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ASSOCATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 42 West 44th Street New York, New York 10036 COMMITTEE ON DRUGS AND THE LAW PUBLIC HEARING ON DRUG POLICY TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1995 A.M. SESSION BARBARA PAUL ROBINSON, ESQ. President Association of the Bar of the City of New York KATHY H. ROCKLEN, ESQ. Chair 2 1 2 3 P R O C E E D I N G S 4 5 MS. ROBINSON: Good morning everybody 6 and welcome, I am so glad to see you all here, it's 7 really important, important beginning of these 8 hearings on our drug policies and the future of our 9 drug policies. 10 For those of you who don't know me, my 11 name is Barbara Paul Robinson, I am President of 12 this wonderful association and I am delighted to see 13 you here and I know you will be joined today, 14 tomorrow and the next day by many others who will 15 come together to talk about this compelling issue, 16 really one of the most challenging issues of our 17 day. 18 I think it's tremendously appropriate 19 that these hearings are being held here at the house 20 of this association of the bar of the City of New 21 York. 22 It is as a result of a very 23 thoughtful, thorough report that has been published 24 by the association and was written over really a 25 long period of thought and work and really 3 1 2 wonderful, wonderful work by our committee on Drugs 3 and the Law and of course Kathy Rocklen, our chair 4 is here to conduct these hearings. 5 She has been really instrumental in 6 making this happen. 7 As you know, I am sure, that report 8 calls for the decriminalization of drugs. 9 But it more importantly calls for a 10 public dialog as to how to get there from here. How 11 to shape the right kind of policy for our country. 12 Today is a result of just that call 13 and you are really making it happen, so thank you 14 very much. 15 I think many of you know that this 16 year is our association's 125th anniversary year, we 17 are very proud of that, part of the reason we are 18 proud of that is because when the association 19 started, it started because lawyers had the courage 20 to come together to try to reform the problems of 21 their time and in 1870 that was Boss Tweed and 22 Tamany Hall and if you have a chance when you leave 23 this room right across the hall you will see some 24 historical references to that time. 25 Well those lawyers had that courage 4 1 2 and they tackled a very difficult problem of their 3 time and today we are here to try to tackle a really 4 compelling problem of our time. 5 I don't care what your views are about 6 the drug policy, we must all agree that drugs are a 7 major problem of our day. 8 I think that people describe it 9 differently but there really is no disagreement 10 about that. 11 Some call it an academic, they treat 12 it as a public health issue, others call for war 13 against drugs. 14 This is an association of lawyers and 15 so we have called for reason, for analysis, for 16 dialogue. 17 Without hyperbole, without politics, 18 it is the perfect place to have this discussion. 19 Because we really have no axe to grind, we want to 20 find solutions. And you are going to help us to 21 just that. 22 Now, whether you favor 23 decriminalization or not, I think everyone who has 24 thought about this question agrees, that prevention 25 and rehabilitation can work and should work. 5 1 2 I think I mentioned to Kathy that just 3 last week I hope you all saw that statistic that 4 came out in The New York Times, that terrible 5 statistic that one out of every three young black 6 men in this country are either in jail or under 7 police supervision. 8 That is a staggering statistic. We 9 are losing an entire population. 10 It is devastating not only for our 11 current cities and our country but for the future of 12 our culture. 13 So if we all agree that rehabilitation 14 and prevention are key and by the way if you think 15 about what we have achieved on smoking, I would 16 never have believed this house would be a smoke free 17 house. 18 When I first came to meetings here 19 they passed out cigars, of course there weren't too 20 many women at that point, but now there is no 21 smoking in this house. 22 So just think if we can do that with 23 cigarettes, why can't we do it with drugs? 24 And what Kathy's committee's report 25 says is that you need to commit the kind of 6 1 2 resources to that battle, you cannot succeed without 3 those resources. 4 I just want to introduce the program 5 can I just finish then I will turn it over to Kathy 6 because I just wanted to conclude but I thought you 7 you couldn't hear me. 8 Anyway let me just say that without 9 getting into smoking I hope that today's committee's 10 hearings will bring this group together to seek 11 solutions, to build the partnerships that are 12 necessary to achieve them and I would like to 13 especially thank Kathy because really she has been 14 indefatigable in bringing these reports out in 15 making these hearings happen and I know that thanks 16 to all of you we will find some solutions so thank 17 you very much. 18 Thank you, Kathy. 19 MS. ROCKLEN: Thank you, President 20 Robinson. 21 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and 22 honored guests. 23 Thank you for joining us at this 24 public forum organized to explore the subject of 25 drug policy reform. 7 1 2 For the next two and a half days, 3 prosecutors, government representatives, members 4 members of the judiciary and experts on drug policy 5 from the academic world, private foundations and 6 other interested organizations will give us their 7 views on the future direction of our nation's drug 8 policy. 9 As you know, last year the 10 association's committee on drugs and the law 11 published a report entitled a wiser course ending 12 drug prohibition. 13 After ten years of study, the 14 committee concluded that the costs of prohibition 15 are simply too high, and it's benefits too dubious 16 to warrant staying the current course. 17 The consequences of this country's 18 policy of drug prohibition are everywhere. 19 State and Federal Courts are jammed. 20 The principal population is burgeoning and violent 21 turf wars threaten our safety. 22 Civil liberties are being eroded and 23 respect for the law is waning. 24 Quality of urban life has declined and 25 public health is threatened. 8 1 2 There appears to be no basis for the 3 claim that a greater emphasis on enforcement makes a 4 difference. 5 Despite the billions of dollars spent 6 on law enforcement, criminal prosecution and 7 incarcerations, the drug problem rages on. 8 The association believes that patching 9 the current system won't work. 10 Increased attention to treatment and 11 education alone will not be enough to control this 12 country's and indeed the world's drug problem. 13 We must start from scratch with a 14 different perspective and a whole new attitude. 15 Prohibition must go and a new drug 16 policy premised on legalization and regulation must 17 take its place. 18 Failure to recognize this imperative 19 will mean a continuing plunge into violence. 20 The committee's 1994 report concluded 21 with a recall for wider public dialogue on new 22 approaches to drug policy. Including legalization 23 and regulation. 24 These hearings are designed to further 25 that dialogue. 9 1 2 Witnesses have been asked to comment 3 on the committee's report, as well as giving us 4 their views on the effectiveness of present drug 5 enforcement efforts, anti-drug educational programs, 6 drug treatment programs, arm reduction efforts and 7 legalization and decriminilazation proposals. 8 The committee is very pleased with the 9 broad spectrum of views represented at these 10 hearings, as well as the level of public interest in 11 this topic. 12 We are disappointed, however, by the 13 refusal of federal policy makers to participate in 14 this debate. 15 We believe their testimony is 16 absolutely critical to a balanced examination of the 17 competing concerns underlying this nation's drug 18 policy. 19 For that reason, we invite federal 20 policy makers to reconsider our invitation and join 21 us at this week's hearings or at further hearings to 22 be scheduled. 23 The format for these hearings are 24 straightforward. 25 Each witness will have an opportunity 10 1 2 to speak for fifteen minutes following which there 3 will be a question and answer period of equal 4 length. 5 Questions will be taken first from the 6 committee members and then from the audience. 7 The committee member acting as session 8 chair will introduce each speaker, keep track of the 9 time and recognize people with questions. 10 As you can imagine, we have a tight 11 schedule and we will appreciate everyone's 12 cooperation in maintaining that schedule. 13 Copies of the hearing scheduled, the 14 committee report and various papers that have been 15 submitted for these hearings are available right 16 outside the front door. 17 Again, we want to thank you all for 18 participating in these hearings, I also want to give 19 my special thanks to all of the Committee members 20 who have worked so hard to put these hearings 21 together, as well as my secretary, Lawrence Scott, 22 who has been instrumental in making this happen. 23 I am now going to turn the hearings 24 over to this morning's session chair, Ken Brown. 25 Ken. 11 1 2 MR. BROWN: Thank you very much, 3 Kathy. 4 Good morning everyone, thank you for 5 coming, 6 First, before we get started I would 7 like to thank the Court reporting service that's 8 here today, Rayvid Reportinging Service, we have 9 Stephen J. Moore who is reporting. 10 They are doing this pro bono for the 11 association. 12 Our first witness today is Eric 13 Sterling, he is the President of the criminal 14 justice policy foundation, a private not for profit 15 educational organization. 16 Mr. Sterling received his bachelor's 17 of arts in 1973 from Haverford College, majoring in 18 religion and his juris doctorate from from Villanova 19 University school of law in 1976. 20 Mr. Sterling has counsel to the U.S. 21 house of representatives committee on the judiciary 22 from 1979 until 1989. 23 In the 96th Congress he worked on 24 Congress rewriting federal criminal code for the 25 Chairman of the subcommittee my on criminal justice. 12 1 2 Mr. Sterling's opinion is regularly 3 sought by top federal officials, frequently reported 4 in national news media and he has served as an 5 expert witness in federal trials. 6 He frequently lectures in colleges and 7 universities has appeared on many national news 8 shows such as Donahue, Nightline, ABC 20/20, Eye to 9 Eye with Connie Chung, and so forth. 10 He is editor and chief of news brief 11 and the national drug strategy network. 12 Please, everyone welcome Mr. Eric 13 Sterling. 14 MR. STERLING: Ladies and gentlemen, 15 thank you very much for inviting me to address you 16 today. 17 I have brought my prepared statement 18 and there are copies outside for -- and for the 19 committee and as Thomas Jefferson said I'm sorry my 20 letter is so long, if I had more time it would have 21 been shorter. 22 It is lengthy and I apologize for not 23 making it shorter. 24 President Robinson began by discussing 25 the question of this committee's call for a 13 1 2 dialogue. 3 On October 3, U.S. Senator Chuck 4 Grassly in the Desmoine Register said that this 5 discussion of drug legalization is leading to more 6 juvenile drug abuse. 7 That is a red baiting of the worst 8 possible kind. 9 He of course cited the recent data 10 from the monitoring of future survey that shows that 11 marijuana use among teenagers is up, but so is 12 alcohol use and so is tobacco use. 13 And we are talking about tighter 14 controls on those drugs. 15 It is absurd to think that this 16 discussion is leading to a greater drug abuse 17 problem. 18 Prohibition is a failure and we have 19 to discuss ways to replace it, and it's a failure on 20 its own terms. 21 In February 1995, the Peter Heart 22 survey found that the American people would give the 23 federal government a grade of D or F for its work in 24 dealing with the drug problem at a ratio of fifty 25 percent. 14 1 2 Fifty percent of the public would 3 flunk the Federal Government or give them a D. 4 Only six percent of the American 5 public thought the drug abuse problem had gotten 6 better in the last five years. 7 In 1994, in July, the Lew Harris 8 survey for the national treatment consortium, found 9 that seventy-five percent of the American people 10 think that there will be more drug addiction over 11 the next ten years. 12 Prohibition is a failure on its own 13 terms. 14 Prohibition also cannot work as your 15 report points out in many respects. 16 Just briefly, and I traveled to Peru, 17 Columbia, Jamaica, Mexico and Bolivia in 1983 with 18 the house narcotics committee, I saw our efforts at 19 eradication of coke aand marijuana with my own eyes 20 and I can assure you that there isn't any way that I 21 believe that we can stop these very valuable 22 contraband crops from being cultivated by impvovered 23 camacinos in those countries. 24 Interdiction effort cannot succeed. 25 As I point out in my paper the drugs 15 1 2 become much more valuable when they come into the 3 United States and only tiny quantities of drugs 4 given the enormous amount of legitimate 5 international trade are necessary to supply the 6 American public's drug use. 7 On the order of several hundred tons 8 if is the quantity of cocaine or heroin that comes 9 into the country compared to billions of tons. 10 We are simply not going to be able to 11 stop the importation of cocaine, for example which 12 is twice the value of platinium on a dollar per 13 ounce basis. 14 Well can we enforce our way out of 15 that? 16 That's not going to be possible in any 17 realistic manner. 18 As the sentencing project made clear 19 last week, now one in three young blackmails is 20 under the control of the justice system. 21 Ninety percent of those in prison for 22 just possession are African American or Hispanic. 23 This is an effort that is going to if 24 we continue in the direction we are going, to 25 continue to lock up more and more people at an 16 1 2 enormous cost. 3 In the crime bill the President signed 4 last September, $7.9 billion has been authorized for 5 additional principal funding with no sense that 6 that's going to be an adequate amount to fully 7 imprison all of those involved in the use of drugs. 8 And then, of course, we have former 9 drug csar Irving Kaufman's recommendation, let's 10 take the profit out of it through asset forfeiture. 11 The asset forfeiture program of the 12 Federal Government brings in about $700 million a 13 year through Treasury and the Department of Justice 14 at a cost of several hundred million dollars a year 15 to operate. 16 If we are taking $1 billion from the 17 drug traffic customers in a year and if they 18 conservatively are making $20 billion a year, well 19 that five percent of their profits is not going to 20 put them out of business. 21 What we have to do is to replace 22 prohibition with a system of regulation and control. 23 Now, I am going to say that I believe 24 that drug use can be harmful. 25 Sitting here as an advocate of its 17 1 2 what is called legalization, I will concede that 3 drug use can be harmful and that we see the harmful 4 effects of drug use thought our society. 5 But I challenge those who would say we 6 must maintain prohibition, to concede that drug use 7 can be beneficial. 8 It certainly -- drugs are beneficial 9 as medicine, the government's cowardly and 10 scandalous refusal to make marijuana available for 11 people who are sick and dying is a moral abomination 12 in the name of politics. 13 But we should also recognize that drug 14 use is valuable for its recreational and it's 15 religious purposes. 16 I was fortunate in working with the 17 native American people in the passage of the 18 American Indian religious freedom act amendments of 19 1994 and the religious freedom restoration act of 20 1993. 