Drug Policy Forum of Oklahoma
SERVING THE PUBLIC BY PROVIDING INFO & EXPERT OPINION ABOUT DRUGS & THE ISSUES SURROUNDING THEM
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF THE DRUG WAR
In John Stossel's book entitled
Give Me a Break, in one of the chapters he goes over
four
unintended consequences of the drug war. They are:
1. Drug laws cause crime. According to Stossel, crimes happen because "drug sellers can't rely on the police to protect their property; they form gangs and arm themselves. Drug buyers--steal to pay the high black market prices. The government says alcohol is as addictive as heroin, but no one robs 7 Elevens to get a six pack of Bud. It's our own laws that cause the crime."
2. Corruption: "The drug black market distracts police from pursuing other sorts of crimes, and sometimes corrupts them. We demand that cops who make $25,000 a year turn down $25,000 bribes. Not all do." As Detroit police chief Jerry Oliver puts it, "With all of the money, with all of the cash, it's easy....to purchase police officers, to purchase prosecutors, to purchase judges."
3.The drug war tells kids in poor neighborhoods that work is for suckers. "Why take an entry-level job at McDonald's when your little brother can make more as a drug lookout?, says Stossel. He adds, "Why work at all when the role models in the neighborhood--the coolest people, the ones with the best cars and the best clothes--are criminals?" Stossel points out that California Judge James Gray has concluded money made from the sale of illegal drugs is a bigger problem than the drugs themselves.
4. The creation of unbelievably rich criminal gangs. Stossel says, "We forget that alcohol prohibition created Al Capone. The gangs we're creating now are even richer, probably rich enough to buy nuclear weapons. Terrorists like Osama bin Laden have been funded partly by drug money.
Stossel concludes the
chapter with, "If you accept the idea that it's government's job to
protect us from ourselves, government will grow endlessly. As David
Boaz of the Cato Institute wrote in Libertarianism, a
Primer, 'The failure of one government intervention leads to
pressure for more intervention. Drug prohibition fails to stop the
drug trade, so government points to that very failure as a
reason to hire more police, pressure foreign governments, expand
its powers of search and seizure and civil forfeiture, deprive law
abiding people of public telephones in drug trade areas, subject
all employees to drug testing, and so on.'"
Stossel currently works for FOX News.
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