War On Terror Distorted By War On Drugs

Jonah Goldberg wrote about a few of his problems with the war on drugs earlier today.  By uncanny coincidence, the NY Times, in a lengthy story about the evolution of the Bush Administration policies on enhanced interrogation, has this:

Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He recalled agency officers asking: “These approved techniques, say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature — can they be combined?” Or “Do I have to do the less extreme before the more extreme?”

The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and ran up big legal bills.

That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. Kelbaugh said. “You think you’re making a difference and maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And someone tells you, ‘Well, that guidance was a little vague, and the inspector general wants to talk to you,’” he recalled. “We couldn’t tell them, ‘Do the best you can,’ because the people who did the best they could in Peru were looking at a grand jury.”

Who knew?  One of my great unrealized hopes was that 9-11 would prompt a drastic rethinking of the war on drugs for one obvious reason - the drug trade has led to a huge infrastructure oriented to moving people, money and material (i.e. drugs) clandestinely, and terrorist organizations were likely to piggy-back off of that infrastructure.  As one example - why, one might wonder, would a flight school in South Florida train pilots on a cash basis with no questions asked?  Boy, that is a toughie - my guess was that South Florida flight schools have gotten fat quietly training pilots for the drug cartels and have not developed a culture that includes active liaison with law enforcement authorities.

And today we learn that CIA interrogators were worried because of a drug war debacle in Peru.  Grr.

Comments

[cathyf]

Not to mention the simple point that resources spent investigating drug runners are resources not spent investigatinf terrorists.

I thought that after 9/11 the drug war was called off for awhile so that all assets could be focused on terrorists. I guess they called it back on...

[PaulL]

Throwing people in prison for drugs is stupid, sellers or users.

But no politician will ever say drugs should be decriminalized.

[Walter]

Huzzah!

And Hurrah!

Let us consider the advantages of rethinking the current approach:

• Treatment is cheaper and more effective than jail.


• Law enforcement resources could be used to investigate and prosecute crimes not involving consenting 'victims'.


• Because drug merchants may not rely on our legal system to resolve disputes, they have developed extra-legal systems which have adverse consequences for non-participants in the market (ie. unlicensed and unregulated armed security, collateral damage from drive-by shootings, systems to evade the law which may be monetized by supplying other, more pernicious activities, etc.)


• The opportunity cost of foregone tax revenue.


• The negative impact on our balance of trade and employment caused by off-shoring the production and manufacturing of illegal substances. (Sure, it's not that much, but a few billion here, a few billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.)
  

But, I wouldn't want to be seen as soft on crime...

[MayBee]

Walter:
"Treatment is cheaper and more effective than jail.:

Do you think everyone caught using and/or selling drugs nees or wants treatment?

I don't. Someone with a .08 blood alcohol level probably doesn't need treatment. The guy selling pot to your neighbors probably doesn't want treatment (so it isn't going to work). So I don't agree with the treatment or jail dichotomy.

[Sara]

Clarice: I just finished your AT article on the Wuterich lawsuit and I want to say thank you. I've followed the Haditha cases pretty closely and I am so happy to actually understand this side case, thanks to you. Great job.

[Steve]

Great site, keep it up!

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[narciso]

Of course, who was in charge of that operation; none other than
future NSC dissident, Richard Clarke colleague at the Kennedy
school, and Kerry partisan Rand
Beers

[qrstuv]

I'd bet Afghanistan could lift itself out of poverty pretty quickly if its main crop were not illegal in the US.

[cboldt]

The connection between the CIA contribution to the Peru shoot down and interrogation of prisoners is typical workplace behavior, even though the conduct at question is remarkably different.

What does one expect for a reaction when an innocent person is killed by mistake? (e.g., shooting down missionaries) Everybody to say "Oh well, mistakes happen, carry on."? On the other hand, only a very few prisoners are alleged to have been interrogated to death. In that sense, one might wonder why the interrogators were bothered. Surely, they didn't think they were killing missionaries by mistake.

But the typical workplace concern about "crossing the line" works on almost everybody, interrogators too, and without regard to similarity of infraction beyond it "being infraction." The interrogators are merely inquiring up the chain of command for CYA protection. An urge to make that inquiry is naturally triggered upon learning that the boss came down on your peers for making a mistake that resulted in shooting down missionaries.

Funny thing, this drug war. The Afghans had a record poppy harvest this year. Drug war is big business. It's not just the flight schools, the boat builders in Florida enjoy having the competitors vying for faster boats.

