January 7, 2009
Mayor John Cook's veto was everything that's wrong with the public policy debate on legalizing or decriminalizing or changing the focus of the nearly 40-year War on Drugs.
City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to add these words to a resolution expressing support for Juarez, acknowledging the tremendous stress the Drug War has placed it under, and asking the federal government of the United States to take certain steps, including "supporting an honest open national debate on ending the prohibition on narcotics."
Cook vetoed the resolution because of that amendment. Explaining the veto, Cook wrote, the portion of the resolution amended by City Council "undermines the hard work of the committee by adding new language which may effect the credibility of the entire resolution." Further, he wrote, "It is not realistic to believe that the United States Congress will seriously consider any broad based debate on the legalization of narcotics. This position is not consistent with community standards both locally and nationally."
I think it was election-year pandering (Cook is up for re-election), and I'm going to guess (admittedly dangerous work) that he's likely to agree with City Council in its resolution.
Which is a part of why I think his veto illustrates everything that's wrong with our national drug policy.
Whether he agrees with council or not, politicians are afraid of stepping into this territory because few people are willing to publicly support them. After talking to literally hundreds of people on this issue over the years, from drug users to law enforcement to academics and health experts, I'm convinced there are many people who favor legalizing or decriminalizing at least some drugs, starting with marijuana. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it ranges from 30 percent to 60 percent; if it went to a vote, I'd call it 50-50, depending on who turned out to the polls, who had a more effective advertising campaign, and whether the media made supporters of legalization or decriminalization pass the hurdle of appearing "credible" before paying attention to the merits of the debate.
So how on earth is it "not credible" to call for a national debate on the issue of whether 40 years of incarcerating people, taking their property, and making drug dealers fabulously wealthy, while at the same time diverting billions of dollars into a prison-industrial complex, expanding law enforcement powers, and building enormous bureaucracies?
We have a shooting war in Juarez and Mexico that is directly linked to our demand for drugs. We are a drug society -- just pay attention to the ads surrounding us. We're urged to take various mind- and body-altering substances for every perceived need, whether it's recreational or medicinal, or some combination.
You can blame the users. Fair enough. You also can blame the ambitious bureaucrat back in the 1930s who targeted a relatively innocuous plant, the buds and leaves of which were used by musicians and minorities, to create his own law enforcement kingdom, or the media giant who helped spark it up with screaming headlines about marijuana murders.
And, please, don't start in about the children, who should not be doing any number of things, including eating so much processed crap and drinking not even sugar but corn syrup mixed with water and chemicals. Of course we ought to keep ALL drugs away from them. And don't start talking about drug abuse, which takes a terrible toll, although it pales in comparison to the toll of alcohol and cigarettes. Drug USE is not necessarily ABUSE, although with some highly addictive drugs, such as crack, heroin and Vicodin, use inherently becomes abuse. And, by the way, marijuana is NOT a narcotic.
See, we can't even get the language and facts straight in what should be a vital public policy debate guided by reason.
Instead, we get a mayor worried about things like re-election and walking into another politician's office telling us something lacks credibility when he damn well knows, or should know, that isn’t the case.
And we continue to fill our prisons, spend our treasure, take away personal freedoms, give more power to thugs on the streets and place the citizens of drug-producing countries under siege in a war we started, for no clear reason other than bureaucratic ambition and cultural fear. And we're not supposed to talk about that at the highest possible levels of policy-making in this country? Ridiculous!
I hope the City Council does not back down, and I hope the Border Relations Committee does not, either. They started this, knowing fully that at the core of their goals of supporting Juarez is a rational discussion of this nation's drug policies, and a shift from the militia-based approach we call the War on Drugs.
And that shift requires we face the reality that legalizing or decriminalizing some drugs is a necessary step for a bit of peace for our neighbors and ourselves.