Does aggressive law enforcement of drug laws deter drug use

¶ … United States has waged a "War on Drugs." Within this endeavor the nation has passed and implanted some extremely tough laws regarding drugs, on a local, state and national level. The laws are meant to act as a deterrent for those who abuse drugs by way of sales, manufacturing and use. The laws send people to prisons for a long time as well as create probation and parole status for many who violate the laws.

The belief is that stricter laws will reduce the number of drug offenses and drug use in the United States. Those who draft and pass the legislation for tougher drug laws believe that the fear of jail and other punishments will deter people from drug use, manufacturing and sales. While this has been going on for the last few decades the nation has continued to wrestle with drug issues. It is unclear whether the tough anti-drug laws are curbing drug use and manufacturing and selling or if it having no impact at all. This study is proposed for the purpose of answering the question" "What if any impact are tough anti-drug laws having on its actual manufacture, sale and use of them?" The study will attempt to answer this question for the purpose of future studies as well as the development of future laws or calls to repeal laws that are on the books.

COMPARATIVE STUDY TO DETERMINE HOW EFFECTIVE AMERICA'S STRICT ANTI-DRUG LAWS ARE IN REDUCING THE DRUG PROBLEMS IN THE NATION

INTRODUCTION

LITERATURE REVIEW

METHODOLOGY

RESULTS

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

Drugs have become a huge American problem. Politicians use drugs as a platform to promise the sun, moon and starts to their constituents in exchange for votes. Entire organizations are embroiled in the War on Drugs with their stickers, pins, meetings, contests and advertisements (Stuart, 2002). Movie stars who have loved ones or co-workers involved in drugs use the media to get the message out. And those who make and enforce laws against drugs are making the punishments harder and harder in the hopes that strict enforcement and tougher sentences will reduce the use of drugs on all fronts, manufacturing, sales and use. Whether or not the enforcement of these laws is actually curbing the use or distribution of drugs remains to be seen (Stuart, 2002). Lawmakers believe that tougher sentences will scare the offenders into giving up the practice of manufacturing selling and using drugs. Unfortunately those who take part in the illegal drug industry only see the opportunity to make large amounts of money, with no required education, and very little training (Stuart, 2002). It is a battle of wills, a battle of morals and a war that pits not only the good against the bad, and the greedy against the content, but the weak against the strong. In addition to this drugs can be addictive, which muddies the waters when it comes to curbing their use and reducing their distribution (Stuart, 2002). Those who are addicted will do whatever it takes to secure and use their drug of choice, and there are always criminals more than willing to provide for their needs.

Other nations have adopted different rules and laws when it comes to drugs. One example is Holland, a nation well-known worldwide for having one of the most relaxed attitudes on earth about the use of drugs. Turkey on the other hand has long since been known as one of the toughest nations on earth, often sentencing distributors to death. America sits in the middle but is leaning more toward Turkey's belief than the beliefs held in Holland. The time has come to determine if the tough anti-drug laws and sentences are actually acting as a successful deterrent in the manufacture, distribution, sale and use of illegal drugs.

Few people will deny the negative impact that certain street drugs have on those who use them. On any night one can turn on the television and see a news show about drugs and their use as far as the negative impact goes. The crime and violence that often go hand in hand with drug use is common knowledge. Where the disagreement comes into play is the decision or belief that the current stricter anti-drug laws are the answer to the problem. Some experts believe they are while others hold to the belief that Holland has the right idea and an acceptance and out in the open attitude is the way to curb the serious problems arising from the use of drugs.

Even among the nation's own politicians there is disagreement about the effectiveness of strict anti-drug laws and campaigns and their success of failure regarding drug use and abuse in America.

Nobody could call Sen. Jeff Sessions soft on crime. The Alabama Republican is a passionate drug warrior. He won a Justice Department award in 1991, when he was the U.S. attorney in Mobile, for "significant achievement in the war against drug trafficking." Sessions says (Stuart, 2002), "They could put that on my tombstone, and I'd be satisfied." He supports severe mandatory minimum sentences for truly dangerous drug dealers. He is especially critical of a provision mandating the same five-year minimum prison term for possessing (or for selling) a measly 5 grams of crack-"the weight of one nickel," Sessions notes in an interview-as for selling 500 grams of powder cocaine (Stuart, 2002). "The 100-to-1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, which falls hardest on African-Americans [who constitute more than 90% of crack users], is simply unjust (Stuart, 2002)," Sessions asserted in December, while proposing a bill to decrease the penalties for nonviolent, low-level crack defendants. He would also require more prison time for "the worst and most violent drug offenders (Stuart, 2002)."