[RichatUF]

One of my great unrealized hopes was that 9-11 would prompt a drastic rethinking of the war on drugs for one obvious reason - the drug trade has led to a huge infrastructure oriented to moving people, money and material (i.e. drugs) clandestinely, and terrorist organizations were likely to piggy-back off of that infrastructure.

More like they have and have been doing so for a long time:

Dawood Ibrahim

and states have been a pretty big offender in this area as well:

Pong Su

And why not look at the "drug trade" in terms of another type of incendiary attack that nations and transnational groups use against their enemies instead of making excuses for users and sellers.

cathyf-

Not to mention the simple point that resources spent investigating drug runners are resources not spent investigatinf terrorists.

Or that the usual formulation is that when investigating terrorists it usually is a pretty straight line to drug-runners

Drug Funded Terrorism

[RichatUF]

qrstuv-

I'd bet Afghanistan could lift itself out of poverty pretty quickly if its main crop were not illegal in the US.

You can't be serious. Heroin addiction is the single greatest problem in Afghanistan. Why do think so many Afghan's stuck in the Iranian and Pakistanin camps in the late 1990's came back to Afghanistan addicted to heroin [hint: an addicted population is a controlable population].

[kim]

We R in UR ablesst & powncing all dangers.
========================================

[cboldt]

There is quite an overlap between drug runners and what we think of as terrorists. Including blowing up commercial planes midflight. "In 1989, a commercial airliner headed for the United States was blown up in flight because the Medellin Cartel believed an informant was aboard. All 107 passengers and crew were killed ..."

The primary target of FISA has been drug runners, for decades.

At any rate, by rounding up drug runners, one will also be rounding up terrorists. They "run together" to some extent.

FWIW, I think the drug war, as fought, is a mistake with manifold negative ramifications. There should be more social pressure and less legal pressure.

[RichatUF]

State Department statement of Peru Shootdown

I'm still reading the times article and I'm still scratching my head...maybe I need a second cup of coffee.

[RichatUF]

Drug Funded Terrorism

Goofed up the link, fixed

[RichatUF]

cboldt-

The primary target of FISA has been drug runners, for decades.

I thought the primary purpose was intelligence gathering and most targets were members of the PLO and abu Nidal Organization?

I could see that maybe in the late 1980's and early 1990's the focus shifted to Columbian cartels and the FRAC but the Clinton Administration was romanticist about the "third world guerrillas" and wouldn't provide any counter-insurgency help.

[Walter]

Maybee,

Great question. In considering a response, I've come up with three anecdotes, an idle speculation, and two policy arguments. cboldt just mentioned one ("social pressure"--cigarette use has been declining dramatically without (Bloomberg excepted) draconian measures).

But I'd rather leave you with the genesis for my (intentionally) over-the-top formulation. I've just been reading about Gall, argued Tuesday in the USSC. From the sentencing report (.pdf) we get the picture of a kid seduced by the fun (whatever its faults, most users view MDMA as a lot of fun) and excitement ($30-40K for what amounts to some 60 hours of 'work' is pretty exciting for a college kid) of the drug lifestyle. He left it behind in order to finish school and start his own business installing windows.* Some years later, the Feds knock on his door and, four years after his last drug sale, he is convicted of conspiracy.

"So what?", you might say. Well, he's at the Court because the AUSA (.pdf gov't's brief on the merits) wants him to sit in jail for three years instead of going to Northwestern to fix their windows. Won't someone think of the poor freezing children unable to concentrate on their studies while being subjected to the chilling blasts off of Lake Michigan? Oh, yes, Gall's attorneys (.pdf reply brief) will.

I'm just about to start the transcript of the oral arguments. Reportedly, Scalia channels Brennan, suggesting "it could not possibly be unreasonable for a sentencing judge to say he 'thought only in a rare case should there be jail time.'"

As always, it is entirely possible and even probable that others will draw different conclusions.

References stolen shamelessly from Sentencing Law Blog

*Oddly enough, given his degree in information technology, he installs Pella windows.

[narciso]

This whole issue of Newsweek is a tribute to BDS from the usual suspects. Besides the Romney profile, there is Jonathan Alter channelling the late Arthur Schlesinger's attempts at witty
repartee'; he was the one who discovered the "Imperial Presidency" only during Nixon, A theme that resufaces in Christopher Dickey's
survey of War on Terror literature, notably
Charles Savage's Takeover; as usual no case is made for surveillance of international communications of terrorists; the aggressive
interrogation of terrorist, et al. It's actully less balanced than that piece from the Times. A companion piece on the anti war
films which will crash and burn at the box office; complete with the balanced "Battle of Haditha" with Murtha's special massacre spin. Then there a piece, apparently relaying the point of the insult to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia; seen by Iranian dissidents.

