges that rehabilitation without another different and major strategy only legitimizes the continuation of crime and drug abuse and incarceration which does as much if not more harm than crime and drugs. The author has chosen a label for the strategy towards effective, long term change. Preventative Rehabilitation describes the strategy which has the goal of eliminating the need for most all of rehabilitation and incarceration. Preventative Rehabilitation is a long term process of attending to the wealth of knowledge researchers have now and will have in the future. If the new born is like a blank sheet of paper which becomes smudged with the efforts or inattention of ignorant parents one can compare this to a child learning to write on a blank piece of paper. The initial results are smudges that are incomprehensible. The child grows and takes more paper which slowly begins to show legibility ingrained by teachers and time. Eventually the child might be pecking at a keyboard as the author is now, in the hopes of effectively communicating his or her thoughts. The new born is like the first piece of paper upon which the child tries to write. The newborn becomes smudged like the first writing attempt of the child. The newborn becomes a parent. In the process of becoming a parent that newborn has been through a new education system that has been built on the foundation of all the research that has been accumulated by the researchers, mentioned earlier but with much more to come later. The initial newborn will eventually have great, great (etc) children through many generations. Each generation will be like a page of a learning progression that will eventually result in children who can be visualized as a complete and well written essay accomplished by that example child who took so very long to travel from smudging papers to clean crisp presentation.

      Throughout the research upon which this paper is based there seems to be constants in what is believed and empirically shown to be significant in reducing drugs and crime. Education and family are most often cited as risk inhibitors. The term “family values” has become tainted in its misuse by the conservatives just as particular drug concepts have been misused for political purposes. Education however is a value that comes from the family. The values of the family reflect the cultural values of the culture in which the family resides. Immigrant Asians have left their culture to arrive in the American culture providing cultural diversity without a clash of cultural values. Clearly the term culture can be somewhat tricky. The cultural value of education is a universal value, not one of a particular cultural group although within the universal group, sub groups such as the American culture value education. Within American culture there is a diversity of cultures who value education in differing degrees. Those groups that value education highly seem to flourish. Those groups that experience disparity generally do not understand the value of education. This has to change if America is to heal and it is not drugs or crime that is the source of the wounds; It is the disparity in education reflected in society’s avoidance of the education-cultural problem through distraction by drugs and crime and the generational post traumatic stress that clouds the vision of the disadvantaged. Were the impediments to what educational equality enables clearly visualized, the disadvantaged would demand that their leaders and politicians stop talking about disparity as the reason they should support them and start acting towards creating a color blind system within which every one has the same opportunities.     

     This is a possibility only if the people demand the goal for which the effort and the time period needed to accomplish the most difficult process in a society’s history is accepted. The question now becomes what does it take to get from here to there? This paper suggests that the WoD be eliminated and the criminal justice system be replaced by two organizations, one being a highly sophisticated public school system whose curriculum and teachers resemble nothing we have had in the past or present and little that has previously been suggested. The other being an equally sophisticated pro social “law” enforcement organization looking not at all like the paramilitary image of what now passes for law enforcement. To get there from here is commitment to the first step in a well organized plan that replaces the past with the future, not at once but gradually over time. The challenge is to transform American expectations to those that are reasonable, realistic and possible for that which needs to be done. That this can be accomplished is evident by how a number of oriental countries are able to look forwards many generations and are willing to wait long term for results. Japan and China do this very well and if there is any question as to the viability of this approach, track where China had been, is now and looks to become in the future within another generation or two, and then compare the disparity that might occur because of negative American cultural values such as immediate gratification and China’s cultural values which include deferred gratification.  

A plan for the transition to education and peace.

     Plausibility of this replacement of drug crime policy can only come about if an educated public acknowledges the sanity and the need for replacement rather than fixes, especially not the short term fixes that we have experienced for so very long. They have not worked, and they are not going to work on such a serious matter. It will take a long time to get there and in the process of getting there the cost may include waiting out the rough ride that one or two generations may experience when drugs are pronounced to be substances that most often than not destroy the possibilities of one’s future but are legal for the use of those who may or may not have enough education to make an intelligent choice.

     One argument in favor of tolerating a period of difficulties brought on by ignoring drugs is that each generation that goes through the new education system will not only be better qualified to make decisions that reduce drug crime as we now know it, they will also not fall into the clutches of a criminal justice system that is too flawed to deal with matters of serious societal import. The many harms of criminalization, including the senseless murders of both drug offenders and innocent citizens who are killed for drug money will cease. The vast expenditures wasted on the WoD, our present paramilitary police organizations and the present educational system can be focused on replacing them with what works. Over and over again, the research points to cognitive behavioral therapy, education and family as what works. No research has suggested what is possible if all that works is applied to the entire society over generations of children who learn about proper parenting, transferring their awareness to the following generation until the sum of the parts creates a generation that, for the most part, chooses wisely.

      It is our choices that show who we are, not the choices of our politicians. Our abilities may be meager now but our choices have far reaching potential. While it may ever be true that our choices reflect who and what we are far more than our abilities, if we choose wisely, by deferring gratification onto our children’s children, it will be their abilities that will expand and shine..             

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