--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5E00010 Date: 05/09/97 From: L P Time: 02:26pm \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Norml News 05/08/97 NORML News - May 8, 1997 A NON PROFIT LEGAL, RESEARCH, AND EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION The NORML Foundation 1001 CONNECTICUT AVENUE NW SUITE 1010 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20036 T 202-483-5500 F 202-483-0057 E-MAIL NATLNORML@AOL.COM . . . a weekly service for the media on news items related to Marijuana Prohibition. May 8, 1997 Medical Marijuana Supporters Challenge Arizona Measure Restricting Physicians' Ability To Prescribe Marijuana May 8, 1997, Phoenix, AZ: Medical marijuana proponents in Arizona are challenging a move by the state legislature to indefinitely delay the implementation of a voter-approved medical marijuana law. A group called The People Have Spoken (TPHS) have taken out a referendum petition from the Secretary of State's office to reverse a law signed by Gov. Fife Symington on April 21 mandating that physicians may only prescribe marijuana after the drug has been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (H.R. 2518). Voters in November overwhelmingly endorsed permitting doctors to prescribe marijuana to seriously ill patients if two licensed physicians agree on the use and offer supporting research. Sam Vagenas, spokesman for TPHS, called the legislature's support of H.R. 2518, "The ultimate act of political arrogance. ... It is a callous disregard of the will of the voters." NORML's Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. said, "The actions of the Arizona state legislature and Gov. Symington have left activists no choice but to use the referendum process to bring this compassionate reform to the state." The referendum will block the legislature's recent changes if 56,481 registered voters sign petitions by July 20, placing it on the November 1998 general election ballot. Because H.R. 2518 failed to receive support from at least two-thirds of the state legislature, it may be taken directly to the electorate as a referendum. Vagenas explained that TPHS is also preparing an additional referendum that will bar legislators from changing initiatives for two years after they are passed by the voters. "The politicians have said repeatedly that the people of Arizona are stupid," Vagenas told _The Arizona Republic_. "We're going to prove that the people are not so dumb after all." For more information, please contact Sam Vagenas of The People Have Spoken @ (602) 222-6639. NORML, Others Testify Against D.C. Effort To Re-Impose Mandatory Marijuana Penalties May 8, 1997, Washington, D.C.: NORML's Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. joined a coalition of criminal justice and drug policy groups yesterday to testify against D.C. Council Bill 12-12, the "Distribution of Marijuana Amendment Act of 1997." The bill, introduced by interim Council Chair Charlene Drew Jarvis (D), seeks to make the possession of more than one and one-half ounces of marijuana a felony offense and to reinstate mandatory-minimum sentences for various drug offenses. Backers of the measure claimed that enhanced penalties are necessary to combat an alleged increase in violence associated with marijuana trafficking in the city. Stroup called the proposal a classic example of "bait and switch." He noted that the bill would impose mandatory prison terms for all marijuana distribution and possession-with-intent-to distribute offenses regardless of whether any violence was associated with the event. "If violence is the reason for imposing harsh and unyielding mandatory sentences, the legislation should be targeted at violent offenders," Stroup argued. Stroup further testified that the Jarvis bill was unnecessary because the U.S. Attorney's office already decides which District drug cases are most serious and should be prosecuted in federal court, and which are less serious and will be prosecuted in Superior Court. Those prosecuted under federal law are subject to the rigid sentencing guidelines and to all the mandatory penalties adopted by Congress, Stroup explained. "It [is] disingenuous for [D.C. prosecutors] to suggest that [their] hands [are] tied by the absence of mandatory penalties under D.C. law," he said. Stroup also argued that passage of the Jarvis bill will increase the number of non-violent offenders sent to prison in the District, and strip judges of their ability to mete out fair sentences that "reflect the individual facts of the case and the culpability of the individual defendant." NORML was joined by Drug Policy Foundation President Arnold Trebach, Families Against Mandatory Minimums President Julie Stewart, Mary Jane DeFrank of the Washington Capitol area American Civil Liberties Union, and a number of other witnesses. For more information, please contact R. Keith Stroup, Esq. of NORML @ (202) 483-5500. Activists Charge Oregon's Largest Newspaper Sides With The DEA In Promoting Marijuana Recriminalization Bill May 8, 1997, Portland, Oregon: Drug reform activists fighting to save the state's marijuana decriminalization law have charged _The Oregonian_ with being a willful participant in the "War on Drugs" after the paper ran an editorial endorsing recriminalization that relied almost exclusively on a Drug Enforcement Administration handout. The May 3 editorial supporting the current legislative effort to recriminalize marijuana in Oregon (H.B. 