21 Your report talked about the right to 22 alter consciousness and I discuss in your paper the 23 dissenters critique arguing that drug abuse is not a 24 right. 25 In this debate we have to begin to 18 1 2 stop using terms like drug abuse as the only way to 3 characterize drug use. 4 One must -- to say that there is no 5 such thing as drug use but all drug use is drug 6 abuse is to say that the term drug abuse itself is a 7 meaningless term. 8 It strips it of meaning if we apply it 9 to all circumstances and I think that that kind of 10 abusive language is inappropriate in a report of the 11 Bar Association. 12 There are principles that I think we 13 need to hold as we think about how to replace 14 business with a controlled regulated system. 15 Let me just highlight those 16 principles. 17 The first is to remember that drug 18 laws and drug policy should help people not hurt 19 them. 20 That's the whole purpose, is to help 21 people. 22 If our laws are hurting more people 23 than they are helping, that's a sign that they are 24 not working well. 25 The relief of pain is one of the 19 1 2 oldest of our medical traditions and heroin can be 3 used as effective pain relief by people who do not 4 get relief from Dilotive and other drugs. 5 That is not to say that heroin is a 6 good drug or that it's better than another drug, 7 it's to recognize the idiosyncratic nature of pain 8 relief and analgesic. 9 Canada joined the United Kingdom in 10 the 1980's to allow heroin to be used in pain relief 11 and it's scandalous for political reasons the 12 Congress in 1984 rejected legislation that the house 13 commerce committee sent forward to correct that 14 problem here on an experimental basis. 15 Second, we should adopt a public 16 health approach toward all drugs and drug users. 17 A public health approach is a way to 18 deal with the problems of drug abuse, rather than 19 simply criminalizing issues. 20 That recognizes then that alcohol and 21 tobacco are intrinsic parts of what our drug 22 discussion ought to be about. 23 I think as a point that we must be 24 comprehensive. 25 That treatment professionals recognize 20 1 2 there is cross addiction between tobacco, alcohol, 3 heroin, marijuana and other drugs. 4 That there is a relationship, there is 5 polydrug use and that the legal lines that we have 6 defined on such a political and arbitrary basis 7 don't make sense in medicine or in public health. 8 This requires that we look at our drug 9 abuse prevention programs on a more comprehensive 10 basis. 11 Prevention programs are critically 12 important, but for political reasons we should not 13 pour our treasury into programs that don't work 14 because we like the police. 15 The drug abuse resistance education 16 program at $700 million a year, $400 million of that 17 being federal money, is a waste when the evaluators 18 from the research trial institute and the national 19 institute of justice contract find it does not work, 20 it is ineffective. 21 That the students who complete the 22 DARE program are no more likely to be drug free 23 afterwards than controls who did not use the 24 program. 25 Third, we must insist upon drug and 21 1 2 alcohol user accountability and responsibility. 3 People who use drugs must be 4 responsible for what they do. 5 There is nothing controversial about 6 that. 7 So, drug and alchohol use should not 8 be an excuse for criminal conduct or for negligent 9 conduct. 10 People who are convicted of predatory 11 crimes, robbers and rapists, assaulters and burglers 12 they should be drug and alcohol abstinent while on 13 probation and parole. 14 Those are not radical ideas but there 15 is a system of regulation and control and those who 16 would suggest that legalizers are thought concerned 17 about that are engaged I think simply in name 18 calling. 19 Fourth of course we should insist that 20 vendors are responsible and accountable. 21 So that violence, corruption, product 22 adulteration, tax evasion, antitrust evasion, 23 antitrust violations by drug and alcohol and tobacco 24 companies should be investigated and punished and 25 the distribution of these compounds should be 22 1 2 policed in a way to protect the public health. 3 Convicted criminals cannot sell 4 alcohol now under Federal Law, they shouldn't be 5 allowed to sell drugs as well. 6 Fifth, we want to maximize the reach 7 of law and respect for the law. 8 We want to maximize the power of the 9 law in our society, and prohibition does the 10 opposite. 11 It guarantees that one of the largest 12 industries in America operates completely outside 13 law. 14 Our current law, somebody who wants to 15 stay out of the criminal subculture that supplies 16 drugs, for example, marijuana, who wants to grow 17 their own marijuana, becomes a felon, moving up to 18 the misdemeanor status of simply being a possesor. 19 It makes no sense to penalize more 20 harshly people who want to withdraw from the 21 criminal traffic that now exists. 22 Marijuana cultivation should be for 23 personal use should be a misdemeanor or a non 24 offense all together. 25 That's something we can do under 23 1 2 current law. 3 Sixth, as we think about all of this 4 in thinking about our priorities, we should set 5 achievable social goals. 6 This is 1995, in 1988 Congress passed 7 a law saying America was going to be drug free in 8 1995. 9 I helped write that law and like many 10 of the things I helped write, it's absurd it's based 11 on politics and it's not based upon achievable 12 social goals. 13 So, an achievable social goal would be 14 reducing the spread of HIV. 15 Cutting down the number of cases of 16 AIDS and hepatitis and other diseases. 17 So needles ought to be available for 18 adicts, that is common sense. 19 So we need to take the political 20 aspect that prevents us from looking at realistic 21 goals. 22 I have in my paper a number of 23 discussion suggestions for what we ought to do in 24 focusing domestic law enforcement in other areas to 25 deal with the question of how to achieve realizable 24 1 2 social goals. 3 In the short term, until we have an 4 effective and regulated system in place, I think the 5 U.S. treasury and U.S. justice's departments need to 6 increase their emphasis on international law 7 enforcement. 8 Probably the largest least corrupt law 9 enforcement agency in the world is the Federal Law 10 enforcement establishment. 11 And yet we know that there are 12 billions of dollars in illegal funds being moved 13 around the world and that is an appropriate area for 14 law enforcement. 15 Yet when you look at the outcomes of 16 the federal criminal establishment, fifty-five 17 percent of those going to prison for federal 18 offenses are street level dealers, body guides, 19 mules and couriers and only 11.2 percent are high 20 level traffic customers, that is a mistake, it is a 21 waste of our resources, even if we keep the current 22 approach. 23 Of course we need to raise revenue and 24 that's an important social goal. 25 Alcohol taxation generates at the 25 1 2 federal, state and local level $12 billion in 1989, 3 federal and state tobacco taxes raised $11 billion 4 in fiscal year 1992. 5 My estimate is that marijuana taxation 6 could generate $10 to $20 billion a year federal, 7 state and local if we were to do that. 8 I have a proposal in the back of my 9 paper which is on Page 51 which is a mock U.S. 10 treasury marijuana license. 11 The idea is that we have to develop a 12 policed and regulated form of dealing with these 13 drugs. 14 So let me move then quickly to some of 15 the specifics. 16 Like Doctor Mark Kleinman at the 17 Kennedy School I suggest that we use drug use 18 licenses as an interim measure. 19 He proposes alcohol use licenses and I 20 think that that has some merit as well. 21 Because I think in part what we want 22 to do is to change our cultural attitude to become 23 more sober about drug use all together. 24 I part company with the ACLU and argue 25 that we ought to stop the advertising of alcohol and 26 1 2 tobacco. 3 When six year olds recognize Joe Camel 4 as readily as they recognize Micky Mouse, that 5 testifies to the way in which tobacco advertising 6 more than $5 billion per year has penetrated the 7 young. 8 In a drug use license situation if you 9 think about alcohol use licenses -- am I out of 10 time? 11 MR. BROWN: Getting close. 12 MR. STERLING: Can I have two minutes? 13 MR. BROWN: Two minutes. 14 MR. STERLING: With alcohol use 15 license, ask yourself where do people learn how much 16 alcohol they can consume before it affects their 17 ability to drive. 18 The answer is they learn that behind 19 the wheel of their car. 20 What I would suggest is that people 21 who want to consume alcohol as part of it would be 22 that they would sit in a automobile simulator and 23 have measured amounts of alcohol and learn with 24 computer printouts and so on exactly how it affects 25 them, because people have different ideosyncratic 27 1 2 effects, to simply effect blood alcohol level and 3 talk about rough guidelines of so many so many 4 drinks per hour is an inadequate way. 5 I suggest we begin to look at 6 impairment from a measured sense I propose what I 7 call vehicle operating impairment levels in my 8 paper. 9 That standard levels for impairment be 10 established for individuals. 11 That if you are stopped and suspected 12 of being impaired you would be measured against your 13 own base line measure of impairment. 14 I think that we need to have what are 15 called wet shelters, that we have to recognize, I 16 will conclude in this sense, that in looking at 17 addiction and drug use, whatever we do there is 18 going to be a drug problem. 19 There is a scope and a range of self 20 control and behavior about addicts that our thinking 21 about drug addiction is highly stereotyped. 22 In the book Shooting Dope by Charles 23 Falpo he points out the different kinds of careers 24 that addicts have and he points out the different 25 ways in which they are involved in their drug use. 28 1 2 We have to tailor a system of 3 regulated drug distribution that is coupled with 4 interventions in order to deal with the different 5 classes of addiction use so I would suggest even 6 while we have many shelters that require you to be 7 drug free or to be abstinent run by churches, for 8 example that we also recognize inebriates need a 9 place they can pass out and not be at risk of being 10 mugged and preyed upon and not be disorderly in the 11 public streets the way James Q. Wilson talked about 12 in Broken Windows. 13 So, just to simply say there are a 14 whole range of approaches that we have to begin to 15 talk about to replace prohibition and that is the 16 challenge that it has. 17 There is no simple answer and we are 18 going to be proposing ideas which are going to be 19 very radical and challenging and offensive and 20 people are going to take offense at these ideas. 21 Yet we have to overcome that offense 22 if we are going to come up with effective solutions 23 to this problem. 24 Thank you very much. 25 MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Sterling. 29 1 2 First I would like to take some 3 questions from the panel. 4 Does anyone have questions for Mr. 5 Sterling. 6 Starting with Eleanor Jackson *Peale. 7 MS. PEALE: Yes, I have a question. I 8 was impressed with what you had to say, however how 9 do you deal with the perception, particularly in the 10 black community, that drugs are wrong and laws are 11 made to enforce public perception of what is wrong? 12 How do you deal with that? 13 MR. STERLING: Mrs. Peale, when you 14 say drugs are wrong, you mean drug use is wrong, 15 drug use is immoral? 16 MS. PEALE: Yes, thank you for 17 defining what I meant. 18 MR. STERLING: I just wanted to 19 clarify. 20 It is perfectly legitimate for a 21 person to believe that drug use is immoral. 22 Many seventh day adventists and many 23 mormons believe that to use drugs is to profane the 24 body which is a temple of the holy spirit. 25 However to begin to pass laws to carry 30 1 2 out that religious dogma constitutes in some sense 3 an establishment of religion. 4 It also undermines religion. 5 For a church to say our teaching is so 6 we can, our doctrine is so flabby we have to rely 7 upon the policemen to enforce our doctrine is to say 8 we have a rather pale religion and our belief is not 9 very strong. 10 It is not the job of the state to 11 enforce the broad range of religious beliefs that we 12 have in 1965 there were laws in many states, 13 Connecticut, Massachusetts among them that said that 14 it's illegal to sell contraceptives to anyone, even 15 to a married couple. 16 In Griswald versus Connecticut, the 17 Supreme Court decided quite strongly even though 18 there is a strong moral sense that we would want to 19 prevent -- we want to enforce a kind of church 20 related doctrine concerning conception or we don't 21 want unmarried persons to engage in sex and we might 22 want them to be punished by disease or by unwanted 23 pregnancy in some sense, the Court recognized that 24 was not a sufficient basis for barring individuals 25 from making choices in this area. 31 1 2 The Court even talked about a penumbra 3 of First Amendment rights that include privacy in 4 that kind of situation. 5 What one has to say I think to the 6 African American community is that it is perfectly 7 okay for a mother and father to tell their children 8 that drug use is wrong and immoral and that it's 9 appropriate for churchs to teach that, but it's also 10 appropriate to point out that prohibition is 11 immoral. 12 That prohibition is immoral by 13 offering to African America youth who have 14 inadequate economic opportunities the opportunity of 15 selling drugs. 16 William Adler in his excellent book 17 about the Chambers crack cocaine gang a book called 18 Land of Opportunity which I commend to the 19 committee, Land of Opportunity was the story of poor 20 black share croppers from Arkansas who moved to 21 Detroit to the land of opportunity just at the time 22 the American auto industry goes down the toilet. 23 The Chambers brothers built a crack 24 cocaine organization involving hundreds of crack 25 houses and they only lasted for a couple of years. 32 1 2 But in their eyes and in the eyes of 3 the children they went to school with in Arkansas, 4 this was the glorious opportunity. 5 Prohibition is immoral. Prohibition, 6 if I can just conclude on the one point about this, 7 the essence of prohibition enforcement is that I 8 will, as a government agent, unbeknownst to you, 9 seek your trust in order to betray it. 10 The essence of prohibition enforcement 11 is to win the trust of citizens in order to betray 12 that trust. 13 That is immoral. 14 And prohibition is immoral in its 15 application and in its effects. 16 MR. BROWN: Another question, Mr. 17 Doyle? 18 MR. DOYLE: One question, Mr. Sterling 19 MR. BROWN: I would just ask to try to 20 make the questions and the answers as brief as 21 possible. 22 MR. STERLING: I'm sorry, Mr. Brown. 23 MR. DOYLE: Give us as specifically as 24 you can your model for regulation and whether it 25 would cover sale to minors and sale of crack. 33 1 2 THE WITNESS: I would not allow sale 3 to minors just as as I think enforcement and I 4 propose, for example, how I think juvenile drug 5 enforcement needs to be stepped up in the juvenile 6 section in the back of my paper. 7 We don't have to answer the question 8 of crack now. I am not in favor of it at this time. 9 It's important as we think about this 10 that we do not have to put forward a complete model 11 that handles all particulars. 12 That, it's in fact critically 13 important that we experiment. 14 Daniel Benjamin and Roger Leroy Miller 15 in their book Undoing Drugs, suggest the value of 16 state experimentation in different ways of looking 17 at this. 18 Fortunately what's happening in 19 Switzerland and in Europe begins to allow us some 20 insight into what some of these experiments might 21 show. 22 That's my answer. 23 MR. BROWN: All right, thank you, 24 thank you Mr. Doyle. 25 Kathy? 