A plan to legalize.

A PLAN TO LEGALIZE 

IN AN ARTICLE TITLED "TO LEGALIZE or Not to Legalize" (February 1990 Security Management), I wrote that, in the war on drugs, prohibition and criminal liability have failed to produce their advertised results. Since then, I have preseted my argument to several ASIS chapters and law enforcement organizations. As a result of those lectures, I have been called many names. I like iconoclast best.

My words have elicited a response that points to dissatisfaction with the results of the war on drugs and the way it is being conducted. Security managers tell me, judges tell me, police officers tell me, private detectives tell me. Not a week goes by in which someone who has read my position doesn't send me an article clipped from a local newspaper that describes another citizen who has raised his or her voice against the continuation of the failed policy of prohibition.

Enforcing drug prohibition with criminal liability is not an economic expedient. Such a policy has not only failed to deter drug use but has also institutionalized a criminal enterprise that will be with us far into the next century. To suggest that enforcement is expedient is to misrepresent the burden that tax-paying citizens are being asked to shoulder.

Eliminating the criminality in drug sales and personal use will free the police to concentrate oon true criminals. It will allow the courts to focus on criminals who prey on the weak and helpless. It will allow the penal system to accommodate the violent and antisocial persons who must not be allowed to roam free. The criminal entrepreneur will be deprived of cash flow and thus his or her power base. Legitimate taxation will expand. Persons with drug abuse and dependency problems will be free to seek help without fear of criminal liability.

The victims of the war on drugs are many. Most of them are the people who used to live in the war zones that our inner cities have become. They will tell you it was not the drugs but the violence that held them prisoner in their homes and eventually drove them out. They will tell you about the lawless thugs who took over their neighborhoods and turned them into distribution centers. They will tell you of the demise of the school system, the failure of the police to stop the daily violence, and maybe the loss of a loved one to the easy money of the drug trade.

They will also tell you about the stop-and-search tactics used by police to combat drug traffic. If you listen, you will hear hate and divisiveness created by law enforcement efforts--a condition that we have not yet begun to address.

I have been accused of being callous and not caring for my brother's welfare. That may well be true. I have always believed that we must walk our own path and that if you don't work, you don't eat. Quite frankly, I'm a Jeffersonian. I believe the government that governs least governs best. I believe a citizen's personal life is no concern of the government. And that the government has no business imposing criminal liability in such matters.

No matter how abhorrent drug use may be to us personally, it does not warrant being a criminal offense, and it is not in our best interest to create criminals. By imposing criminal penalties to enforce prohibition, we have created a condition that is diametrically opposed to our way of life.

By any measure, education is the only effort that has shown tangible results in our war on drugs. Yet we continue to pour billions of dollars into the law enforcement effort, which has demonstrably failed as a deterrent and has created more traffic than the criminal justice system can handle.

For the past 10 years, there has been an effort to appoint more judges and build bigger prisons. Building bigger prisons and putting more people in them is not the answer. Prison is part of the problem. Prison makes good people bad and bad people worse. I will leave it to one of our members who works in the corrections system to describe the dimensions of drug use in prison.

Sentencing people to prison subjects them to the worst influence possible. Inmates are force-fed an education in crime. Incarceration creates new criminals, who prey on our neighbors, our friends, and our families. The recidivism rate proves that point.

Police action, constrained by constitutional limitations, has proven itself ineffective in combating drug use. And therein lies the rub. I don't have an easy answer to this problem, but I am certain it is not mass murder, suspension of the Constitution, abandonment of posse comitatus (doctrine that the military is not a law enforcement arm), drug testing for every citizen, or confiscation of private property.

Projections that under legalization the nation would abandon the work ethic in pursuit of drug euphoria are unfounded. Drugs are readily available right now to anyone who wants them. Hard-working people use and want their recreational drugs. They continue their purchases at the risk of severe fines, revocation of social privileges (driving, voting, holding office), confiscation of personal property, and even imprisonment.

And don't let anyone tell you only 10 percent of the population uses drugs. Take your own survey. Count the boxes of rolling papers your local supermarket or convenience store sells every month. Ask the manager of your local electronics supply store which size of alligator clip sells best. Government surveys asking for admissions that may result in criminal charges are flawed.

In the workplace, management has the right and duty to demand a drug-free environment. That is reasonable and prudent. It is the duty of management to identify the problem worker, the underachiever, and the drug abuser. These persons can be identified and addressed legitimately, without resort to criminal liability.

The profit motive in this war on drugs must also be examined. Were it not for the illegality of drugs, the huge profits and thus the motivation in the drug trade would not exist. To enforce prohibition, we have created an enforcement bureaucracy. Persons who derive a profit and make their living within this enforcement system have no real motivation to end this war on drugs. I contend that too many law enforcement and security professionals have abrogated their duty to speak out against a policy that has failed rather than upset job security and the status quo.

ALL MY WORDS ARE JUST SO MUCH dust if I have no plan. But I do have one, and I will share it with you. I invite your comments, your suggestions, and your recommendations. I will evaluate them and include them in a management plan that addresses this situation so wildly out of control.

Our country's drug policy has failed. Therefore, we must do something different. The opposite of current policy would be total legalization. I don't think that is wise. However, a first step must be taken, and that first step must be with marijuana. Therefore, I propose the following:

I. We must remove the criminal penalties from both the sale and personal use of cannabis. We must recognize the distinction between recreational use and addiction maintenance. To coin a slogan, we must "tolerate use and target abuse."

II. We must conduct a free-market trade war using ruthless advertising and price competition to capture the marjuana market within three years and supplant the criminal element within five.

III. We must allow private enterprise to establish retail stores to sell drugs and paraphernalia. Each retail store must include a clinic, a point-of-sale data collection system, and a positive ID system. The purpose of these enhancements will be to

* monitor purchases and advise the user and other concerned individuals or organizations of overdose and addiction potential;

* document waivers notifying the user of the dangers of use;

* waive the vendor's liability;

* advise users of their peril if they injure a person while intoxicated;

* identify, document, and refer for treatment any users who have contracted communicable illnesses;

* provide health care and recovery assistance referrals;

* identify and target violence-prone abusers; and

* provide law enforcement agencies and insurance and health service companies with a reliable data base.

IV. We must allow the pharmaceutical industry to develop safer recreational drugs.

V. We must further emphasize early drug education.

VI. We must establish realistic standards of intoxication for each drug, standards that can be applied in civil and criminal cases that may result in revocation of social privileges or incarceration of users convicted of violence or bodily injury.

VII. We must encourage the development of nonintrusive, on-the-spot, wide-spectrum intoxication tests.

VIII. We must continue to support workplace programs that deter on-the-job use.

The danger to society is too great for us to walk lockstep into the future. If we continue to support the failed policy of prohibition, then we will fail in our duty. Even worse, if we withhold debate, we will fail those whom we are pledged to protect and who have placed their trust in us.

As distasteful as legalization is, it can no longer be rejected out of hand. We, the leaders of the security, loss prevention, and law enforcement fields, must be the leaders in pointing out the historic failures of prohibition and in developing a management strategy for the future.

The lessons of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution are not irrelevant. We ignore them at the risk of our children's health, their freedom, and the integrity of the system under which they will live.

Daniel J. Cashman, CPP, is a loss prevention consultant, private detective, lecturer, and author in Lyndhurst, NJ. He is a member of ASIS.