3643) stated that the "marijuana available today is maybe 60 times as potent as that of the 1960s." This statement is almost identical to language that appeared in chapter one of a 1994 DEA pamphlet: "Drug Legalization: Myths and Misconceptions." Ironically, annual evidence gathered from the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Potency Monitoring Project indicates that marijuana potency has remained relatively stable for almost the entire 20+ years it has been measured. According to a 1995 pamphlet from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services entitled _Marijuana: Facts Parents Need to Know_, "Most ordinary marijuana has an average of 3 percent THC." This is virtually the same figure that NIDA reported in 1982 (3.34 percent). _The Oregonian_ editorial also relied heavily on the 1994 assumptions of Dr. Richard Schwartz of Georgetown University who argued in an unpublished paper that marijuana decriminalization encourages marijuana use. Schwartz's findings also appeared in the DEA handout. However, according to the _only federal study ever conducted regarding the impact of marijuana recriminalization on use_ (_Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper 13: Marijuana Decriminalization: The Impact on Youth 1975-1980_), Schwartz's assumption is incorrect. The study's conclusions are as follows: # The data show "absolutely no evidence ... of any increase, relative to the control states, in the proportion of the age group who ever tried marijuana." # "The degree of disapproval young people hold for marijuana use, to the extent which they believe such use is harmful, and the degree to which they perceive the drug to be available to them ... [was] found to be unaffected by [decriminalization.]" # There exists no evidence "of an increase in the frequency of use in the marijuana-using segment of the population. ... In fact, both groups of experimental states showed a small, cumulative net decline in lifetime prevalence as well as in annual and monthly prevalence after decriminalization. Prior to the May 7 editorial, _The Oregonian_ also printed a quote from Darin Campbell, lobbyist for the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police, who falsely implied that Oregon was the only state that maintains marijuana decriminalization. In reality, 10 of the 11 states that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana in the l970s continue to remain decriminalized. These states presently represent one-third of the U.S. population. "What justifies such bias and misleading sensationalism," asked Portland NORML activist Phil Smith, a former writer for _The Oregonian_. "When will _The Oregonian_ stop begin part of the problem and start being part of the solution?" For more information, please contact Sandra Burbank of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse @ (808) 298-1031 or Richard Cowan of The Medical Marijuana Magazine at (213) 512-1527. -END- MORE THAN 10 MILLION MARIJUANA ARRESTS SINCE 1965 . . . ANOTHER EVERY 54 SECONDS! --- * Origin: 61 deg. 25' N / 149 deg. 40' W (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5F00000 Date: 05/10/97 From: DENNIS MUMMERT Time: 06:21pm \/To: L P (Read 0 times) Subj: THC oil LP> Easy THC Extraction v1.1 The method should work extremely well, but there is a caveat. Heating alcohol is MUCH too dangerous for any average person, even WITH ventilation. One spark can ruin your whole day. An alternative, completely safe method is as follows; Do the extraction as per instructions, and when you have the supernate (the green fluid), put it in a quart canning jar. While you have been letting the plant material soak, you should have been poking a hole in a Mason jar lid and soldering a short length of copper tubing to it. Cover your canning jar with this lid, put the clamp ring on it (the screwtop ring), and use a common waterbed siphon device, which you can get at KMART, to which you have attached a flexible tube. The tube outlet of waterbed emptiers is a standard garden hose, so you will have to reduce it's diameter to the diameter of the copper pipe that you soldered to the mason jar lid. Put the quart jar in a sink with hot water in it, and attach the vacuum hose from the waterbed device to it. When you turn on the water, the alcohol should begin to boil, and will get quite cold. Just make sure you've got the device adjusted correctly, you don't want ANY water to enter the mason jar. --- Ezycom V1.10 * Origin: TechNet-1 Prime - An Engineering Syst (1:110/515) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5H00000 Date: 05/11/97 From: JOHN GREER Time: 07:06pm \/To: BYTER (Read 0 times) Subj: Legal Help B> Please wish me well, As a first time offender, I'm hoping to get B> diversion... No sarcasm intended, but good luck. --- Terminate 4.00/Pro * Origin: [John Greer's Point... Via FidoNet] - (1:3407/25.1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00000 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [01/12 >>> Part 1 of 12... >>> Part 1 of 3 [If you do not have internet access to contact the Lindesmith Center at the URL below, you can fidonet-file-request this entire document from 1:17/75.0 as DRGSCRIM.ZIP (48,162 bytes).] THE LINDESMITH CENTER (http://www.lindesmith.org) Illicit Drugs and Crime Benson, Bruce L., and David W. Rasmussen. Independent Policy Report: Illicit Drugs and Crime. Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute, 1996. Contents Introduction: The Kansas Experience Fighting Drugs Drugs and Crime: Myths and Reality Why Drug Wars Do Not Work Indirect Costs of Drug Law Enforcement: Rising Crime Policy Recommendations Conclusions References INTRODUCTION: THE KANSAS EXPERIENCE A "drug war" was waged throughout most of the United States by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies from 1984 to 1989. Relative to the rest of the country, however, it appears that some states were not major battlegrounds in this war. While those states did increase drug enforcement efforts during this period, many started at relatively low levels of drug enforcement and increased their commitment to drug control at relatively low rates. Indeed, while most of the nation's law enforcement agencies were increasing their efforts against drug market activity much faster than they were increasing their efforts against other kinds of crime throughout this five-year period, Kansas, for example, actually increased nondrug arrests more rapidly than drug arrests. In hindsight, it appears that Kansas's relatively modest involvement in the nationwide drug war during the 1984-89 period has resulted in its citizens being relatively safe from crime. This assertion will come as a surprise to many people, but reality mandates that when scarce resources are used to do one thing, they cannot be used to do something else. Legislators face competing demands for the allocation of tax dollars and simultaneous pressure to hold down taxes. As a consequence, substantially fewer resources are available for law enforcement than would be necessary for solving even a majority of crimes reported or imprisoning most of the criminals caught and successfully prosecuted. Because law enforcement resources are limited, decisions made within the criminal justice system regarding the control of illicit drug markets are part of a general resource allocation problem. This means that when a decision is made to wage a "war on drugs," other things that criminal justice resources might do have to be sacrificed. One of the consequences of using a large portion of the criminal justice system's resources to control drugs is that violent and property criminals are not caught until they have committed a relatively large number of crimes, if they are caught at all, and even after they are caught for some crimes, they can be forced out of prison relatively early due to the admission of increasing numbers of drug criminals, freeing them to commit new crimes. Thus, active participation in a drug war often means higher rates of property and violent crime. The fundamental fact of limited criminal justice resources means that getting tough on drugs inevitably translates into getting soft on nondrug crime. The costs of a war on drugs for many states were very high because many of the law enforcement resources committed to the drug war were diverted from the control of property and violent crime. But what of the benefits? Drugs may create many harmful effects for the individuals who consume them. However, criminalization is rarely justified on the grounds of protecting people from their own actions. Rather, criminalization requires that an action has spillover effects creating costs for others in society. In this regard, there is a widespread belief that drug use causes other crime. Indeed, if drug users are responsible for many other crimes, a strong law enforcement effort against drugs should lower the rates of property and violent crime and simultaneously discourage drug use. The nation's experience with cyclical drug wars does not bear this out, however, and Sections III through V of this report explain why. The trend toward increased law enforcement efforts against drug markets ended after 1989 in much of the United States, but Kansas and other states once again appear to be going against the trend. While drug arrests relative to total arrests fell from 1989 through 1991 in the nation as a whole, they rose in Kansas. If these trends continue in Kansas, the results are likely to be similar to those experienced in other states during the 1984-89 period: rising crime rates. This report provides a "generic" overview of the drug/nondrug crime relationship. The fact is that the 1984-89 drug-war period has inspired several studies exploring various consequences of drug enforcement in some major "drug-war" states, such as Florida, California, and >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00001 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [02/12 >>> Part 2 of 12... Illinois, and several nationwide studies can also be brought to bear on this issue. The purpose is to examine in detail what has been learned in order to provide a clearer picture of what lies in store as states continue their increasing focus on drug enforcement. Section III explores the coincidence of drug use and other crime, explaining that, in sharp contrast to the conventional wisdom, most users of illicit drugs do not commit large numbers of crimes against persons or property. Therefore, increasing enforcement efforts against drug offenders cannot be justified on the ground that these same offenders are inevitably also perpetrators of nondrug crimes. Even if there are other plausible reasons to attempt to control drug markets, restrained use of scarce criminal justice resources for this purpose remains advisable for two reasons. First, it is likely that the criminal justice system will be unable to effectively control these markets. Section IV explores