34 1 2 MS. ROCKLEN: I would like to follow 3 up on John's question, because this is an issue that 4 the committee has struggle with quite a bit, which 5 is to say the subject of drug ingestion by minors 6 and by pregnant women. 7 I think it's fair to say the committee 8 is unanimous in its view that it cannot countenance 9 that kind of use. 10 The problem that that brings up for us 11 is that it still leaves an opportunity for illegal 12 sale of drugs which is one of the principal focuses 13 of our recommendations for decriminalization. 14 We recognize that there is no approach 15 for managing the drug problem that is a panacea, but 16 my question is do you have any ideas on how we would 17 deal with the minor problem and pregnant women as 18 well? 19 THE WITNESS: The first thing to sort 20 of recognize is that the objection is a bit of a red 21 herring. 22 To say that your approach is not going 23 to end the evils of prohibition because minors are 24 still going to get drugs misstates the approach, 25 which is to minimize harm and minimize the size of 35 1 2 criminal organizations. 3 Minors are a tiny fraction of the 4 total consumption of drugs at the current time. 5 If we are effective in eliminating 6 the -- by substituting -- if adult consumption 7 becomes legal and regulated, that becomes a 8 tremendous shrinking of the criminal organization, 9 that is progress. 10 If we cut the criminal market in half, 11 that is progress. 12 I mean it is not -- we don't have to 13 come up with one hundred percent elimination of 14 organized crime in order to satisfy somebody that 15 this is an improvement. 16 Minors involve a tiny, tiny fraction 17 of consumption. 18 In terms of how does one enforce 19 against minors and I suggest that when you have 20 instances of -- two things, A, I think that we think 21 about how dosage controls would have bar codes and 22 codes that would be assigned to consumers. 23 That you become responsible for the 24 drugs that are issued to you. 25 That that becomes a part of user 36 1 2 accountability and if drugs that are issued to you 3 get into the hands of minors, you are responsible 4 for explaining how that might have happened. 5 That we need to investigate these 6 kinds of matters much more effectively and I suggest 7 that in the juvenile portion of my paper. 8 MS. ROCKLEN: I just add one other 9 thought, which doesn't answer the question but maybe 10 helps answer our own question, I think that one of 11 the things we have emphasized is that by removing or 12 reallocating resources away from enforcement and 13 toward education and treatment, that that hopefully 14 will go a long way toward helping giving useful 15 guidance to minors. 16 I just have one housekeeping thing 17 before we turn back which is would every speaker see 18 me just for a moment after they are through. 19 I'm sorry, Ken. 20 MR. BROWN: We may have time for a 21 couple of more questions. Let me check with the 22 panel first. 23 Mr. Knapp, do you have a question? 24 MR. KNAPP: Just one, I will make it 25 brief. 37 1 2 Thank you. 3 Mr. Sterling, you were involved as you 4 said in federal regulations and legislation which 5 sought to declare by 1995 America would be drug 6 free, as you testified. 7 As a practical matter, I take it, that 8 one of the things you are suggesting is to remove 9 the Federal Government from the criminal law 10 process, set it back on to the states for state 11 experimentation, each state could be free to go its 12 own way. 13 What, if you would comment, as a 14 practical matter, how would you go about removing 15 the Federal Government from the criminal law aspects 16 of drug policy, other than, perhaps, following the 17 admonition of the former Vermont Senator who said 18 about the Vietnam war, let's declare victory and get 19 out, 1995 we said we would have a drug free America 20 so it's 1995, short of that, how do you recommend or 21 what would you do to remove the Federal Government's 22 arm? 23 MR. STERLING: To remove the Federal 24 Government is a suggestion of Benjamin and Miller, 25 that's not my suggestion, I don't think that that's 38 1 2 what we ought to do. 3 There is a -- I think there will 4 continue to be an urgent need for drug enforcement 5 in order to enforce the regulatory scheme, we have a 6 Securities and Exchange Commission, we have a whole 7 host of appropriate federal regulation of legal 8 kinds of industries and this is one where I think 9 there is an appropriate federal {roll|role} as well. 10 There will certainly be controls that 11 the customs service will have to bring concerning 12 importation. 13 My proposed mock license is a federal 14 license at the back of my paper. 15 MR. KNAPP: Thank you. 16 MR. BROWN: One question from the 17 panel by Mr. Salamon. 18 MR. SALOMON: Good morning. 19 MR. STERLING: Good morning. 20 MR. SALOMON: My question is simply 21 this, it addresses the last point that you made in 22 your testimony, which is to advance the dialogue on 23 the alternatives to prohibition. 24 How in the federal arena do you 25 propose to do so? 39 1 2 Other than by exercising your first 3 amendment rights to speak at forums such as this? 4 MR. STERLING: Mr. Salomon, is this 5 something that we can start debating on the floor of 6 the House of Representatives, is that the question? 7 MR. SALOMON: To eventually get there. 8 MR. STERLING: You are asking me then 9 a political question and the answer is the political 10 strategy is both for distinguished and responsible 11 groups like this association to continue the kind of 12 work that it's doing. 13 For groups like the drug policy 14 foundation and the Lindesman Center to do the work 15 that they do for NORML and for other groups that 16 they do, to do the work that they do. 17 It is a matter of continuing the 18 debate. 19 Congress listens to what's going on. 20 They don't like the debate because 21 they don't -- they don't like the debate, but the 22 point is that the public -- they are aware of it, 23 they are keenly aware of it. 24 The federal government has spent a lot 25 of money now to try to stop the legalization debate 40 1 2 by having a conference condemning legalization last 3 May in Atlanta and publishing booklets on how to 4 debate the legalizers. 5 From this state, Congress Jerry 6 Solomon the Chairman of the rules committee has 7 proposed that the tax exempt status of educational 8 organizations such as the drug policy foundation be 9 eliminated because they foster this kind of debate, 10 that's an unconstitutional proposal, but it gives 11 you a sense of how afraid they are. 12 In 1988 aside from declaring the 13 United States would be drug free in 1995, Congress 14 in two different places passed laws saying that the 15 discussion of legalization should be rejected. 16 This was in the anti-drug abuse act of 17 1988. 18 If Congress was passing the Navy 19 appropriation, they did not include language that 20 said it shall be forbidden to discuss or consider 21 the idea the earth is flat. 22 In the NASA appropriation they don't 23 say nobody shall discuss whether or not there are 24 UFO's or the moon is made of green cheese, because 25 those are not seriously powerful ideas. 41 1 2 The reason that Congress is 3 legislating against this is because it is a very 4 powerful idea and members of Congress are still very 5 afraid of this. 6 This is perhaps one of those third 7 rails of the political discussion right now, and it 8 will change, it will change as this kind of debate 9 takes place and I appreciate the opportunity to be 10 able to participate in it in this august forum. 11 MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Sterling. 12 I would like to take a couple of 13 questions from the audience, the lady in the back 14 please if you could come to where the microphone is 15 and have it handed back to you. 16 THE AUDIENCE: I have two questions, I 17 am just a member of the general public. 18 Has anyone tried to get approval for 19 having heroin tested through the FDA or marijuana 20 tested through the FDA that it can be approved as a 21 drug for distribution on the same basis as any other 22 drug and the second question is alcohol can be 23 abused. 24 Why are we allowing the tax 25 deductability of alcohol for business if people want 42 1 2 to use it they can use it, but I don't think that it 3 should be tax deductible and I think that should be 4 retroactive for the last ten years. 5 MR. STERLING: Perhaps the way I could 6 respond to those questions is first I am not aware 7 of particular manufacturers attempting to bring 8 marijuana or heroin to the FDA. 9 There are research efforts underway to 10 test the efficacy and safety of marijuana in 11 different ways. 12 The multi disciplinary association for 13 psychadelic studies has financed some of those 14 research efforts and there may be discussion of that 15 later in the hearing. 16 With respect to your idea about 17 alcohol taxation, I think having suggested that to 18 this committee is worthwhile. 19 I don't know that I could be the best 20 person to comment on it. 21 MR. BROWN: One more question from the 22 audience the gentleman here in the front row. 23 THE AUDIENCE: Eric, you suggested 24 that for legal purposes driving impairment should be 25 measured with respect to one's unimpaired base line 43 1 2 performance. 3 Given that there are great disparities 4 in driving ability ordinarily and that there are 5 some people who can drive drunk better than some 6 other people driving sober, would it not be better 7 to measure absolute driving ability rather than 8 impairment? 9 THE WITNESS: That's a very good point 10 and I in my paper raise both of those as 11 hypotheticals and one of the questions that I had 12 was -- that everything not everything is good for 13 debate, rather than addressing everything 14 specifically and take a lot of time on it, you have 15 raised a very good question and it's one that this 16 committee and the public should continue to study 17 about how impairment testing should, in fact, be 18 set. 19 Whether on an individual base line or 20 on a kind of lowest common denominator basis. 21 MR. BROWN: Thank you very much. 22 We have no more time for questions 23 from audiences, thank you very much for coming today 24 Mr. Sterling, we appreciate your testimony. 25 MR. STERLING: Thank you, I have left 44 1 2 a few copies of my newsletter, news briefs outside 3 and I believe I have given copies to the committee. 4 And of a copy of my paper to the 5 Colorado Bar Association on the Bill of Rights. 6 Thank you very much. 7 MS. ROCKLEN: For those of you 8 standing in the back there are chairs available in 9 the front if you will like to see. 10 MR. BROWN: This morning there is 11 going to be a change in the program. 12 We had scheduled Robert Morgenthau to 13 be the first witness this morning, he was unable to 14 attend so Mr. Sterling who was the last speaker in 15 this morning's session was substituted and I 16 appreciate Mr. Sterling's willingness to do that. 17 We have now Mr. Mark Dwyer who is 18 appearing on behalf of Mr. Morgenthau, so all the 19 witnesses that were scheduled for certain time slips 20 we are just going to move you one-half hour forward 21 so that the 10:00 person will be at 10:30 and so 22 forth. 23 Does anybody have a problem with that 24 who is here now as a witness? 25 I hope not because we will just try to 45 1 2 be flexible with this and go with the next witness. 3 I would like to introduce Mr. Mark 4 Dwyer, he is the chief appeals bureau Assistant 5 District Attorney of the District Attorney's office 6 of Manhattan. 7 He's a long time member of the 8 District Attorney's office he went to Yale Law 9 School and clerked for now chief Judge Platt of the 10 Eastern District of New York. 11 Let's have a warm welcome for Mr. 12 Dwyer. 13 MR. DWYER: Thank you very much, first 14 of all Mr. Morgenthau apologizes for not being here, 15 I am sure you would -- I am sure you would much 16 rather hear from him in person I will ask if you 17 could to suspend imagination and imagine a silver 18 haired patrician respectable looking gentleman 19 reading their remarks, they are first person remarks 20 and I can guarantee you they do represent his views. 21 Thank you for the opportunity to share 22 my views with this morning on the future of our 23 nation's drug policy. 24 In particular the suggestion that 25 drugs should be legalized. 46 1 2 Let me begin by stating the obvious. 3 The illegal drug trade is wreaking 4 havoc in our city. 5 Each day's headlines write news of 6 gratuitous violence and unspeakable depravity. 7 For many citizens, domestic 8 tranquility has become a forgotten ideal. 9 I am convinced that legalizing drugs 10 will only aggravate these ills. 11 The answer to the drug problem is not 12 to legalize drugs but to enforce the laws that our 13 legislature has enacted against them. 14 Making narcotics cheaper and more 15 accessible, for that is what legalization 16 necessarily means, is a blueprint for social 17 catastrophe, it is a solution that promises more 18 malformed babies, more abused children, more 19 homeless persons wandering our streets and more 20 human misery. 21 Simply stated, it is no solution at 22 all. 23 When I became district attorney of New 24 York County in 1985, it was fashionable to consider 25 drug abuse a victimless crime. 47 1 2 The past twenty years have taught us 3 the folly of that view. 4 Drugs are not a victimless crime, but 5 a national pestilence. 6 Illegal drug use is a major cause of 7 infant fatalities and birth defects. 8 A 1991 study projects that more than 9 72,000 crack exposed babies will be born in New York 10 City by the end of this decade, requiring almost $2 11 billion in neonatal, special education and foster 12 care expenditures. 13 Drugs are also a prime cause of crime. 14 In Manhattan for the first six months 15 of 1995, eighty-four percent of the male and 16 eighty-seven percent of the female booked arrestees 17 tested positive for illegal drug use. 18 Seventy-three percent of the males and 19 seventy-four percent of the females tested positive 20 for cocaine. 21 These statistics debunk the notion 22 that anti-drug laws spawn more violence and crime 23 than drugs themselves. 24 Obviously some users commit crimes to 25 support their habits and while drug gangs do fight 48 1 2 over turf those crimes tell only a small part of the 3 story. 4 A far greater percentage of drug 5 crimes are caused by the effect of drugs on users. 6 It is drug use that fuels anti-social 7 behavior, not drug laws. 8 And drugs are a major contributing 9 factor in child abuse cases. 10 In three-quarters of such cases in our 11 city, one or both parents is addicted to drugs. 12 It is also shocking that the primary 13 cause of death for infants up to one year old is 14 homicide. Mostly by care givers. 15 Each week assistance in my family 16 crimes bureau receive reports of attacks on children 17 by their parents, child abuse and drugs go hand in 18 hand. 19 I am sure everyone here remembers the 20 case of Joel Steinberg and the atrocities he 21 inflicted upon his six year old girl Lisa. 22 A search of Steinberg's arrest 23 uncovered, cocaine, heroin and marijuana, as well as 24 a ether, a substance used in free basing cocaine, 25 not long after the Steinberg case my office 49 1 2 prosecuted an eighteen year old man who had raped 3 his one month old daughter after smoking crack 4 cocaine. 5 More recently a three year old baby 6 fell from its death from the window of a fifth floor 7 apartment, the parents rushing to make a midnight 8 crack purchase left the toddler alone in the 9 apartment with the window open. 10 The message from these and thousands 11 of cases like them are clear, drug addicts are 12 slaves to their next high, everything but the next 13 score is meaningless. 14 As Plato observed, far too great 15 liberty seems to change into nothing else than too 16 great slavery. 17 As for those who bemoan the cost of 18 fighting drugs in our country, look at the numbers. 19 Only $14 million has been requested in 20 the administration's budget to battle illegal drugs 21 next year, this is not a meaningful commitment. 