He is but one example of political anger at the current drug issues and laws (Stuart, 2002). They insist that they are not pro-drug, but they are against using punishments that do not fit the crime and punishments that have not thus far shown an ability to reduce the use of drugs in America in their opinion (Stuart, 2002).

Nobody could plausibly call John J. DiIulio Jr. soft on crime, either (Stuart, 2002). The University of Pennsylvania criminologist is a self-described "crime-control conservative" who wants to "incarcerate the really bad guys (Stuart, 2002)." He was congressional conservatives' favorite expert advocate of tougher prison sentences years before he spent seven months in 2001 as head of President Bush's faith-based initiative office. But DiIulio had come to see the unfairness and ineffectiveness of the penalties for crack (and other drugs) by 1999, when he wrote, "The nation has 'maxed out' on the public safety value of incarceration (Stuart, 2002)," and "there is a conservative crime-control case to be made for repealing mandatory-minimum drug laws now." Such a repeal would move us a healthy notch back toward letting judges do what they do best: fit the penalty to the crime and the individual criminal (Stuart, 2002). "

On the other side of the coin are politicians such as Bush who want the crack laws left in place and want stiffer sentences for those who participate in other illegal drug activity as well.

Statistical evidence about crime and punishment is not easy to interpret. On the one had there are stats that more than 20 K. per inmate per year is spent on housing non-violent drug offenders (Stuart, 2002). "This puts the administration out of step not only with Sessions, Hatch, and Diulio, but also with most conservative as well as liberal federal judges, virtually all serious scholars (including conservative crime- control guru James Q. Wilson), and the U.S. Sentencing Commission (Stuart, 2002)."

The Justice Department is also at odds with Bush himself, who said in January 2001(Stuart, 2002), "Long minimum sentences for the first- time users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and/or heal people from their disease (Stuart, 2002)," and "I don't believe we ought to be discriminatory (Stuart, 2002) " by punishing crack offenders more severely than powder cocaine offenders. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is urging the Supreme Court to uphold California's draconian (Stuart, 2002) "Three Strikes" law by ratifying a heroin addict's sentence of at least 50 years to life-more than most murderers get-for shoplifting $153.54 worth of videotapes from two Kmart stores (Stuart, 2002). The statute subjected the man to what a federal appeals court called this "cruel and unusual punishment" because he had been convicted in 1982 of two nonviolent home burglaries and later of carrying a small amount of marijuana (Stuart, 2002). Under the current federal sentencing provisions, defendants who possess, sell, or help to sell 5 grams of crack cocaine receive prison terms averaging 5.4 times as long as those who sell 5 grams of powder cocaine, according to a recent Justice Department study (Stuart, 2002). In cases in which the defendants have little or no criminal history, crack sentences for five grams average 8.3 times as long as powder sentences (Stuart, 2002)."

Addiction is a powerful stronghold on the drugs in America today (Rauch, 2002). When people are addicted it is doubtful that laws and threats are going to keep them from using (Rauch, 2002). This is one of the reasons this study is needed, to determine if the laws have a positive impact on the reduction of drug use and abuse or if they are simply spending tax paper money to produce a revolving door in jails and prisons (Rauch, 2002). It is not only illegally manufactured drugs that are at the focus of the laws against drug use, it is also the prescription drugs that are being abused currently. When Purdue invented a pain killer called OxyContin it provided relief to millions who suffered moderate to severe pain.