how drug buyers and sellers react to law enforcement efforts in ways that regularly frustrate their intent. Second, even if the evidence in Sections III and IV is denied, implying that control of drug markets is both desirable and possible, alternative uses of scarce criminal justice resources may be more valuable. The scarcity of criminal justice resources means that when policing effort and prison space are devoted to the apprehension and punishment of drug offenders, these resources cannot be used to combat other crimes. The consequences of allocating scarce criminal justice resources to drug control are explored in Section V. Sections III through V demonstrate that unrestrained use of the criminal justice system to combat illicit drugs does not produce the results that many of its advocates predict, and that the unanticipated costs of a drug war are quite high. Issues of drug policy in Kansas are discussed at the end of Section V and in Section VI, emphasizing that this policy must be analyzed in the context of a broader view of the criminal justice system, recognizing the inevitable tradeoffs that arise because criminal justice resources are limited. Before turning to the issues of why drug control has failed to live up to its promises and how a more rational drug policy might be devised, however, a brief overview of drug policy in Kansas and the United States is provided. FIGHTING DRUGS Opiates were legal until passage of the Harrison Act in 1914, and marijuana became illegal in 1937, although both of these federal statutes were primarily tax acts rather than criminalization laws per se (some state laws regarding these drugs preceded the federal statutes). The criminal justice system has been an increasingly important tool in the fight against illicit drug consumption since the passage of these statutes. Table 1 shows a dramatic increase in this effort since 1960. Drug arrests per 100,000 population reached a peak level of 538 in 1989, a twenty-fold increase from the 1960 level of 26. The drug arrest rate did not increase steadily, however. Indeed, two "drug wars" have been waged by the criminal justice system since World War II. The first escalation occurred between 1965 and 1970, when the drug arrest rate rose from 34 to 228, a 114 percent average annual increase. Following this burst of antidrug activity, the drug arrest rate grew slowly between 1970 and 1984, averaging about 2.6 percent per year. Renewed escalation of drug enforcement during the 1984-89 period saw arrests per 100,000 population rise from 312 to 538, an average annual increase of 14.5 percent. Although the growth rate of drug arrests in this latter period is dwarfed by the 114 percent annual growth of the 1965-70 period, the absolute increase in drug arrests per capita was largest during the 1984-89 period. Together the 1965-70 and 1984-89 periods account for over 80 percent of the increase in the drug arrest rate from 1960 to 1990. Table 1. Growth of Drug Enforcement in the United States, 1960-1992 Year Drug Arrests per Average Annual 100,000 Population Percentage Change 1960 26 1965 34 6.2 1970 228 114.1 1980 256 2.5 1984 312 4.4 1989 538 14.5 1990 449 -16.5 1991 411 -8.5 1992 431 7.0 The 1984-89 increase in the drug arrest rate was followed by a period of marked retrenchment in most of the country. Drug arrests per 100,000 population fell 16.5 percent in 1990 and another 8.5 percent in 1991, from 538 per 100,000 population in 1989 to 411 in 1991. The decline in the drug arrest rate in 1990 alone is larger in absolute terms than its increase in the 14 years between 1970 and 1984. However, this retrenchment may be short lived. The national drug arrest rate was back up to 431 >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00002 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [03/12 >>> Part 3 of 12... per 100,000 population in 1992, a 7 percent increase over the 1991 figure. Furthermore, drug arrests remain very high relative to the pre-drug war period: the 1992 rate is 57 percent above the 1983 rate. National data conceal enormous variation in drug enforcement among state and local jurisdictions. The 1984 and 1989 drug arrests per 100,000 population for the states are shown in Table 2. In 1989, the peak year of the recent drug war, they range from a low of 88 (West Virginia) to a high of 1,060 (California). Kansas ranked 37th, with 233 drug arrests per 100,000 population (1). Table 2. Drug Arrests per 100,000 Population, by State, 1984 and 1989 State Rank 1989 1984 % Change Alabama 21 392 190 106.3 Alaska 44 162 120 35.0 Arizona 11 519 380 36.6 Arkansas 30 311 230 35.2 California 1 1,060 590 79.7 Colorado 33 279 230 21.3 Connecticut 8 647 270 139.6 Delaware 28 329 230 43.0 Florida 6 675 360 87.5 Georgia 7 661 344 92.1 Hawaii 25 355 420 -15.5 Idaho 39 221 140 57.9 Illinois 14 446 120 271.7 Indiana 41 189 130 45.4 Iowa 46 119 90 32.2 Kansas 46 233 140 66.4 Kentucky 9 528 300 76.0 Louisiana 10 526 270 94.8 Maine 38 229 130 76.1 Maryland 4 776 420 84.8 Mass. 5 689 310 122.3 Michigan 23 374 170 120.0 Minnesota 45 161 130 23.8 Mississippi 22 375 190 97.4 Missouri 18 422 240 75.8 Montana 27 332 130 155.4 Nebraska 32 283 150 88.7 Nevada 42 170 150 54.5 New Hampshire 35 265 138 92.0 New Jersey 2 895 460 94.6 New Mexico 13 454 300 51.3 New York 3 799 510 56.7 North Carolina 20 411 261 57.5 North Dakota 49 107 160 -33.1 Ohio 17 426 190 124.2 Oklahoma 29 327 270 21.1 Oregon 15 438 240 82.5 Pennsylvania 34 274 130 110.8 Rhode