22 Those who disagree fail to consider 23 the very real economic and social cost of drug use 24 in this country, costs that could be avoided with 25 the reduction of drug use. 50 1 2 Health care costs directly 3 attributable to illegal drugs exceed $30 billion 4 annually. 5 Given that each year roughly 500,000 6 newborns are expose exposed to illegal drugs in the 7 womb, this should come as no surprise. 8 Additionally, seventy percent of drug 9 users who work full or part-time and they experience 10 300 percent higher medical and benefits costs than 11 do drug free workers. 12 In 1991, lost productivity due to 13 illegal drugs totaled $50 billion. 14 Given these alarming statistics, how 15 can it possibly be said that we cannot afford to 16 wage war on illegal drugs? 17 The truth is just the opposite, we 18 cannot afford not to. 19 In the long run, I have no doubt that 20 the answer to the drug epidemic lies in educating 21 our children to the ills of illegal drugs and 22 offering them a future more promising and less 23 ephemoral than the euphoria of a crack high. 24 Education, however, is a slow process. 25 In the meantime, we require resources. 51 1 2 Resources for more police officers, 3 prosecutors and judges, more work camps and 4 treatment facilities. 5 The explosion of the prison population 6 is directly related to the lack of treatment 7 facilities, technically in prison. 8 Although sixty percent of all state 9 inmates have used illegal drugs regularly and thirty 10 percent were under the influence of drugs at the 11 time they committed the crime, fewer than twenty 12 percent of inmates with drug problems received any 13 treatment. 14 The solution to this problem, however, 15 is not to legalize drugs to achieve a short term 16 respite, rather we should use the criminal justice 17 system to force users into treatment. 18 I applaud the new sentencing 19 legislation in New York State that offers drug 20 treatment as an alternative to incarceration for 21 certain eligible Defendants. 22 Because of the nature of drug 23 addiction, few drug abusers seek treatment 24 themselves but many respond to the threat of jail. 25 When the criminal justice system is 52 1 2 used to encourage participation in treatment, 3 addicts are more likely to complete treatment and 4 stay off drugs. 5 I have addressed some of the tangible 6 consequences of decriminalization in my remarks 7 today, but I would like to end my remarks by 8 emphasizing one intangible but critical consequence, 9 decriminalization would send the message to our poor 10 and underprivileged, those most affected by our drug 11 epidemic that we don't care about you, your 12 communities or your children. 13 My experience in speaking with the 14 residents of various neighborhoods in New York have 15 underscored this point. 16 In fact, not too long ago, during an 17 East Harlem community meeting, a mother from the 18 neighborhood echoed this sentiment precisely. 19 When the subject of drug 20 decriminilazation arose, the mother asked, how can 21 you talk about making drugs legal? 22 How am I supposed to keep telling my 23 kids to study in school and stay away from drugs if 24 you go ahead and legalize them? 25 Why should my kids listen me when I 53 1 2 tell them drugs are bad if the government is saying 3 don't listen to your mother, drugs are okay. 4 That woman hit the nail on the head. 5 Law in a democratic society is 6 supposed to have a moral authority to send a message 7 that certain behavior is deserving of societal 8 punishment. 9 In the 1960's we passed civil rights 10 legislation, not only to affect legal change but 11 also to give notice that certain conduct is morally 12 unacceptable. 13 Recently we have been delivering the 14 same message through sexual harassment and hate 15 crime laws, likewise the law should support, not 16 undermine this mother and the millions of parents 17 like her. 18 It should help her send the right 19 message to her children, drugs are bad, they kill 20 and destroy lives. 21 At its core the legalization debate 22 raises critical questions about who we are as a 23 people, what values we embody and to what extent the 24 decisions we make today will reflect the needs of 25 our children. 54 1 2 Like racism, poverty, environmental 3 pollution and other intransigent social tragedies, 4 we have co-existed with rampant drug abuse without a 5 ready cure in sight yet we have never given up, nor 6 now with so much at stake should we resign ourselves 7 to passively accepting the chemical enslavement of a 8 generation of our people. 9 Such a posture would be heartless, 10 tantamount to consigning millions of parents and 11 children, scores of neighborhoods and communities to 12 a life of despair and disease. 13 Legalization would abandon whole 14 classes of Americans who suffer most from addiction, 15 specifically the young and the underprivileged. 16 We are all affected by the 17 consequences of drug abuse and addiction. 18 Because the costs are so high, the 19 problems so great and the damage so oftentimes self 20 inflicted the temptation to wash our hands of it is 21 tremendous, but because we live in a compassionate 22 and humane society our resolve to debate and defeat 23 drugs must be greater. 24 Still the solution to the drug problem 25 is not to stop fighting but instead to fight harder 55 1 2 and more creatively, there is too much at stake for 3 us to turn and walk away. 4 Thank you. 5 MR. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Dwyer. 6 I am sure we have lots of questions 7 from the audience and from the panel for you. 8 I have one question from myself before 9 we go forward with any questions from the panel. 10 Do you know what percentages of the 11 drug cases that your office prosecutes are either 12 sale of marijuana cases or possession of marijuana 13 cases? 14 MR. DWYER: I don't have the 15 statistics on that. 16 MR. BROWN: Do you know the gross 17 numbers? 18 MR. DWYER: It's very small. 19 The percentage of cases, certainly 20 felony cases that involve marijuana. 21 MR. DWYER: Are you talking 22 prosecutions or arrests? 23 MR. DWYER: Prosecutions. 24 MR. BROWN: Do you know the number of 25 arrests? 56 1 2 MR. DWYER: No, I'm sorry, I do not. 3 Let me emphasize I am standing in at 4 the last minute for Mr. Morgenthau and therefore a 5 number of these questions questions involving 6 statistics I am just not going to be able to handle 7 for you, I apologize. 8 MR. BROWN: With that in mind and not 9 pressing you on that subject, let me see if I can 10 get some questions from the panel. 11 Eleanor? 12 MS. PEALE: I was overwhelmed by your 13 description of the horrors -- I was overwhelmed by 14 your description of the statistics of what drugs do 15 to crack babies, what they do to people and the 16 horrors of drug addiction. 17 My concern is since we have, as I 18 understand it, spent something like $100 billion in 19 the drug war since the twenties in trying to stop 20 drug abuse and all we have gotten is an increase in 21 the use, how does making drugs illegal help these 22 people who you have described are in such terrible 23 trouble and in our society? 24 MR. DWYER: Obviously those people who 25 have been addicted despite our efforts have not been 57 1 2 helped. 3 It's the people who are not able to 4 become addicted because the enforcement measures 5 have had some success that are being helped. 6 And it's the people who will become 7 addicted if we aren't more creative and spend enough 8 resources to make sure addiction decreases in the 9 future, it is the people who will become addicted 10 and their children who will suffer in the future. 11 Legalization would result in no 12 efforts to stop addiction and obviously no help at 13 all to anyone who might and their children, who 14 might become addicted. 15 MS. PEALE: This doesn't answer the 16 problem that I keep hearing that many addicts in 17 order to maintain their habit go out and solicit 18 more candidates for the use of the drugs. 19 I fail to see how we are being 20 creative when we create more prisons and have 21 prisons and have more prosecutions. 22 MR. DWYER: I think as Mr. Morgenthau 23 emphasizes in his remarks, we have to be creative in 24 not just sending people to prison, but in addition 25 to treating them and in educating children so the 58 1 2 future addicts decide not to become addicted. 3 MS. PEALE: Thank you. 4 MR. BROWN: Mr. Doyle. 5 MR. DOYLE: Mr. Dwyer, the committee 6 has been very concerned about resources and we all 7 agree I think there is a common ground of concern 8 about violence in the City cities. 9 The other concern is static or 10 diminishing resources to attack the problem and 11 specifically where is the funding going to come from 12 to increase both prisons, police, prosecutors, 13 judges and also to increase treatment facilities at 14 a time when the funds available for the entire 15 criminal justice system seem to be lessening rather 16 than increasing? 17 MR. DWYER: Obviously everywhere in 18 the criminal justice system we have difficulty 19 addressing the different sources for the funds that 20 will allow us to do the job. 21 It is shortsighted in the extreme not 22 to make those resources available when our society 23 loses so much more from drug abuse, in financial 24 terms, in moral terms, in purely human terms than 25 the amount we are spending on it. 59 1 2 It would only seem to me silly that 3 the Internal Revenue Service didn't higher more tax 4 enforcers, at least when I am in a public spirited 5 frame of mind, because every dollar spent on tax 6 enforcers produces $4 of revenue, $10 of revenue, 7 whatever the amount. 8 It seems to me similarly from a social 9 point of view it's ridiculous not to find the 10 resources to combat drugs when the cost of not 11 combating drugs is so much greater than the amount 12 of extra resources that we would funnel into the 13 fight. 14 MR. BROWN: Mr. Dwyer, could you try 15 speaking into the mike a little more for the 16 remainder of your answers to the questions. 17 Kathy? 18 MS. ROCKLEN: Yes, following up on I 19 think John Doyle's comments, our research suggests 20 that treatment and education are a dwindling part of 21 the drug program which is to say that what used to 22 get something like twenty-five percent of the total 23 available resources now gets fourteen percent of the 24 resources or less. 25 And one of your statements I found 60 1 2 pretty interesting, two sentences that you 3 juxtaposed which were illegal drug use costs infant 4 mortality and drug use causes crime. 5 Well, I don't think the legality or 6 illegality of drug use has anything to do with 7 infant mortality but I do think it's pretty clear 8 that prohibition has something to do with crime. 9 I think it's fair to say that this 10 committee would suggest that greater emphasis on 11 education and treatment would go a long way toward 12 helping addicted mothers and therefore alleviating 13 the problem of infant mortality as a result 14 mortality as it relates to infants and their 15 mother's and reducing illegal drug use as a result 16 of crime. 17 Do you have a comment on that? 18 MR. DWYER: It seems to me reducing 19 drug use is the answer, making drugs legal is not to 20 reduce drug use. 21 I certainly agree with you the amounts 22 of money available now for treatment and education 23 are inadequate in the extreme and that far more 24 resources should be put into education and 25 treatment. 61 1 2 But that is certainly not to say that 3 legalizing drug use would decrease drug use, far 4 from it, and to the extent drug use increases, to 5 that extent we have more addicts and we have more 6 crack babies. 7 MR. BROWN: All right, Mr. Knapp. 8 MR. KNAPP: Thank you. 9 Mr. Dwyer, I appreciate your standing 10 in for Mr. Morgenthau, so the questions I may be 11 asking you are somewhat unfair. 12 MR. DWYER: I would by the way make 13 note of all the questions that call for expertise 14 well beyond mine and we will see if we can get the 15 commission some answers from the people with that 16 expertise. 17 MR. KNAPP: I appreciate that. 18 One of the statements that Mr. 19 Morgenthau made in his remarks which you delivered 20 was linking the percentages of males and females who 21 test positive for illegal substances and those who 22 commit felonies who tested positively, particularly 23 for cocaine. 24 I would just and this is going to be 25 one of the questions which will require a subsequent 62 1 2 response, I don't know if right off the bat you will 3 be able to field it. 4 In our report at footnote 90, there is 5 a statement from researchers working with the New 6 York City Police Department who analyzed 7 approximately one quarter of the 1988 homocides in 8 our city, it was by Zelakin & Alexander and it was 9 published in new frontiers in drug policy. 10 They distinguish five different types 11 of relationships between drug and murder, the psycho 12 pharmocological refers to people who are actually on 13 drugs committing in this case murder and what they 14 call the economic compulsives are people who would 15 go out, commit violate crimes to get the money to 16 purchase drugs. 17 Systemic referred to in their words, 18 instances in which a dealer or user became violent 19 in order to compete within a violent black market. 20 Then there were two other categories. 21 Their conclusion was that the 22 overwhelming number of murders did not fit the 23 pharmocological model and did not fit the economic 24 compulsive model but indeed fit the systemic model, 25 namely that the link was not between being on drugs 63 1 2 and committing a crime, but I suppose what could be 3 more generally called the turf war to establish 4 outlets and those kinds of things, and that seems to 5 be in contradiction to the survey that Mr. 6 Morgenthau was relying on, though this deals solely 7 with homicide. 8 MR. DWYER: We have made a major 9 priority in our office to attack drug gangs in 10 Manhattan, I know that's not the focus of this 11 commission's work so I won't talk about the efforts 12 we have made with our homicide division to do that. 13 I think quite succesfully, if you are 14 talking homicide that's true or I will take your 15 word that's true, that drug gangs kill, but the drug 16 gangs kill and people who are on drugs do not 17 necessarily go crazy in homocidal rampages, but I 18 think we are not talking about just homocides which 19 are a very unique category of crime. 20 We are talking about the burglaries 21 and the robberies, we are talking about the 22 assaults, we are talking about the lesser grade 23 felonies where homocide -- where drug use seems to 24 be hand in hand with criminal conduct and again the 25 percentages of the arresting individuals in New York 64 1 2 City who are on narcotics at the time is amazingly 3 high. 4 I gave you the numbers, they were in 5 the seventy and eighty percent range, those numbers 6 are amazingly high and I think they show a definite 7 link between drug use and the commission of the 8 crimes, if not homocides. 9 MR. KNAPP: One final question and I 10 will turn it over to Mr. Salomon. 11 The -- as I recall the rule at common 12 law was that intoxication was no defense to specific 13 intent, that was changed at some point by our 14 legislature. 15 Would and again this might be an 16 unfair question because I am asking you to speak on 17 behalf of the District Attorney's office, would the 18 office be in favor of going back to a rule more 19 consistent with the common law where being under the 20 influence of either alcohol or drugs would not be a 21 defense to specific intent crimes? 22 I will just have you ponder that. 23 MR. DWYER: Let me say that's at least 24 one question where my experience in the District 25 Attorney's office has some relevance at least 65 1 2 because I see the appeals over the last eighteen 3 years from those who are convicted. 4 My impression is there are very few 5 Defendants who escape punishment on the theory that 6 they are so intoxicated or so much under the 7 influence of drugs that they cannot form a criminal 8 intent. 