[Semanticleo]

Enhanced interrogation?

Is that like, 'collateral damage', or 'friendly fire'?

Glad to see you're still current, Maguire.

Looking for holes in the NYT story? Maybe more later.

Bless you, my child.

[MayBee]

Walter- your answer was more thoughtful and generous than my two second question deserved!

I must say that I am unsure where I stand on the idea of the way the "drug war" should be prosecuted, or if it should. In the end, I think our country has social problems that are not the result of the way drug offenses are treated, but rather a symptom (much like the problems in our education system are a symptom of social problems).

I think of having lived in Asia for 5 years, where the drug war is different but the punishment for offenses much more severe. I knew a few kids that were thrown in jail for weeks for buying one joint. I knew of another whole family deported for a marijuana purchase. Sure, Japan has it's share of drug users but drugs aren't the scourge they are here, and certainly inner-city life in Tokyo is nothing like an American inner-city.

So yeah, maybe in the US drug offenses could be treated differently, but I don't think overly punitive drug laws are the problem, just as I don't think treatment-based penalties are any kind of answer.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense.

[MayBee]

Oh-- a symptom of unique social problems.

[memomachine]

Hmmmm.

1. "Treatment is cheaper and more effective than jail."

Prove it. Don't bullshit me here. Prove it.

2. You make it more available, it *becomes* more available. Look at the Netherlands where they are seriously rethinking their policy on drugs. Instead of making the problem manageable their open policy has made it a nightmare.

[cathyf]

The real question about any Prohibition, whether it be heroin, marjuana, alcohol, cigarettes, trans-fats, whatever, is whether the benefits to society of the prohibition outweigh the costs to society. Whether or not "treatment" is more or less effective than jail is irrelevant.

If now-illegal drugs were made legal, there would be no reason for the sellers & manufacturers of those drugs to be any more linked to terrorism than the sellers & manufacturers of alcohol, cigarettes or trans-fats are linked to terrorism. And saying that l.e. resources targetted to drug runners is going to pick up terrorists is bullshit -- l.e. resources targetted on terrorists are going to be more focused on terrorists than the l.e. resources that get terrorists as a lucky side effect of going after drug runners.

[Terrye]

There is a drug war because Americans do not want drugs to be legal. Libertarians think they do, people who use drugs think they do, but if you talk to people in the real world they do not generally think of meth or heroin as something akin to drinking a beer.

And as for treatment vs jail, treatment is available for people if they really want it. There are programs at churches, public outreach etc.

I have seen people completely destroy their lives and their family's lives over drugs. I know alcohol can do the same thing, but there is no such thing as a social junkie.

I heard or read somewhere that Iran has a huge drug problem. Maybe that is why they have not used chemicals on those poppy fields in Afghanistan.

And what makes people think that if the drugs are legal, the same people won't still be making money off them? I doubt if the peasants will be the ones getting rich in Columbia or Afghanistan.

[Terrye]

cathyf:

I disagree. When Prohibition ended there were legitimate people out there who had been in the business of making booze who were ready and willing to get back into it.

If you make heroin legal, it will not be Phillip Morris selling those drugs...it will be the same war lords and drug runners who are running it now.

It will just be a lot easier to buy narcotics.

[Jane]

WE could tax them to fund health care for the middle aged.

[Rick Ballard]

MayBee,

Perhaps the Orient's experience with drug addiction on a legal and vast scale has clouded its judgement concerning the "obvious" benefits of legalization? They just need to get over their silly objections to personal and societal degradation and Moveon! to the brilliant future promised by those for whom degradation of many is a small price for the license (disguised as PERSONAL LIBERTY) that legalization will bring.
__________

I have seen people completely destroy their lives and their family's lives over drugs. I know alcohol can do the same thing, but there is no such thing as a social junkie.

Terrye,

There are plenty of statistics suporting that observation - it's right on the mark.

[MayBee]

The minute you subject things to taxes is the minute that you open up a black market for them. In this case, the black market already exists. If drugs were made legal and taxed, why wouldn't the current underground just continue? I think it would.