What Purdue did not expect was that drug abusers would learn how to defeat the time-release feature by crushing OxyContin and then snorting or injecting it, to get a heroinlike high (Rauch, 2002). A wave of abuse began in Appalachia and then radiated across the country, hitting rural areas particularly hard. Officials in Washington County, in the far northeastern corner of Maine, told The New York (Rauch, 2002) Times recently that OxyContin crimes there are 10 times more prevalent than in 1998 and that at least 1,000 residents are addicted. In suburban and rural Northern Virginia, armed robbers have been systematically knocking over pharmacies that stock OxyContin (Rauch, 2002). Even Alaska is now reporting problems (Rauch, 2002). The Drug Enforcement Administration suspects OxyContin abuse in 300 or so deaths in 31 states over the past two years (though in many of those cases, oxycodone was only one of several substances abused) (Rauch, 2002). Police and prosecutors have gotten busy confronting the spreading problem, as they should; but in doing so, they have also pushed the law to or beyond its intended limits (Rauch, 2002). In February, a Florida jury set a new precedent by finding Dr. James Graves guilty of four counts of manslaughter for prescribing OxyContin to patients who subsequently died (Rauch, 2002). He was also convicted of one count of racketeering and five of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance (Rauch, 2002). On March 22, Graves was sentenced to 63 years in prison (Rauch, 2002). According to Ed Ellis, one of his defense attorneys, if the 55-year-old Graves loses his appeal, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Good, said Lester Daniels, whose son was among the four dead. "As long as he never sees outside prison walls, that's great for me (Rauch, 2002)," Daniels told the Associated Press. "He's slime. He's pure slime (Rauch, 2002)."

In addition to the war on drugs there is a faction that believes marijuana and other more "harmless" drugs should be legalized instead of prosecuted more stringently (Taylor, 2001).

This study proposal is designed to answer the question about whether the current anti-drug laws are effective in reducing the drug manufacture and use in America or not. There are many opinions on both sides of the issue but with the drug problem continuing there is concern that anti-drug laws are serving the opposite affect than they were intended to provide.

The nation "would markedly reduce our crime rate if drugs were legalized (Kasindorf, 1993)," U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said yesterday, upholding her reputation for provoking controversy with forthright comments on social issues. Elders, answering a question after making a speech on violent crime at the National Press Club, called for studies on the effects liberalizing drug laws would have (Kasindorf, 1993). "Some of the countries that have legalized drugs," she said, citing no specifics, "certainly have shown that there has been a reduction in their crime rate and there has been no increase in their drug use rate (Kasindorf, 1993)."

Those who want the drug laws to be less strict point to Holland as the example of how loosening the reins can actually do more to reduce the drug problem than anti-drug laws can do (Holland's Drug Policies: The Lesson for Canada

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2000/08/think_drugs.html

BY GLADYS POLLACK). "Some twenty-four years ago, the Dutch government embarked upon an innovative experiment, a tolerant "soft drug" policy, whose repercussions today are wide-ranging In 1976, the Dutch Parliament liberalized its policy towards drug use, a policy differing broadly from that of its European neighbors (Holland's Drug Policies: The Lesson for Canada

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2000/08/think_drugs.html

BY GLADYS POLLACK). The new drug legislation differentiated drugs such as heroin, cocaine and LSD, which were viewed as presenting "an unacceptable risk," from the "softer," less dangerous cannabis products (Holland's Drug Policies: The Lesson for Canada

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2000/08/think_drugs.html

Possession of 30 grams of marijuana or hashish (supposedly enough to satisfy the average user's needs for several weeks) was decriminalized. With certain restrictions, the Dutch government also permitted sale of marijuana and hashish in licensed coffee shops. These shops were prohibited from advertising or selling more than 30 grams to one customer. The sale of hard drugs was illegal in the shops, as were sales to persons under 18 years of age. Importing, exporting and selling cannabis products remained illegal outside of the coffee shops (Holland's Drug Policies: The Lesson for Canada

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2000/08/think_drugs.html

There is no question that arrests are on the rise, but this does not prove the laws are acting as deterrents. It only proves that the laws are becoming stricter. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/enforce.htm www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/d_arrtot.htm" [D]

METHODOLOGY

Participants

The participants in the proposed study will be drawn from two different populations. They will be drawn from college and adult populations located through data bases that will be purchased from advertisers of products. The second population will be drawn from those who are incarcerated currently or have been in the past for drug laws. The participants will be of mixed seriocomic backgrounds and they will be of both genders. There will be approximately 10,000 participants in the initial study population that will be narrowed to 1,000 for the purpose of the study participant population. The study will consist of as equal a number of gender and race as can be sorted from the respondents.