9 That by the way is the standard in New 10 York, you have to be so intoxicated that you can't 11 intend to tie your shoes and then when you kill 12 someone it will be said that you can't be said to 13 intend to commit murder or when you rob someone you 14 can't intend to rob, then again it's pretty hard to 15 pull off a robbery when you are so intoxicated. 16 I don't think that's been a major 17 factor in our efforts to combat these kind of 18 crimes, whether that -- that would be outside my 19 expertise and I would not state a position for the 20 District Attorney's office on that. 21 MR. BROWN: Thank you, Chester. 22 MR. SALOMON: Good morning, Mr. Dwyer. 23 MR. DWYER: Good morning. 24 MR. SALOMON: Just a couple of 25 questions. 66 1 2 You said that drugs are a major cause 3 of crime, but I would ask you to comment on whether 4 you believe that perhaps the drug laws, the 5 restrictive quality, the prohibitive quality of the 6 drug laws are themselves a major cause of crime? 7 MR. DWYER: If you mean if we 8 decrminilize drugs would we have fewer crimes 9 committed in New York City, I think the answer is 10 obvious. 11 I assume you have something beyond 12 that? 13 MR. SALOMON: You had also mentioned 14 that legalization would result in no efforts to 15 advance education and reduce addicts. 16 I am wondering if that just assumes 17 that there would be no effort done. 18 Is your idea of a world so polarized 19 it would be the current system as opposed to 20 absolute laissez fare, or is there a possibility 21 that there might be treatment and education 22 available with the resources that would not be used 23 on criminal enforcement? 24 MR. DWYER: Obviously again we think 25 devoting more resources to treatment and to 67 1 2 education is a wonderful idea. 3 It doesn't seem to me to make sense to 4 decrminilize drugs on the theory that law 5 enforcement budgets will fall and that money will be 6 allocated to education and treatment and that the 7 people who do not voluntarily seek treatment now 8 will suddenly voluntarily seek treatment because 9 it's not criminal to use drugs any more. 10 It seems to me more education and 11 treatment is definitely the answer, but that seems 12 to me also to be independent of the question of 13 whether you decrminilize narcotics. 14 In fact, as Mr. Morgenthau suggested, 15 the one thing that does seem to have an impact on 16 someone who is facing state prison time, the one 17 thing that does seem to have an impact on whether he 18 will get treatment or not is the ability to tell him 19 if you successfully go through a treatment program 20 you won't have to do the state prison time. 21 That's quite an incentive and 22 obviously by decriminilizing drugs you eliminate 23 that incentive. 24 MR. SALOMON: One last question, are 25 you familiar with the legislation that has been 68 1 2 proposed by Senator Galliber concerning the 3 controlled substance authority? 4 MR. DWYER: I can't say that I am. 5 MR. SALOMON: Thank you. 6 MR. BROWN: I think we have time for 7 maybe two questions from the audience, the gentleman 8 over here. 9 MR. BROWN: I would ask everyone not 10 to make speeches, just brief questions and brief 11 answers. 12 THE AUDIENCE: I will shorten this as 13 much as possible, I have a lot of questions about 14 what you said. 15 Would you agree first of all that if 16 you substitute alcohol for drugs in your numbers in 17 terms of use rates among people who commit crimes 18 and so forth that your numbers would come up very 19 similar and do you therefore -- does Mr. Morgenthau 20 therefore suggest that prohibition of alcohol may be 21 a way we can eliminate a lot of the problems of 22 society that are directly related to alcohol abuse? 23 My second is you talked a lot about 24 crack or a little about crack this morning and would 25 you agree or would Mr. Morgenthau agree that crack 69 1 2 is a product itself of prohibition, much as 3 moonshine whiskey or corn liquor was a product of 4 alcohol prohibition. 5 Once those prohibitions are lifted, 6 people will inherently look for a safer way to 7 selfmedicate or to intoxicate themselves, or do you 8 believe that drug users are so self destructive even 9 given a range of safe options they will absolutely 10 decide to destroy their lives and their futures and 11 their families and in which case if you agree with 12 that do prisons make a difference anyway? 13 MR. DWYER: I guess the short answer 14 is it I would probably disagree substantially on a 15 lot of the aspects of your question. 16 Certainly the question of alcohol 17 abuse and what should be done know about it is a 18 question independent of the crack problem. 19 I am not here to take a position on 20 whether alcohol abuse should or should not be legal 21 or illegal. 22 I am simply here to talk about crack 23 abuse, heroin abuse, other cocaine abuse where we 24 know the devastating impacts it has now on society, 25 impacts that we think would be increased if there 70 1 2 were legalization. 3 As to whether crack is a product of 4 prohibition, it seems to me that we are dealing in a 5 world now where crack is a reality, where people 6 have choices in the type of drug they take and where 7 people take crack. 8 I don't see how making all narcotics 9 legal would suddenly cause people who have some 10 choices now to say well no more crack for me, and by 11 the way if everybody then shifted to heroin or 12 simple cocaine use, I am not sure that's much of a 13 solution to the economic, moral and human problems 14 that drug abuse causes. 15 MR. BROWN: Because I know the 16 gentleman would like to follow up I would like to 17 try to clarify maybe a point that you would like to 18 make, would you give him the microphone one second. 19 THE AUDIENCE: I would very briefly 20 disagree in terms of the fact that crack is the 21 cheap and available substance, especially if you are 22 talking about poor communities in this country and 23 that it's creation was directly related to the fact 24 it's easy to sneak around, it's potent and it is 25 cheap. 71 1 2 So therefore between my analogy to the 3 moonshine alcohol problem, do you then believe that 4 crack is a choice of people, that people have 5 decided to destroy their lives regardless of the 6 consequences and have chosen to do the substance 7 which is inherently harmful? 8 If that's the case, then if that's 9 people's choice, what good is prison to do or the 10 threat of prison if these people have already 11 disregarded the consequences or any future they 12 might have? 13 MR. DWYER: Again, we face a reality 14 in which there are many crack addicts it may or may 15 not be that prison or treatment will help some crack 16 addicts, hopefully education and treatment will 17 prevent future crack addicts, not necessarily those 18 who are now in the habit. 19 I am interested in your notion that 20 crack use would disappear if all drugs were legal. 21 I certainly have no basis for thinking 22 that that's anything but a wish. 23 MR. BROWN: Okay, maybe one more 24 question from the audience. 25 How about the lady in the back. 72 1 2 THE AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Dawn 3 Day, I am interested in prosecutorial discretion. 4 Here is an example an adult places a 5 loaded gun on the television set in the presence of 6 an eight year old and a two year old, the adult 7 leaves the room and the eight year old shoots and 8 kills the two year old. 9 If the adult who put the gun on the 10 television set was -- can you tell me now whether 11 you would prosecutor the adult as a murderer? 12 MR. DWYER: Certainly not as a 13 murderer, and there is no particular reason for me 14 to tell the details of the criminal statutes but 15 there are homocide statutes that might cover that 16 situation and I suppose depending on all the 17 circumstances of the case there is a real 18 possibility that at least a criminally negligent 19 homocide charge would stand against that result. 20 THE AUDIENCE: Would there be a 21 difference whether that person was someone who was 22 alleged to have been selling crack versus a woman of 23 virtue who was defending herself and her family by 24 having a gun and keeping out intruders. 25 MR. DWYER: I am not quite sure but 73 1 2 you mean if someone sells crack and it ends up -- 3 THE AUDIENCE: It is alleged the 4 person sells crack, there is no crack in the house 5 but the prosecutor is given the information by the 6 police that the police think he's on crack, versus a 7 woman who says I am afraid I might be raped? 8 MR. DWYER: I'm sorry, I still don't 9 understand. 10 In your crack example are we assuming 11 a crack dealer? 12 MR. KNAPP: If I might, I think the 13 issue is an exercise in your discretion the reason 14 the gun happens to be in the house scenario A is the 15 person is a crack dealer and that's why the loaded 16 gun is there, scenario B it's a woman who lives in a 17 dangerous neighborhood who has purchased a hand gun 18 to defend the house. 19 MR. DWYER: Obviously that's what I 20 meant when I said the facts of the particular case 21 which will be certainly unique in a situation like 22 the example you posit would all be taken into 23 account in deciding what the charge was. 24 I have to think the individual who is 25 protecting his crack stash would face much less 74 1 2 sympathy from prosecutors, grand jurors and jurors 3 than the woman of virtue who is merely protecting 4 her household. 5 MR. BROWN: We have time for one more 6 question. 7 I will take the gentleman in the 8 front. 9 THE AUDIENCE: One of the reasons you 10 gave for your problems with cocaine was the problem 11 of crack babies. 12 You said that cocaine is producing 13 these crack babies who have medical problems which 14 are of great harm total child and great expense. 15 I was at the American psychological 16 association meeting about a month ago and I spoke to 17 a researcher from I believe he was the from the 18 centers for disease control and he said that he had 19 researched the literature on the effect of cocaine 20 and fetuses and he couldn't find anything. 21 So he did research with rhesus monkies 22 and he gave rhesus monkies levels of cocaine equal 23 to that which would be found among the crack users 24 and he found out that the monkies which were exposed 25 prenataly to cocaine were about as healthy as the 75 1 2 monkies who were not. 3 He found in the first animal study 4 that cocaine didn't apparently harm fetuses. 5 MR. DWYER: Has he ever been to a 6 hospital ward in New York City and looked at crack 7 babies? 8 THE AUDIENCE: Well, that's all 9 anecdotal evidence and you can look at the medical 10 literature, it's been examined. 11 I spoke to prosecutors who told me 12 that yes, well maybe it's not cocaine but women who 13 use cocaine are going to take less care of their 14 children, that's the argument that prosecutors have 15 told me. 16 MR. DWYER: That he is not the 17 argument I have made. 18 THE AUDIENCE: The question for you is 19 is there any good scientific evidence that cocaine 20 absent the social context in which people have to 21 obtain and use cocaine, does any harm to fetuses? 22 The answer from the centers for 23 disease control researcher was according to the 24 medical researcher no. 25 MR. DWYER: We will certainly get you 76 1 2 information or get the commission information about 3 that. 4 I am a new father, I had a baby about 5 ten days ago and if my wife had wanted to take crack 6 during her pregnancy I would have knocked the vial 7 out of her hand. 8 I am certainly willing to keep an open 9 mind in the face of scientific research, but I think 10 it's silly to think that drug use does not affect 11 babies. 12 THE AUDIENCE: You could not know -- 13 MR. BROWN: Excuse me, in the interest 14 of time let's move on. 15 Thank you very much, sir. 16 Mr. Dwyer, thank you very much for 17 coming today and we appreciate your presence. 18 The next person on our program is Mr. 19 Ethan Nadelmann. 20 Mr. Ethan Nadelmann is a doctor here 21 in New York which is a project of the Saurus 22 Foundation. 23 Mr. Nadelmann has written extensively 24 on drug policy and appeared in a wide range of 25 interest including science foreign policy the public 77 1 2 interest, headlines in the Washington Post, Los 3 Angeles Times and International Herald Tribune. 4 He wrote an article with Joan Warner 5 called Drugs in America, it was in Rolling Stone, he 6 is a coeditor of psychoactive drugs and harm 7 reduction from faith to science from 1987 to 1994 8 Mr. Nadelmann was Assistant Professor of Politics 9 and Public Policy in the Woodrow Wilson School at 10 Princeton University. 11 He was born in New York, attended 12 Magill University, received his BA from Harvard 13 University has a JD and PhD in political science 14 from Harvard and received his masters from the 15 Lonton School of Economics. 16 Everyone please give a warm welcome to 17 Mr. Ethan Nadelmann. 18 MR. NADELMANN: I want to thank the 19 committee for inviting me and also for having the 20 courage to hold hearings on this controversial 21 subject and to invite a number of witnesses who are 22 not defenders but critics of current drug control 23 policies. 24 Now I think in my presentation what 25 would be most useful is to talk about the lessons of 78 1 2 foreign countries, a subject which Eric Sterling 3 alluded briefly and to talk about what we might 4 learn from them and to talk as well about what 5 middle ground options exist in New York City and in 6 the country. 7 It is important, of course, to 8 understand that the alternative defenses are not 9 simply between a free market libertarian 10 legalization scheme on the one hand and a harsh war 11 on drugs approach, take no prisoners on the other 12 hand. 13 In fact there are a range of options 14 and those options are oftentimes labeled as the harm 15 reduction approach to drug legalization policy. 16 Now having heard the statement by Mr. 17 Morgenthau, it's important to say a few words about 18 that. 19 Mr. Morgenthau is obviously a very, 20 very distinguished New Yorker and American in his 21 position as a chief federal prosecutor and District 22 Attorney in New York. 23 He should be credited with the 24 dramatic improvements in crime rates in New York in 25 recent years, together with the Mayor and the police 79 1 2 chief. 3 He is right to speak about the horrors 4 that attend drug addiction, both legal and illegal; 5 the harms that result. 6 But what is so sad is to present to 7 this committee in 1995 a statement containing such 8 worn over, undated, unsubstantiated rhetoric as we 9 just heard here. 10 To speak about drug use as the cause 11 of all the drug related problems in New York City as 12 opposed to looking at the drug prohibition system, 13 the war on drugs, the inadequacy of alternatives to 14 incarceration, to fail to look at the social 15 conditions and the draining of resources into war on 16 drugs as opposed to the implementation of resources 17 into more productive areas, to offer facile comments 18 concerning more education and treatment while his 19 office no doubt demands more and more law 20 enforcement resources, to speak about child abuse 21 and the Steinberg case and a few other sensational 22 cases, tremendous tragedies no doubt as are many 23 hundreds like them, but to ignore the role that 24 alcohol, a legal drug has placed in far greater ways 25 in this city, in this country. 80 1 2 To talk about drug addicts as slaves 3 and therefore to deamonize hundreds and hundreds of 4 thousands of New Yorkers who use drugs but also do 5 try to take care of their children, do try to manage 6 their lives, to talk about them as slaves and user 7 rhetoric that only aids and abets the deamonization 8 of drug users and opposition to productive public 9 health policies. 10 These are all things that in some 11 respects the committee should regard as an insult. 12 To speak about the crack baby issue 13 when the most recent issue overwhelmingly shows that 14 it is almost impossible to distinguish children born 15 in the poverty the dreadful poverty of New York City 16 who have been exposed to crack from those who have 17 not been exposed to crack and therefore justify a 18 punitive public that incarcerates tens of thousands 19 is once again a farce. 