Island 19 422 380 11.1 South Carolina 12 470 300 56.7 South Dakota 47 118 190 -37.9 Tennessee 36 263 160 64.4 Texas 16 433 360 20.3 Utah 31 291 320 -9.1 Vermont 48 109 n.a. n.a. Virginia 26 341 200 70.5 Washington 24 369 170 117.1 West Virginia 50 88 100 -12.0 Wisconsin 40 207 200 3.5 Wyoming 43 169 180 -6.1 United States 538 312 72.4 Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (1984/1989). Kansas's drug arrest rate increased 66.4 percent during the 1984-89 period, a figure only slightly below the national average of 72.4 percent. Nonetheless, Kansas started this period 55.1 percent below the national average of 312 drug arrests per 100,000, and because its increase was also slightly below the national average, it ended the period 56.7 percent lower than the average. This is only a modest difference, of course, but it does suggest that while Kansas was an active participant in the 1984-89 drug war, its drug-war efforts were relatively restrained. Figure 1 shows that Kansas's relative behavior has changed since 1989, however. Most of the nation has reduced drug enforcement efforts, but Kansas has increased its efforts quite markedly. The 1992 drug arrest rate for the nation was almost 20 percent below its 1989 level, while Kansas increased its efforts against drugs by 31 percent. Indeed, Kansas's 1992 drug arrest rate of 305 per 100,000 population is only 29.2 percent below the national average of 431. Clearly, Kansas is rapidly gaining on the rest of the nation in terms of its status as a drug-war battleground, for two reasons: (1) most of the rest of the country appears to be withdrawing some resources from drug control and reducing drug arrests, but (2) Kansas appears to be >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00003 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [04/12 >>> Part 4 of 12... devoting more criminal justice resources to drug control and increasing drug arrests (2). The consequences of these trends are explored in Section V below, but before discussing this issue, we must consider some of the consequences, real or imagined, of drug use itself. DRUGS AND CRIME: MYTHS AND REALITY (3) The fact that many persons who commit violent and property crimes are also drug users is well documented; for example, during 1988, 72.2 percent of male arrestees in 20 U.S. cities tested positive in a urinalysis for the use of any illicit drug (National Institute of Justice 1990). Similarly, a Bureau of Justice survey of 12,000 inmates indicated that over 75 percent had used drugs, 56 percent had used drugs in the month prior to their incarceration, and one-third admitted to being under the influence of drugs at the time of their offense (Wexler, Galkin, and Lipton 1989). Findings such as these appear to support the claim that drug use is a primary cause of nondrug crime, which in turn has led to increasing emphasis on the control of illicit drugs as a means of general crime prevention. However, by asking "Do a substantial portion of known violent and property criminals use drugs?" such research misses the mark. To make the "drugs-cause-crime" link, research must answer a different question: "Do a substantial portion of drug users commit non-drug crime? (4) In this regard, consider a 1992 Bureau of Justice Statistics report on recidivism of felons on probation from 1986 to 1989 (Langan and Cunniff 1992). Table 3 summarizes some of the key results from this study, which found that drug offenders are far more likely to recidivate for a drug offense than for a violent or property offense (5). Furthermore, violent offenders who are re-arrested tend to recidivate most often for a new violent crime, and property offenders are most likely to recidivate for another property crime. Consider the property offense row, for instance. It suggests that 43.4 percent of the probationers in the sample who had committed property offenses had recidivated at the time of the study; furthermore, 7.4 percent were rearrested for a violent crime, 23.7 percent for another property crime, and 7.3 percent for a drug crime, suggesting that property criminals were over three times as likely to commit another property crime as to commit a drug crime. Similarly, drug criminals apparently were more than two and a half times as likely to commit another drug crime as a property crime. Table 3. Felony Probationers Who Were Arrested for a Felony Offense While on Probation Most Serious Felony Percent of Probationers Conviction Offense Arrested for: Violent Property Drug Offense Offense Offense All Offenses 43.0% 8.5% 14.8% 14.1% Violent Offenses 41.0 17.9 9.4 8.9 Property Offenses 43.4 7.4 23.7 7.3 Drug Offenses 48.9 7.4 10.3 26.7 Other research supports this conclusion and suggests that the set of people who are drug offenders only partially overlaps with the set of people who commit Index I crimes (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, larceny, and auto theft). The simple diagram in Figure 2 helps visualize the implications. Two distinct types of drug users apparently exist. First, a substantial portion of drug offenders apparently do not commit property or violent crimes. Second, many offenders arrested for violent and property crimes also use drugs. Furthermore, Florida data suggest that there are relatively few "habitual" offenders who are heavily involved in both drugs and other crime (Rasmussen and Benson 1994:60), so many people arrested and convicted for drug offenses are not hardened criminals. The