[JSinAZ]

Terrye, when prohibition ended there were plenty of illegitimate people ready to get into the high-profit-margin business of narcotics trafficing. Alcohol prohibition had the effect of forming business ecosystems around the manufacture and distribution of illegal alcohol, ecosystems which were readily adapted to the narcotics business.

The deep irony of your statement "[t]here is a drug war because Americans do not want drugs to be legal" is precisely true regarding alcohol when that amendment to the Constitution was ratified. Carrie Nation and the prohibitionists had the effect of creating and enabling the very criminal enterprises that we now know as the "drug cartels".

So yes Terrye, plenty of Americans are filled with the best of intentions when they wish to have some drugs remain illegal - and we are continuing to pay the real cost of generations of that kind of altruism - inner cities reduced to drug sales markets and entire generations of the new bootleggers.

Your best intentions along with those of your fellow travelers have paved this road to Hell that we are all now following.

[Rick Ballard]

OT,

Flip has a rather interesting conjecture up concerning the possibility of matching Hsu's.

[MayBee]

taxes--- taxation

[Walter]

MayBee,

I should thank you for giving me an opportunity to spout about Gall. And the relatively measured language.

Your perspective is interesting; I had not considered whether approaches used in different cultures would be applicable here. I really don't have much understanding of drug policies and their efficacy in Asia or Africa (or Australia or Antarctica for that matter). I suspect that cultural homogeneity plays some role, as do Confucian principles.

I'm rather attached to my point about the lack of legal remedies causing the development of extra-legal means of enforcement. I've always considered that to be an enduring lesson from the US experience with Prohibition. How do the criminals (such that they are) resolve differences in Japan?

Memomachine,

Such language!

In substance, I'll give you $43,000 as the cost of a year in California jails. (It was handy--supply your own reference if you'd like to debate a different jurisdiction.)

The cost of a year of daily NA meetings? $0 (unless you contribute for the coffee).

So, we've got cheaper. How about efficacy?
Recidivist rate for prison: 66.7% rearrested within three years. Scroll down to Table 9. (I know the table is old. Find your own if you want more recent numbers.)

This article shows rearrest rates for people granted probation and given residential treatment were 36% for the two years following treatment. (Yeah, it's old too. but it covers a similar time period. Feel free to explain what's changed about prison and treatment since then to make the comparison unsound.)

Maybe they all go bad in the third year. Maybe the population is different. Let's look at only those prisoners whose most serious crime was possession. Whoops! Their recidivist level was 67.5%.

Apparently there's quite a lot of ongoing research in this area. A recent (-er) survey of drug court programs offering treatment rather than probation showed that it reduced recidivism everywhere but Las Vegas. Since my argument is treatment vs. prison (with or without treatment), I won't rely on it.

For a summary of studies on cost effectiveness, see page 41 of the survey above. Please post fair-use portions of the cited studies if you've got SSRI access.

[MayBee]

Rick- I read that. Interesting. I have been wondering about the virtual blackout of details about his life from 1996- 2002.
It will be interesting to find out if they are related, but as many Hong Kong Chinese used to say laughingly, "Hong Kong: 7 million people, 5 last names." It isn't a surname rich environment.

The details are certainly worth exploring, however.

[PeterUK]

The treatment argument always presumes that the addict wants to kick the habit,not necessarily so,most of them enjoy it.Large numbers are in and out of treatment and rehab numerous times,basically they will lie through their teeth,rob,steal,con,sell their bodies to get their fix.They will dig implants out of their skin,move to different drugs if they are given blockers,the sole obsession in life is the next fix.
Substances like heroin alter the brain,addicts are no longer normal people,often the only way to get addicts into treatment is to incarcerate them.

[Walter]

Bother. The second reference is to this article summary.

[PeterUK]

"If drugs were made legal and taxed, why wouldn't the current underground just continue? "

This is very true,witness the big crime syndicates which have grown up on the sale of cheap cigarettes.As the taxes increased to deter smoking so the illicit trade in "duty free" tobacco products grew.Now these products are being counterfeited,and guess what, some of the money finances terrorism.

[Terrye]

JS:

Prohibition did away with the legal sale of booze, not the legal consumption of booze.

People not only do not want drugs to be legalized and taxed, they want the government to do a better job of enforcing the laws.

I find it interesting that a lot of people are willing to ignore drug laws even though all manner of murder, mayhem, dysfunction, corruption and ruin accompany them...however, they find the very idea of allowing an illegal alien to sign up for a guest worker program to be anathema because illegal is illegal..but when it comes to meth or crack or heroin...who cares? Just tax it.