20 To talk about drug related homocides 21 and violence but to ignore all the evidence, whether 22 it's the evidence of Paul Goldstein studies in the 23 late 1980's or the more recent study in The New York 24 Times about the relationship between gun ownership, 25 gun use and drug use and drug dealing is a farce. 81 1 2 There is tremendous evidence, 3 tremendous evidence yes to be sure there is no 4 absolutely certain evidence that shows that if we 5 legalize drugs whether as we legalize the way Milton 6 Freeman would like it with a free market or in a 7 much more regulated controlled way there is no 8 overwhelming evidence that drug abuse will not rise 9 in some significant way subsequent to today. 10 But there is also substantial to tout 11 that, evidence from our own historical expense, 12 evidence from looking at the experience of 13 decriminilazation in the United States and 14 elsewhere, evidence from looking at the ways people 15 respond to other drugs and other substances that 16 lend themselves to addiction. 17 To advocate no more than treatment in 18 prisons, something on which the evidence for 19 efficacy is remarkably flimsy, something which is 20 remarkably more expensive than treatment outside of 21 prison because prisons cost so much more money, 22 something which entirely ignores the recommendations 23 of the national Academy of Sciences, its institute 24 of medicine, of most of the leading social 25 scientists that are there are more cost effective 82 1 2 and more humane approaches to dealing with drug 3 abuse. 4 This is not the type of statements 5 that should come from the District Attorney of New 6 York City. 7 I was not aware of the extent to which 8 Mr. Morgenthau played a role in New York City's 9 dreadful drug policy. 10 When one goes to Europe, one sees in 11 some cities at least alternative models. 12 One sees a recognition, for example, 13 that drugs are here to stay, that drugs have always 14 been here and always will be here and that the 15 objective of government policy should not be to 16 eradicate drugs, because that cannot be done, that 17 the objective of government policy should not be 18 solely to reduce drug use no matter what the 19 consequences come hell or high water. 20 But that in fact the objectives of 21 government policy should be to reduce the negative 22 consequences of drug use and the negative 23 consequences of our drug policies. 24 That whether one is dealing with 25 marijuana users, alcohol users, heroin users, 83 1 2 cocaine users or what have you, the objectives 3 should be to reduce the death, the disease and the 4 crime associated with drug use. 5 That when one proposes incarceration 6 of drug users or minor drug dealers, that one needs 7 to understand that these come with dramatic costs, 8 they come with a dollar cost of putting people in 9 prison for one, five, ten, twenty years or lifetime, 10 they come with a dollar and humane cost of ripping 11 families apart so that family members can be sent to 12 prison while their children are sent into the social 13 welfare system or social care system are left 14 without parents. 15 They ignore the fact demonstrated in 16 the research of Peter Reuter and of the Rand 17 Commission that many small drug dealers also hold 18 legitimate jobs and moonlight. 19 They ignore the evidence that many 20 drug dealers would prefer not to be drug dealers and 21 they regard this as a means of earning income than 22 is reprehensible than engaging in predatory crime. 23 One sees at least in some cities an 24 alternative model. 25 I don't want to idealize it because 84 1 2 all European cities also have significant drug 3 problems, although virtually none have problems of 4 the magnitude of New York City. 5 In fact, let me correct that and say 6 none have drug problems of the magnitude of New York 7 City. 8 But there is a notion of cooperation 9 between the head of the Public Health Department, 10 the head of the police, the prosecutor, the mayor 11 that they should cooperate. 12 Let me give you an example. 13 We have known for a long time that 14 making sterile syringes available to drug addicts 15 rereduces the transmission of AIDS and also provides 16 some lure into drug treatment. 17 Some means of maintaining contact with 18 very down and out drug addicts. 19 In the early 1980's the Dutch 20 confronted not with AIDS but with a hepatitis 21 epidemic started making sterile syringes available 22 to drug addicts when they realized the connection 23 between drug aducks and HIV they made syringes as 24 available as possible to their injecting drug 25 addicts. 85 1 2 Virtually every other advanced 3 industrialized democracy followed quickly with the 4 exception of the United States. 5 Now last month the National Academy of 6 Sciences comes out with a comprehensive report 7 saying that needle exchange reduces the transmission 8 of HIV and it saves lives. 9 That confirms the conclusions of a 10 previous report sponsored by the center of disease 11 control, it confirms dozens of other social 12 scientific studies in other countries and it 13 confirms common sense. 14 It is so crucially important that law 15 enforcement officials be they prosecutors or police 16 be the ones to step forward and say our interest is 17 not only enforcing the laws mindlessly without 18 regard to consequence, but that our obligation is 19 the public health, is the preservation of life, is 20 the reduction of disease and death. 21 It should have been incumbent upon Mr. 22 Morgenthau to stand up with the mayor and the police 23 chief and say we support needle exchange. 24 We have no leg to stand on not to 25 support needle exchange. 86 1 2 We need to provide the leadership with 3 our prosecutors and our police officials so that 4 they no longer persecute people found in possession 5 of sterile syringes, people trying to prevent the 6 spread of disease even as they are beholden to an 7 aaddictive drug. 8 Last month many of you may have seen 9 on the front page of the New York Times a report on 10 the study out of Connecticut that demonstrated that 11 Connecticut in repealing the requirement for a 12 prescription to obtain a sterile syringe has 13 successfully contributed as well to an effort to 14 reduce the spread of HIV. 15 In other words that in repealing a law 16 that is on the books in New York and about nine 17 other states, a law that requires anybody to obtain 18 a prescription to get a sterile syringe, that in 19 repealing that law they were making positive steps 20 forward in the public health direction. 21 Is it not incumbent upon Mr. 22 Morgenthau and Mr. Braden and the mayor for that 23 matter to stand up and to say to the state 24 legislature, we need a change in that State Law. 25 We are burdened by the human and 87 1 2 economic costs of HIV and AIDS in New York City and 3 we need that change. 4 When Mr. Morgenthau spoke about 5 treatment, treatment in prisons he failed to mention 6 last year the National Academny of Sciences came out 7 with a report on that subject as well. 8 It found that methadone is the most 9 cost effective and most effective treatment for 10 heroin addiction that we have. 11 It's no panacea, it can be used and 12 implemented in all sorts of sordid and terrible and 13 destructive and manipulative ways, but the bottom 14 line is that making methadone readily available to 15 heroin addicts, even heroin addicts who also use 16 cocaine can reduce the death, disease and crime 17 associated with heroin addiction. 18 Should Mr. Morganthau stand up and say 19 it's time to expand methadone availability? 20 When neighborhoods say we don't want a 21 methadone clinic in our neighborhood, is he the 22 person who stands up and says that will help reduce 23 crime in your neighborhood, look at the evidence? 24 The panel asked before us the question 25 how can we move forward? 88 1 2 How can we move forward? 3 Well, I think you are doing the right 4 thing in convening a public hearing. 5 I think the only way we move forward 6 is by holding hearings and writing letters to the 7 newspapers and to politicians, by continually 8 putting this issue up before the American public 9 before five people, ten people, 1,000 people, 1 10 million people, whatever the medium, whatever the 11 fora maybe, the federal and other government 12 officials have been engaged in a fairly systematic 13 effort to withdraw from any participation in this 14 dialogue. 15 Let me just give you a few examples. 16 Let me back up what I say with 17 evidence. 18 In May of 1994 the World Bank had 19 convened a conference on the econometric aspects of 20 the drug trade in Latin America. 21 A young official there had invited the 22 prosecutor general of Columbia who captured Escobar, 23 who had reformed the criminal justice system but 24 also called for a debate on legalization and invited 25 him to speak. 89 1 2 Four days before the conference was 3 set to proceed pressures came from the State 4 Department on the World Bank we don't like the fact 5 that Mr. Degrape has been invited, do something. 6 The result, conference cancelled with 7 four days' notice. 8 With people having flown into the 9 United States and having prepared papers. 10 My colleagues at Princeton told me 11 they had never heard of a similar situation of a 12 world bank conference on the econometric aspects of 13 anything being cancelled with four days' notice as a 14 result of political pressure from the U.S. 15 Government. 16 In December of last year, the United 17 States drug control program convened a meeting in 18 Bangkok. 19 It was proposed that one among dozens 20 of panels be held on the subject of drug 21 legalization and other alternatives to 22 proprohibition. 23 Hold such a hearing the U.S. delegates 24 threatened and we withdraw all support for this 25 conference. 90 1 2 The panel was cancelled. 3 The next day it was proposed by a 4 delegate from Latin America that the resolution 5 should speak about efforts to demand reduction, 6 supply reduction and harm reduction. 7 We refused to sign any statement that 8 mentions harm reduction was the input of the 9 American delegation. 10 In the spring of this year the World 11 Health Organization started a multicountry study of 12 cocaine use around the world. 13 They came to two conclusions that are 14 not surprising based upon the scientific evidence 15 but that are controversial politically. 16 First that although millions of people 17 have serious problems with cocaine, the vast 18 majority of people who use cocaine have no problem 19 whatsoever. 20 Secondly, that the chewing of coca, 21 the leaf from the coca plant from which cocaine is 22 made is associated with few if any negative 23 consequences. 24 The response of the United States 25 Government to attempt to keep this report from being 91 1 2 officially released. 3 Eric Sterling spoke of the efforts of 4 the DEA to come out with booklet's to educate their 5 agents on how to hold their own in a drug 6 legalization debate. 7 Mind you, it's a rare DEA agent who 8 ever concedes, consents to debate me or many of the 9 other people who will speak before this forum. 10 The DEA agents feel they are losing 11 the debate without even debating it. 12 The reason being that ordinary 13 Americans not technically schooled in all the facts 14 and figures are standing up in public forums and 15 saying this war on drugs is absurd. 16 It's a farce. 17 You have had it for ten years, you 18 have had it for twenty years, you have had it for 19 much of this century and where is the evidence that 20 it works? 21 Let me stop there so I can open this 22 up to greater question and discussion. 23 MR. BROWN: Thank you. 24 Before we we take questions from the 25 audience let's go down the panel, Eleanor, do you 92 1 2 have any questions? 3 MS. PEALE: I do. 4 Mr. Nadelmann, you were very eloquent 5 in telling us about the problems that we face and it 6 seems to me that you made it clear that we have a 7 political problem with regard to people's approach 8 to the drug issue and you used as your stalking 9 horse our District Attorney and you mentioned the 10 use of the word demonization in regard to the drug 11 issue. 12 As a sociologist, how do you explain 13 and what can we do about it, the fact that the 14 United States is alone in taking the policies that 15 you have described at your national meetings, in 16 appropriating the money that it has appropriated in 17 the drug war to call it a drug war. 18 As a sociologist, what is the answer 19 to Americans understanding and perhaps taking a 20 different position? 21 THE WITNESS: Mrs. Peale, I actually 22 would be honored to be a sociologist but my degrees 23 are actually in law and political science. 24 But perhaps that enables me to explain 25 this just as well, because it does boil down to 93 1 2 politics and people's views. 3 There is no one single explanation. 4 The first issue, perhaps, is that 5 mainstream medicine has been barely at the sidelines 6 of drug policy in the United States. 7 Mainstream medicine, the American 8 Medical Association and others, can be enormously 9 powerful in this country, as we well know in looking 10 at the debates over health care problems and what 11 have you. 12 But they have been remarkably silent 13 in the issue of drug policy and drug policy reform. 14 I believe it is now the case that the 15 AMA has a resolution in favor of needle exchange, 16 but it has not spoken out in any way, it has not 17 assumed any responsibility for this. 18 I do not know why that is not the 19 case. 20 I do not know why that is not the 21 case, except to say that most doctors in America 22 don't deal with this population and don't feel any 23 ownership of it. 24 Secondly, our history is one of 25 treating drugs very much as a criminal justice 94 1 2 issue. 3 Although there were legitimate public 4 health rationales underlying the prohibition of the 5 recognition of open gates could be addictive that 6 cocaine could be dangerous, the moralistic impulse, 7 the racism impulses were far more powerful. 8 We have always had a drug policy 9 dominated by the criminal justice establishment. 10 In the Netherlands the person in 11 charge of drug policy is a public health person also 12 responsible for alcohol and tobacco. 13 In the United States, most drug 14 enforcement, most drug policy comes within the 15 purview of the criminal justice agency. 16 It is up to the drug enforcement 17 administration, a law enforcement agency, of police 18 to determine how drugs are made available and what 19 schedule they will be placed. 20 It is up to the DEA to determine 21 whether or not marijuana will be rescheduled to make 22 it available for medical purposes. 23 To some very good extent, medical 24 professionals are intimidated by the DEA. 25 They fear that if they prescribe drugs 95 1 2 in adequate doses for pain they may be persecuted 3 and prosecuted by the DEA. 4 Let me point to a third factor. 5 Some people say the United States, 6 like most societies but perhaps more than most, 7 always needs a scapegoat, we always need a 8 scapegoat. 9 Communists provided a very powerful 10 scapegoat for many decades, so do drug addicts, drug 11 users, drug dealers. 12 In fact, it's interesting to note that 13 these two often go hand in hand. 14 I believe it was in the early 1920's 15 that a commission what was appointed in New York 16 City, I believe by the mayor at that time, to look 17 at the twin threats of Bolshevism and drug dealing. 18 These are convenient scapegoats, there 19 is some understanding behind them. 20 After all the communist threat was 21 from abroad just as drugs do sometimes come from 22 abroad, but the communists were not lapping at our 23 boarders. 24 The drugs from abroad played only a 25 small role in understanding the drug addiction in 96 1 2 America. 3 After all, if there were no drugs 4 being imported into the United States we would very 5 quickly have domestic substitutes that were as 6 dangerous or perhaps more dangerous. 