apparent fact that many drug consumers are not active in nondrug crime is really not surprising. Indeed, there are fundamental reasons to suggest that most consumers of drugs do not rely on predatory crime as a means of financing drug consumption. Three of them are discussed below. [Figure 2] Addicts and Crime While the argument that drugs cause crime generally involves an explicit statement to the effect that drug addicts are driven to >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00004 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [05/12 >>> Part 5 of 12... commit crimes to finance their habits, the fact is that not all drug users are addicts. Indeed, there is a large population of regular heroin users who are not addicted, just as there is a large population of nonaddicted drinkers, and "these users bear the same relation to heroin addicts as normal drinkers do to problem drinkers or alcoholics" (Kaplan 1983:33). Variation in the pattern and intensity of use is also found among consumers of cocaine. The NIDA National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (National Institute on Drug Abuse 1988) indicates that most cocaine users are not regular consumers of the drug. Among young adults (ages 18 to 25), fewer than one in four "lifetime" users (that is, individuals who indicate that they have ever consumed the drug) report use in the previous month. More strikingly, among adults over the age of 25, only 1 in 11 "lifetime" users reported use of cocaine in the previous month. Thus, use-frequency usually declines with age, suggesting that many users are not addicts. Even for addicts, the drive to maintain a particular level of consumption is much weaker than popularly believed. Consider heroin, long viewed as the most addictive drug. Kaplan's (1983:38) examination of studies of heroin indicates that there is a striking analogy between alcohol and heroin use. Many heroin addicts or "problem" users voluntarily abstain from use for substantial periods for any number of reasons, just as do problem drinkers. Indeed, addicts' consumption patterns exhibit considerable variability (Moore 1977; Roumasset and Hadreas 1977). The average addict consumes well above the amount of heroin needed to avoid withdrawals roughly 70 percent of the days in a year and actually suffers withdrawals the other days. Some go without for several days and actually detoxify themselves. An addict's demand for the drug of choice therefore appears to be flexible, even at the low level needed to avoid withdrawal. This should not be too surprising since the withdrawal pains for addicts are remarkably mild relative to popular perception (Nyswander 1956:121-24; Kaplan 1983:35; Moore 1990:114). They are not extremely painful for most addicts, in part because of the low quality of many drugs available in the black market, but "even in its classic form, heroin withdrawal is not that serious. Pharmacologists compare it to a bad case of one week flu" (Kaplan 1983:35). In the case of cocaine, withdrawal pain is even less severe than for heroin; cravings for cocaine stem from the drug's euphoric effects rather than from avoidance of withdrawals, and on balance, it is less addictive than heroin (Gould 1990:11) (6). Financing Drug Consumption Even drug addicts, who may have relatively fixed demands for drugs, may not need to turn to crime to support their habits. Officials often contend that when faced with higher money prices, drug addicts face a choice: "either quit the drug and go through withdrawal, or turn to criminal methods of acquiring the necessary money" (Canadian Government's Commission of Inquiry 1973:321). But this assumes that the addict has no other source of funds. Indeed, the report just quoted also pointed out that affluent persons with low-risk access to drugs, such as physicians, pharmacists, and perhaps police, generally do not turn to property crime as a consequence of drug consumption, reinforcing the idea that decisions to commit property crimes actually involve economic choices based on prices and income rather than drug cravings (7). Drug consumers need not specialize in one method of income generation, and it is apparent that many have legal jobs. Indeed, studies report that use of illicit drugs is associated with higher wages among young adults (8). Similarly, in a 1986 survey of state prison inmates, almost 50 percent of those who reported daily drug use had been employed full time in the year prior to their offense. Another 10 percent reported that they had been employed part-time. These incarcerated regular users of drugs also reported income from other sources: 22.8 percent had income from welfare; 30.5 percent, from family and friends; and 47.6 percent, from illegal sources (9). Similar findings come from a 1989 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of jail inmates (Harlow 1991). For example, while 77.8 percent of those who reported never having consumed a major drug listed wages or salaries as one of their sources of income, 65.6 percent of the daily major-drug users also had wages or salaries as a source of income. On the other hand, while 69.1 percent of the nonusers were employed at the time of their incarceration, only 49.8 percent of the daily users were employed. Furthermore, while 4.7 percent of the nonusers reported illegal sources of income, 29.4 percent of the users did so. These results indicate that as the frequency of drug consumption rises, the likelihood