So much for the rule of law.

[Walter]

I have seen people completely destroy their lives and their family's lives over drugs. I know alcohol can do the same thing, but there is no such thing as a social junkie.

You and many others:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix"

And that happened while the drugs are illegal. So, exactly what purpose does the crackdown serve? People get it (whatever "it" is) if they want it badly enough.

Can't we consider minimizing the harm and cost to the rest of us while helping those with true addictions?

Social pressure plays a role. Crack use is down. Is the war on drugs finally working? Well, not exactly. People have seen what a crack addiction looks like after several years. They don't want to end up that way, therefore they avoid it.

[Rick Ballard]

MayBee,

I worked for a bit for a company that had operations in Hong Kong. My Hong Kong counterpart's wife was the 16th child (out of 19). Her father had four wives. All nine of her brothers were educated in either the UK or the US so I wouldn't be startled if there were a connection.

At least the surname is Hsu rather than Lee.

[Terrye]

Walter:

And what is the cost when the druggie kills a mother of three in shoot out with another druggie? What is the cost when an addict breaks in a home and steals everthing that is not nailed down so he can buy some poison to put up his nose?

When his teeth fall out and he ends up with Hepatitis C and God knows what else....who will pay for his health care assuming he does not die in a card board box somewhere? And if he does die alone, who will pay to bury him?

What is the cost of ruin?

[Terrye]

Walter:

The purpose? If it is illegal at least some people will think twice about doing it. That is what the purpose is.

People still kill people in spite of the fact that you get the death penalty for it, but that does not mean we should make it legal.

[Walter]

Drat again! I should probably point out that Howl is not suitable for work, small children, or people in general.

[Walter]

If it is illegal at least some people will think twice about doing it.

I agree with you. And if I believed that we'd go the way of colonized China, I wouldn't make these arguments.

But can you tell me how many people will not try drugs because they are illegal? As far as I can tell, 50% will try drugs even if they are illegal. So, how many of the remaining 50% are only holding back because they respect the Law?

On a different note, opiates and cocaine were legally available to the public in the US for at least 100 years. What's different about society now that we'd become a nation of drugged-out hobos when we didn't earlier?

[MayBee]

I'm rather attached to my point about the lack of legal remedies causing the development of extra-legal means of enforcement... How do the criminals (such that they are) resolve differences in Japan?

Like any good criminals, some kill each other. In Hong Kong by "chopping"- machete slicing people to death. In Japan usually by stabbing, but there was one gunfight in the three years I lived there. In both places, guns are illegal and rare. Of the few random murders that occurred in Tokyo while I lived there, 3 were Iranian drug dealers.
The thing is, violent crime in general is just so low. Tokyo has around 20 million people and maybe 4 or 5 murders a year. Hong Kong has 7 million and a few more murders per year, like 7-15. Maybe. I can't think of any streets or neighborhoods you just wouldn't walk through, night or day. Whatever they are doing to resolve their differences, it isn't creating urban cesspools.

I know it's due to cultural differences, but I'd much rather see some of those behaviors embraced by Americans than see drug legalization embraced by Americans.

[PeterUK]

"What's different about society now that we'd become a nation of drugged-out hobos when we didn't earlier?"

Liberals,the culture of entitlement,the fact that it is cool to get whacked out,the Sixties,a popular culture where celebrity can be won through excess,an enemy which is using drugs the destroy your society.

[Rick Ballard]

Another OT,

The Wuterich suit (brava, Clarice) against Murtha is looking better. No murder charges at all will be filed concerning Haditha.

[Jane]

Clarice,

That was one of your best! Thank you!

[clarice]

Thanks to both of you.. I sent an update to AT--but Thom must be away from his desk.

[MayBee]

Great, clarice. You were on this story early. How right you now seem to be.

[boris]

What's different about society now that we'd become a nation of drugged-out hobos ... ?

It does seem that the upbringing and education of the last several generations has resulted in a large fraction of the population that requires a playpen society for survival. Freedom has become more about "freedom from harm" than the kind that requires self discipline.

OTOH dangerous drugs are widely available already. Prohibition seems more about "doing the minimum to avoid blame" for the corrosive effects of illegal drugs on society. Can't really do anything substantive about it so taking an unenforceable anti-posture with legal jeopardy at least avoids being part of the problem.

Together they pretty much rule out any sort of rational solution.