7 Domestically we did have problems with 8 communist spies and what have you but there was not 9 a communist under every bed. 10 Same in the United States with drugs. 11 Yes, drug addiction is a very serious 12 problem, very horrible problem, but our children are 13 not all drug addicts, we have far more severe crises 14 than this. 15 Now Eric Sterling also alluded to one 16 more factor, which is the African American community 17 Here it's important to be especially 18 precise. 19 There is no African American 20 community, singular, to speak of. 21 Some African Americans, the former 22 certain general, Jocelyn Elders the mayor of 23 Baltimore, Kirk Smoke, the State Senator from New 24 York, Joe Galliber, many other in addition to them 25 the first Congressmen to speak out for public policy 97 1 2 reforms, George Crockett have been leading 3 proponents to looking at alternatives to current 4 drug policies, but at the same time many African 5 American leaders notably in Harlem have been the 6 most outspoken opponents to any discussion or 7 movement in the way of drug policy reform. 8 Even as it is primarily or in a very 9 substantial way African American youth who are being 10 incarcerated, who are losing their futures, who are 11 being killed in the drug wars, who are getting the 12 HIV virus at rates far higher than anything 13 happening in the white American communities. 14 African American leaders have 15 oftentimes failed to step forward. 16 Mayor Dinkins when he entered office 17 took the tragic step of closing down a pilot needle 18 exchange program set up by the previous mayor. 19 He then reversed himself, he then 20 looked at the evidence and reversed himself. 21 But so few African American leaders 22 have taken a serious position on this. 23 When one looks at the fact, recently 24 just last week some of you may have seen mentioned 25 in the times a report by the sentencing commission, 98 1 2 young black Americans in the criminal justice system 3 five years later. 4 It pointed out that whereas 5 twenty-three percent of African American males were 6 under some form of criminal justice -- twenty-three 7 percent of African males between the ages of 23 and 8 29 were under some form of supervisory prison 9 probation or parole in 1990, it's now up to 10 thirty-two percent. 11 Estimates are that will go up to fifty 12 percent. 13 It seems to me there has been a real 14 lack of leadership within the African American 15 community and within the community at large. 16 Finally, why is it that Mr. Morgenthau 17 steps up in 1995 and issues such a statement? 18 Does he really not know better? 19 Is it just a matter of repeating the 20 same old rhetoric the fact that a Mr. Morgenthau can 21 make a statement like this unsubstantiated by 22 evidence, unbacked by any sort of serious systematic 23 causal analysis is very scary. 24 He is supposed to be a leader but the 25 only leadership he provided with this statement is 99 1 2 in helping to deamonize people involved with drugs. 3 I think that helps explain it. 4 MR. BROWN: Thank you. 5 In the interests of time we will keep 6 asking questions of the panel. 7 THE WITNESS: I will make my answers 8 shorter, I apologize. 9 MR. DOYLE: You mentioned some 10 possible middle ground approaches. 11 Could you be a little bit more 12 specific on what you might have in mind and also 13 comment on the Swiss experience in Zurich which I 14 understand may have had some negative consequences. 15 MR. NADELMANN: Very quickly first of 16 all these are middle ground steps aimed at reducing 17 death, disease and crime associated with drug 18 addiction. 19 First, needle exchange programs need 20 to be available throughout the country. 21 In Europe needles are even made 22 available in vending machines, drop a dirty needle 23 in, get a clean one out. 24 There are police substations where a 25 junky can go in, hand in a dirty needle and pick up 100 1 2 a clean needle. 3 These provide models. 4 Secondly repeal the state laws in New 5 York and nine or states regarding the restrictions 6 on availability of syringes without a prescription. 7 Thirdly, pressure the Clinton 8 administration to authorize federal funding for 9 needle exchange programs. 10 The National Academny of Sciences 11 report requested by Congress as the grounds for 12 reversing it's policy is now in its conclusions are 13 obvious, that needs to be changed. 14 Fourthly, expand availability of 15 methadone. 16 Not just by increasing the number of 17 slots but by transforming methadone and the ways to 18 deliver it in the United States if neighborhoods 19 don't want a methadone clinic because of NMBY 20 problems the answer may be to make methadone 21 available through doctors. 22 To be picked up in pharmacies, just 23 the way any other medication is made available, just 24 the way it's made available in many countries in 25 Europe and in Australia. 101 1 2 If methadone were far more readily 3 available without all the strings and punishing 4 attitudes that we have today, rather than having 5 115,000 people on methadone we might well have 6 hundreds of thousands of people on methadone. 7 One looks in the Netherlands with its 8 more liberal methadone policy and a far higher 9 percentage of its heroin addicts are receiving 10 methadone. 11 Fifth, experiment with drug 12 maintenance options beyond methadone. 13 That may include injectable methadone 14 as is now predescribed in Britain to five to ten 15 percent of methadone, it may also include heroin 16 prescription as is now being pursued in Switzerland 17 and as will probably be initiated in both the 18 Netherlands and Australia in 1996. 19 The story with the Swiss is this, it's 20 important to distinguish their very missed efforts 21 with respect to needle park which was an effort, 22 needle park very briefly during the 1980's the 23 police in Switzerland chased the drug addicts and 24 drug dealers all around the city infecting different 25 neighborhoods. 102 1 2 Finally by the late '80's the whole 3 settled down in a small island in the middle of 4 Switzerland behind the train station and everybody 5 the police, public health the addicts, the 6 neighborhoods breathed a sigh of relief it got 7 things concentrated it made them more accessible to 8 public health services. 9 But what happened was it became a 10 magnet. 11 After a few years the park began to 12 attract 1,000 and up to 2,000 people each day. 13 They were getting people not just from 14 Zurich from the outlying areas of Zurich, people 15 training in from Geneva each day because here was a 16 readily accessible area. 17 It got out of hand, finally the Swiss 18 officials shut it down, the scene moved around the 19 city once again, settled down another scene half a 20 mile away once again grew too large and finally the 21 Swiss shut it down again. 22 It's important to understand in 23 Switzerland that the shutting down of the open 24 scenes was linked to the initiation of alternative 25 drug policies. 103 1 2 It was linked to the expansion of the 3 heroin prescription program, which was initiated in 4 January of 1994. 5 It now enrolls hundreds of people, 6 most receiving injectable heroin, some smokeable 7 heroin, some injectable morphine, some injectable 8 methadone. 9 I will submit an article for the 10 record published in the national review in July 10th 11 on Switzerland's heroin experiment. 12 The initial results are promising. 13 Let me very briefly read the social 14 welfare department had a conference in 1994 and 15 issued it's preliminary findings, first heroin 16 prescription is feasible and has produced no black 17 market in diverted heroin. 18 Second, the health of the addicts in 19 the program has clearly improved. 20 Third, heroin prescription alone 21 cannot solve the problems that led to heroin 22 addiction in the first place. 23 Fourth, heroin prescription is less a 24 medical program than a social psychological approach 25 to a complex personal and social problem. 104 1 2 Fifth, heroin, per se, causes very few 3 if any problems when it is used in a controlled 4 fashion and administered in hygenic conditions. 5 Most Americans don't know that. Most 6 Americans need to know that. 7 Most Americans assume that anybody who 8 uses heroin must be a slave of some sort for reasons 9 that were explained this morning. 10 In a point of fact, when one is 11 dealing with a hard core population of drug addicts 12 who have been unable to benefit from methadone or 13 from therapeutic communities or from drug free 14 approaches of other sorts, it certainly makes sense 15 to make heroin and other powerful opiates legally 16 available to them in controlled hygenic conditions. 17 It can reduce the transmission of HIV, 18 reduce disease, it can improve their health and it 19 can reduce the black market in these drugs. 20 There are other small steps, the 21 Rockefeller drug laws can and should be repealed. 22 As quickly and as far reachingly as 23 possible. 24 The Governor of New York, Mr. Pataki 25 has already proposed this, it should be a bold move, 105 1 2 not a half step. 3 The leading research on the benefits 4 of incarceration by my previous colleague at 5 Princeton, John Delulo and others show that there is 6 no cost/benefit analysis that supports the 7 incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders, 8 including not just possesors, but nonviolent small 9 scale drug dealers. 10 It cannot be justified on cost benefit 11 grounds where the incarceration of predatory and 12 violent criminals can be justified, the 13 incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders cannot be 14 justified. 15 The mandatory minimum requirements, 16 mandatory minimum sentences and the harsh sentencing 17 guidelines at both federal and state levels need 18 also to be repealed. 19 The dramatic disparities between how 20 crack and powder cocaine are treated in federal and 21 many state laws need to be repealed as the 22 sentencing commission advised. 23 Marijuana and some other drugs as well 24 need to be made available for people who benefit 25 from them. 106 1 2 There also need to be studies to 3 demonstrate this but when one has legal Affidavits 4 from elderly grandmother's who have never smoked 5 marijuana but say that this helps them deal with 6 their pain and suffering, when one has distinguished 7 physicians willing to prescribe this, marijuana 8 should be made available as soon as possible. 9 These are just a number of steps, many 10 of the other witnesses will elaborate on these and 11 others. 12 MR. BROWN: Okay, Kathy do you want to 13 ask a question? 14 MS. ROCKLEN: I just want a 15 clarification, quickly. 16 I got a call last week from somebody 17 asking if the committee had specifically endorsed 18 opiate replacement therapy and it wasn't a term I 19 was familiar with. 20 As you went through the set of 21 alternatives you talked about methadone and heroin 22 prescription which I assume is opium replacement 23 therapy. 24 Is there more to that concept? 25 MR. NADELMANN: Opiate replacement 107 1 2 therapy essentially refers, yes, to dealing, taking 3 street addicts, remember when we speak about heroin 4 in America we are not talking about pure 5 pharmaceutical heroin, we are talking about street 6 heroin which may be eighty percent pure, sixty 7 percent pure, twenty percent pure or not heroin at 8 all. 9 We are talking about heroin that's 10 taken in doses of unknown potency and purity. 11 About heroin taken under conditions 12 where people have no reliable information about how 13 to take this drug. 14 Opiate substitution refers using 15 methadone which is a long acting opiate that can be 16 taken orally or injected once a day. 17 Using either longer acting opiates 18 like LAAM which is now emerging on the market or 19 deaming to use morphine or methadone in an 20 injectable form or heroin in smokeable or injectable 21 form or a range of other opiates. 22 Methadone has many advantages in terms 23 of its ease of administration, in terms of 24 stabilizing addicts because it can be taken once a 25 day. 108 1 2 Heroin is a harder drug to administer 3 in a controlled fashion. 4 But the fact of the matter is that 5 just because heroin is difficult to administer in a 6 controlled fashion, just because heroin does not 7 work as well as methadone for people willing to stay 8 in methadone programs, does not mean that we should 9 not attempt heroin maintenance, heroin substitution 10 with people who cannot succeed in methadone and 11 other drug treatment programs. 12 So, yes, opiate replacement, opiate 13 substitution means one last point should be made 14 very clear, it's a common myth in the United States 15 that people are put on to methadone so that 16 eventually they will be entirely opiate free. 17 That they will no longer use heroin or 18 methadone. 19 That is true in some cases, it's also 20 true that the vast majority of people who are 21 prematurely detoxed from heroin with methadone, 22 return to heroin addiction. 23 Virtually all of the evidence, 24 especially that by Mary Jean Creek of the 25 Rockefeller University and other researchers shows 109 1 2 that one can be maintained on methadone for ten, 3 twenty, thirty years or more so far as we can tell 4 based upon her thirty year experience with virtually 5 no negative health consequences. 6 When a methadone addict says I am no 7 different than a diabetic who has become an insulin 8 addict, he's basically right. 9 We have only bad scientific reasons 10 and bad moralistic reasons to take people off 11 methadone, to deprive them of adequate doses to 12 deprive them of some control of their own treatment. 13 It does appear to be an effective 14 approach, but it's not for everybody. 15 MR. BROWN: Thank you. 16 Mr. Knapp, do you have any questions? 17 MR. KNAPP: In the regime that you 18 foresee, is there a place at all for criminal law 19 application, either on the international scale or in 20 the United States? 21 MR. NADELMANN: Well, there definitely 22 is a role for criminal law. 23 First of all, most people who favor 24 drug policy reform favor a step by step moderate 25 approach. 110 1 2 In fact, the politics of the issue is 3 that it is unlikely to happen in any other way. 4 So it does seem that there would 5 inevitably be a role in the short term and even less 6 than short term for law enforcement in terms of 7 prosecuting the major drug dealers in terms of 8 prosecuting drug dealers, for example who are 9 disorderly. 10 A harm reduction approach to drug law 11 enforcement says focus on the drug dealers who are 12 disorderly, who are violent, who are predatory. 13 Deemphasize enforcement against drug 14 dealers who are integrated in the community in such 15 a way that they cause relatively little harm. 16 So law enforcement, yes, would 17 continue to play a role. 18 Secondly, virtually everybody I know 19 assumes that we will continue to have a 20 criminalization on drug use and drug sales by 21 children. 22 That would appear to be a very 23 important place for law enforcement to play a role. 24 One now sees undercover operations by 25 law enforcement agents going to stores to see 111 1 2 whether or not they will sell tobacco to underage 3 Americans. 4 Law enforcement might play a role 5 there as well. 6 Thirdly, remember, alcohol and tobacco 7 are now legal drugs, so to speak, but we have a 8 Federal Law enforcement agency known as the Bureau 9 of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. 10 Under a long range drug policy 11 alternative as I envision it, one might change the 12 name to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and 13 Other Drugs. 14 One might want to improve the quality 15 of the agency, one might want to extend it's reach, 16 one might want to have more vigorous enforcement 17 than we now have with respect to alcohol and tobacco 18 because I do not believe that our alcohol and 19 tobacco control policies provide a model for how to 20 deal with marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD and other 21 drugs in the future. 22 But I assume that inevitably there 23 will always be law enforcement agencies to play a 24 role. 25 I assume the FDA will play a role in 112 1 2 insuring the quality of the drugs that are made 3 legally available. 