that an individual can maintain legitimate employment falls and the probability that the individual will turn to criminal activities as a source of income increases. However, the data also illustrate that illegal sources of income are by no means the only source from which drug consumers obtain funds. Addiction tends to enhance the possibility that as the price of the drug rises, more effort will be devoted to income generation; but it still does not follow that addicts will >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00005 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [06/12 >>> Part 6 of 12... commit more property crimes in order to maintain their consumption (10). The Temporal Sequencing of Entry into Nondrug Crime and Drug Use An important question that those who claim that drugs cause crime have failed to consider is: "What happens to drug demand as illegally obtained income rises?" In other words, instead of asking, "Does drug use lead to crime?" we might ask, "Does crime lead to drug use?" The fact is that studies of the temporal sequencing of drug abuse and crime suggest that criminal activities generally precede drug use (11). For example, a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of prison inmates found that approximately half the inmates who had used a major drug, and about three-fifths of those who used a major drug regularly, did not do so until after their first arrest for a nondrug crime, that is, "after their criminal career had begun" (Innes 1988:1-2). Similarly, more than half of local jail inmates who reported they were regular drug users in the survey discussed above said that their first arrest for a crime occurred an average of two years before their drug use (Harlow 1991:7). Indeed, as Chein et al. (1965:64-65) concluded, delinquency is not caused by drug abuse, but rather, "the varieties of delinquency tend to change to those most functional for drug use; the total amount of delinquency is independent of drug use." Once an individual has decided to turn to crime as a source of income, he or she may discover that drugs are more easily obtained within the criminal subculture and perhaps that the risks posed by the criminal justice system are not as great as initially anticipated. Furthermore, criminal activity generates the income with which to buy goods that previously were not affordable, including drugs. Thus, crime leads to drug use, not vice versa. Of course, if the individual later becomes addicted, his or her preferences may change and at that point the "drugs-cause-crime" relationship might well come into play. But the fact is that the portion of the drug-consuming population for which this relationship might hold is quite small, so an indiscriminate war on drugs will not be a very effective general crime control policy. WHY DRUG WARS DO NOT WORK (12) Drug enforcement policies are based on the proposition that buyers and sellers in drug markets respond to incentives. Greater enforcement against suppliers presumably will reduce the amount of drugs supplied at any given price; efforts against drug users similarly are expected to lower the net benefits of drug use so the quantity of drugs purchased at any price will be lower. Furthermore, evidence suggests that drug offenders do in fact respond to incentives. Kim et al. (1993) report the results of empirical studies of recidivism among drug offenders, using Florida data. After controlling for individual and socioeconomic factors, they find that an increase in the number of police in a jurisdiction reduces the probability of recidivating, supporting the hypothesis that an increase in the probability of arrest reduces drug crime. Furthermore, drug criminals sentenced to probation are more likely to recidivate than drug criminals sentenced to prison. Assuming that prison is a "more severe" punishment than probation, this result also suggests that drug criminals respond to the severity of punishment. However, given a prison sentence, an increase in the length of that sentence does not impact the likelihood of recidivating. This implies that increasing the length of prison sentences for drug offenders may not be an effective deterrent. While this is a limited sample, and apparently the only sample of drug offenders that has been used to study the deterrent hypothesis, the results are strikingly consistent with the much larger empirical literature on nondrug crime deterrence (13). The fact that drug market participants respond to incentives suggests that a strong enforcement effort should reduce the consumption of drugs. In obvious contradiction, however, the "drug problem" is not demonstrably smaller as a result of the 1984 89 drug war. It is not the expectation that individual drug users respond to incentives that is flawed. The mistaken expectation in drug policy is the belief that people can respond to increasing enforcement only by curtailing sale and use. The desires for short-term pleasure and profit are so powerful that many react to the constraints imposed by drug laws and enforcement efforts in ways that allow them to continue their drug market activities. Rather than passively accepting the effects of increasing enforcement as inevitable, drug entrepreneurs attempt to "beat" the police by adopting new production techniques, offering new products, and developing innovative marketing strategies. Users change their buying habits and use different drugs to maintain their pleasures in the face of rising police interference. The reactions of buyers and sellers of drugs that reduce the effectiveness of enforcement efforts are the focus of this section. >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 173 NORML Ref: E5I00006 Date: 05/12/97 From: L P Time: 09:12am \/To: ALL (Read 0 times) Subj: Drugs & Crime pt. [07/12 >>> Part 7 of 12... "The Drug Market" Is a Misnomer Law enforcement efforts may be relatively more effective against some kinds of drugs compared to others. For example, marijuana is much bulkier and harder to conceal than cocaine or heroin, so it is more difficult to raise, smuggle, and distribute. Furthermore, even frequent users of marijuana are probably more responsive to changes in the risk posed by law enforcement than regular users of cocaine or heroin (e.g., those who are addicted). Thus, it is actually inappropriate to speak of "the drug market." Instead, there are several distinct but interrelated markets for illicit drugs, which may be differentially affected by drug enforcement and/or education efforts. They are interrelated on the supply side because drug entrepreneurs often can supply more than one drug and substitute among them depending on availability. They are interrelated on the demand side to the degree that consumers find different drugs to be substitutes or complements. Let us briefly consider the evidence regarding changes in the two largest illicit drug markets. Marijuana Increasing drug enforcement can affect the demand for drugs in two ways. First, the added risk of arrest and punishment for possessing drugs directly discourages consumption. Second, if prices rise as a result of efforts to limit drug supply, the amount of illicit substances consumed will fall. In the case of marijuana these two effects have worked together to reduce consumption. The price of marijuana rose continuously from 1974 to 1984, although a simultaneous eight-fold increase in potency (THC content) may have actually caused the price per unit of THC to fall over this period (14). During the 1984-89 war on drugs, however, marijuana prices rose sharply with relatively small changes in potency (15). These data, coupled with Reuter's (1991) estimate that the severity of punishment per marijuana transaction rose between 1979 and 1988, suggest that the war on drugs may have played a significant role in reducing the demand for and supply of marijuana, the net effect being rising prices. Cocaine The story for cocaine is quite different. Estimated use of this drug started rising in 1979, and growth of consumption accelerated after the onset of rising enforcement efforts in 1984. Prices did not rise as a consequence of enforcement, and there is no discernible trend in purity (16). In fact, 1989 cocaine prices in nominal terms were less than half their 1979 level. Nor did enforcement increase effective punishment for cocaine. Admittedly rough estimates of the user and seller populations led Reuter (1991) to speculate that the risk of arrest for cocaine users declined between 1979 and 1988, while the change in expected punishment of sellers was less certain. Even though total arrests rose sharply, they were rising at a slower rate than the increase in users, and perhaps sellers, so the probability of arrest fell. Furthermore, surveys of high-school seniors indicate an increase in their access to cocaine. While perceptions of the availability of marijuana among high-schoolers was virtually unchanged from 1984 to 1990, the proportion of students saying it was "fairly easy" or "very easy" to get cocaine increased by about 20 percent. It appears that the drug war did not have enough impact to reduce cocaine supply. Some of the reasons for the differing consequences of the drug war on these two illegal drugs are discussed below. Input Substitution Drug suppliers react to increased drug enforcement in order to reduce its impact on their activity. By changing combinations of inputs, these entrepreneurs can mitigate the effects of law enforcement on their profits and the supply of drugs. Production and distribution of a drug may require the combination of several inputs, each of which must be rewarded with an acceptable return. The price that owners of inputs require to supply their inputs partially depends on the risks involved. Rising law enforcement efforts, and/or more severe punishment of a particular input, make supplying that input more risky and raise its price. Profit-seeking drug suppliers will replace the relatively high-priced inputs, and in the process ameliorate the impact of enforcement. For instance, if a change in enforcement policy makes punishment of adult dealers more severe while leaving punishment of juvenile dealers unchanged, then adult dealers will want higher compensation, and juvenile dealers may be substituted for adults. Drug entrepreneurs diffuse the risks they face by employing others to make street sales, and the relative wages that must be paid to potential employees determine the makeup of the group. As the risk of arrest increases, the entrepreneur has incentives to lengthen the distribution chain, thereby personally dealing directly with a smaller number of individuals. Thus, drug entrepreneurs will be willing to pay relatively more for a few intermediary brokers who in turn set up their own network of contacts, rather than deal directly with a large number of >>> Continued to next message... ___ X Blue Wave/DOS v2.30 X --- Maximus 3.01 * Origin: Who's Askin'? (1:17/75)