4 I assume that civil liability system 5 will ensure that manufacturers are responsible for 6 the quality and sometimes the consequences of their 7 products. 8 I assume that the IRS and other 9 agencies will be responsible for collecting tax 10 revenues on the sale of these drugs and on the 11 importation, the tarrifs and the importation of 12 these drugs. 13 So I do assume that law enforcement 14 has a very important role to play in drug policy but 15 I also assume that its role should no longer be 16 front and center. 17 MR. BROWN: Thank you. 18 Mr. Salomon, do you have any 19 questions? 20 MR. SALOMON: One brief one. 21 Are you familiar with Senator 22 Galliber's proposed legislation? 23 MR. NADELMANN: Yes. 24 MR. SALOMON: Would you care to 25 comment on its strengths and weaknesses? 113 1 2 MR. NADELMANN: Well, Senator 3 Galliber's legislation as I understand it proposes 4 to take the alcohol control statutes of New York 5 State and apply those to all illicit drugs. 6 I think that may be advisable for 7 cannabis. 8 So far as I understand it in New York 9 and other states one is allowed to produce small 10 amounts of alcohol for personal consumption without 11 a license but if you produce large amounts to sell 12 it you have to be licensed and pay taxes to the 13 government. 14 That does seem like a fairly 15 intelligent approach to dealing with cannabis. 16 I can imagine lower potency versions 17 of some of the other illicit drugs for which that 18 model might work as well. 19 For example if Coca Cola were to 20 restore the very low amounts of cocaine to it that 21 were in it before 1900 and take the caffeine out, so 22 far as I know the addictiveness of Coca-Cola with 23 small amounts of cocaine is as with the small 24 amounts of caffeine that are in it today. 25 One might either say that being 114 1 2 controlled in a similar way as Galliber's or more 3 liberally as is the case with Coca Cola. 4 Senator Galliber also I believe calls 5 for putting cigarettes under the control of alcohol 6 outlets, I'm not certain of that. 7 I'm not sure what I think about that. 8 I do think it makes sense to further 9 restrict the availability of cigarettes, especially 10 to keep it out of the hands of children but I'm not 11 certain if that's the right method. 12 And I do think that Senator Galliber's 13 model may well be premature when it comes to dealing 14 with heroin or cocaine in the forms that they are 15 desired on the streets today. 16 MR. SALOMON: Thank you. 17 MR. BROWN: We are running late. I am 18 going to take just one or two questions from the 19 audience. 20 Does anybody, the man in the front 21 here a brief question. 22 THE AUDIENCE: How do other countries 23 dealing with drugs compared to the United States, 24 what other methods are they using the United States 25 is not using because. 115 1 2 You said earlier and maybe I am not 3 wrong that the other countries have better methods 4 of handling people who take drugs, what kind of 5 methods do they use? 6 MR. NADELMANN: What I can quickly do 7 is elaborate and say they have much more extensive 8 drug treatment and public health systems available 9 for dealing with drug addicts. 10 That their approach to dealing with 11 drug addicts is more integrated into the current 12 health care approaches. 13 Methadone is made available through 14 interests and also methadone buses that get around 15 the NMBY problems. 16 In the case of cannabis there is the 17 case of the Netherlands which has made cannabis 18 available through what are called coffee shops, 19 essentially retail outlets where people can go and 20 buy cannabis in amounts up to I believe it is they 21 just changed it it's either five grams, five or six 22 grams at one time. 23 This is a fairly well regulated system 24 not technically legal, but barely treated as illegal 25 which the Dutch virtually across the political 116 1 2 spectrum with the exception of a few fanatics on the 3 right seem to find a very satisfactory approach. 4 Those are a few examples I think I 5 spoke about others in my testimony. 6 MR. BROWN: Rather than take any more 7 questions we are going to take a break this morning, 8 we will reconvene at approximately 11: 35. 9 Thank you very much. 10 (Whereupon, at this point in the 11 proceedings there was a recess, after which 12 the proceedings continued as follows: ) 13 MR. BROWN: Let me again express the 14 thanks of the Committee to Rayvid Reportinging for 15 providing the pro bono services for the hearing. 16 Our next witness this morning is 17 Doctor Herbert Kleber. 18 Before coming to the seminar on 19 addiction and substance abuse in 1991, Dr. Kleber 20 was Deputy Director demand reduction. 21 Without much further introduction, Dr. 22 Kleber, thank you very much for appearing today. 23 DR. KLEBER: Thank you and thank you 24 for inviting me. 25 This is a topic that is a very 117 1 2 important one, I feel very passionately about it 3 having spent approximately thirty years now in the 4 field treating addicts, starting back from the early 5 '60's when I first did work treating individuals 6 with psychadelic use, then a couple of years at 7 Lexington, Kentucky then back to Yale in the 8 mid-60's where I spent the next 25 or so years 9 developing what hopefully we thought was a model 10 treatment programs for heroin and cocain addiction, 11 as well as pioneering a number of new approaches to 12 the treatment of both of those conditions. 13 What I am going to present to you very 14 briefly this morning are some excerpts from a white 15 paper concerning the issue of legalization that Joe 16 Califano and I put together at the center of 17 addiction substance abuse the document per se is a 18 much longer one and of course for the sake of time I 19 won't be able to go into many of the areas that are 20 covered there, so that I have tried to cover what 21 the committee asked me primarily to do, which is if 22 indeed there were a change in drug policy so that 23 the substances were legally available, what would 24 the effect be on use, on crime, and would any 25 efforts in terms of treatment or prevention 118 1 2 ameliorate those proposed increases. 3 So that is what I will limit my 4 testimony to, but of course I will be pleased during 5 the question and answer period to handle any 6 questions that you may all have. 7 That's the name of the white paper, 8 simply legalization, panacea or Pandora's box and I 9 thought a good quote to begin with is from Mark 10 Kleinman who in his book against excess talks about 11 changing the legal status of marijuana, but admits 12 that if you legalize marijuana there is one very 13 serious draw back, virtual irreversability. 14 If it goes badly wrong as Pandora 15 could have warned humpty-dumpty, not all processes 16 are reversible. 17 Who is in favor of changing the legal 18 status of our currently illicit drugs? 19 The discouraged. 20 Those who feel that nothing has worked 21 to date. 22 Libertarians and I see that you have 23 some well-known ones on your speaker's list, who 24 feel that people have the right to take what they 25 want. 119 1 2 Those who believe that yes these drugs 3 are bad, but the effect of criminilization make the 4 situation even worse and those finally and I have 5 met a lot of them who are sure it won't happen to 6 them or their children and what happens to the rest 7 of society is their problem. 8 If you deal with people who are close 9 to the problem on a daily basis, with clinicians, 10 who deal with addicts all of the time, families of 11 addicts, what you find is that the closer are to the 12 problem, the less one wants to make these substances 13 more available. 14 I would venture to say if this 15 committee took a poll of those people who actually 16 treat individuals who come into centers because of 17 being addicted to heroin, cocaine or marijuana, you 18 would find very few who would say let's make these 19 substances more available. 20 Part of the problem is that people are 21 very poor judges of their own addiction liability. 22 In all the years that I have spent 23 treating addicts, I have probably seen well over 5 24 or 6,000 at this time, I have seen probably less 25 than half a dozen who ever believed that they would 120 1 2 get addicted, including people who had family 3 members who were addicted, who had every reason by 4 their own vulnerabilities to believe they might get 5 addicted, they were sure they would not get 6 addicted. 7 It's important to realize you don't 8 need major psychological problems, you don't need 9 poverty to become addicted. 10 Anyone in this room could become an 11 addict, there is nothing mysterious about it. 12 In general the more people who try 13 drugs, the more who use on a regular basis, the 14 percentage stays remarkably similar at about six to 15 eight percent. 16 So the more who use, the more who 17 become addicted and so any proposal that increases 18 the number of individuals who are going to use is 19 going to increase the number who are going to get 20 into trouble and become addicted. 21 To give you some idea of the numbers 22 we are talking about, right now we have 50 million 23 individuals addicted to nicotine in its various 24 forms, 12 to 18 million alcohol addicts, marijuana 25 consider at least 5 million individuals take it more 121 1 2 than once a week, cocaine approximately 2 million 3 addicts and heroin approximately 750,000 addicts. 4 The heroin number is probably the 5 weakest. 6 Any time you have a number that small 7 in terms of the total population, the databases are 8 very bad and I think the best we can say about the 9 various studies of heroin is that the key thing is 10 to look at trend lines rather than absolute numbers; 11 I don't think we really have a terribly good handle 12 on the absolute number of heroin addicts. 13 What's happening to these numbers? 14 Well, nicotine is decreasing among 15 adults, unfortunately it's increasing among 16 adolescents, especially females. 17 One of the very interesting things 18 going on right now in a natural experiment is 19 California where they have passed this tax to 20 increase markedly education and advertising on 21 anti-tobacco. 22 What has been a result, well the 23 result has been a much larger drop in adult 24 cigarette smoking than elsewhere in the country, 25 unfortunately they haven't dented the adolescent 122 1 2 market. 3 In spite of all the money they put 4 into advertising there, adolescents in California 5 are not changing their cigarette habits any more 6 than they are in the rest of the country. 7 So we have not yet figured out how to 8 change new kids getting into tobacco and of course 9 with the 400,000 plus who die from nicotine the 10 tobacco companies have to addict, somewhere between 11 3 and 5,000 people a day in order to keep up the 12 market, and so far their efforts are much better 13 than our efforts, we really have not been able to do 14 a terribly good job in preventing nicotine use. 15 With alcohol we are seeing a moderate 16 decreases among both adults and adolescents what we 17 are seeing is fewer people drinking but of those who 18 are drinking, more to excess, so-called binge 19 drinkers, with marijuana there was a sharp decline 20 from 1979 to 1992 a decline of well over fifty 21 percent but with an increase in the last couple of 22 years. 23 Cocaine, there has been a decrease by 24 over fifty percent in the last decade, but that's of 25 nonaddictive, addictive use has remained steady to 123 1 2 slowly increasing I think that's due to two factors, 3 one the large number of people already in the 4 pipeline and the fact that we have not provided 5 adequate treatment. 6 We estimate we need at least two and a 7 half million treatment episodes a year, we have less 8 than 1.5 million. 9 Heroin use -- the final good news 10 about cocaine is new initiates to crack appear to be 11 decreasing. 12 When you talk to the street 13 ethnographers who work in our various innercity 14 neighborhoods they tell you there are far fewer new 15 initiates to crack. 16 So our hope is if we can control 17 through treatment and law enforcement those 18 currently addicted to crack that there will be fewer 19 new ones coming along. 20 Heroin appears to be slowly rising, 21 especially among the middle class. 22 What we are seeing is the very pure 23 heroin is increasing, those individual's, a lot of 24 people have this myth somehow you can't get addicted 25 or get into trouble if you only smoke or snort and 124 1 2 of course you can die from either of those routes, 3 you can get addicted from either of those routes. 4 Heroin is heroin and you can get into 5 trouble just as readily by smoking or snorting as 6 you can by injecting. 7 In terms of marijuana, one of the key 8 things we need to keep in mind is what increases 9 marijuana use seems to be a diminished perception by 10 adolescents that the drug is risky. 11 What you see is these are marijuana 12 trends among 8th graders. 13 What you see in 1992 is about seven 14 percent of them used marijuana and that by 1994 the 15 number has doubled and during that same two year 16 period the number of 8th graders who said that it 17 was risky to take marijuana dropped by about a 18 quarter. 19 Those who disapproved of its use 20 dropped and not surprisingly as that drops use 21 increases and that shows the same thing in a graphic 22 fashion, that during the years that perceived risk 23 was increasing that's the blue line, use was 24 markedly decreasing and only when risk turned up -- 25 I'm sorry when risk turned down when people said 125 1 2 it's less risky its use turn up. 3 What's the current status then of the 4 so called war on drugs? 5 Good news is that drug users are 6 aging. 7 That is in 1979 ten percent of current 8 users were over the age of 35, in 1993, thirty 9 percent of current users were over the age of 35. 10 The nonaddicted use has sharply 11 dropped. 12 Imagine if we had not done the kind of 13 efforts we did in the '80s, how many more millions 14 of people in the '80s and '90's would have used 15 drugs like cocaine, heroin and marijuana. 16 In 1979 we have 24 million using any 17 illicit drug on a monthly basis, by 1993 that had 18 dropped by more than fifty percent to about 11.7 19 million. 20 That over 12 million Americans who did 21 not use illicit drugs through the '80s because of 22 our current policies. 23 Same is true with marijuana, same is 24 true with cocaine and that just shows graphically 25 the difference between those who used an illicit 126 1 2 drug in the last month by the peak year versus 1993 3 and you see the peak year for for marijuana was '79, 4 the peak year for any illicit drug was '79 and peak 5 year for cocaine was '85; all of that use is down by 6 well over fifty percent. 7 So individuals who say there has been 8 no progress should look at these numbers, because 9 the addicts come from the users. 10 It's a funnel, not everyone who uses, 11 of course, becomes an addict. 12 If everyone who used these drugs 13 became an addict we wouldn't be holding these 14 hearings. 15 It would be a waste of all of our time 16 because people would be using these drugs. 17 If everyone who tried cocaine became a 18 cocaine addict, if everyone who tried heroin, 19 either, everyone who smoked grass got into trouble 20 you wouldn't need these hearings. 21 If, on the other hand, if no one 22 became addicted or got into trouble you also 23 wouldn't need these hearings. 24 The problem is some people who use, 25 use and get away with it, some use and get into 127 1 2 trouble and as we said earlier, people are terrible 3 judges of their own proclivity to get into trouble, 4 so the more that's used, the more that are going to 5 get into trouble. 6 There are some of the problems that 7 remain, crime remains high, prisons remain crowded 8 and the increase both in heroin and marijuana use. 9 I am going to talk in the few minutes 10 remaining to me about what would happen if we 11 legalized. 12 I realize there are all sorts of other 13 proposals that have been talked about, but in a 14 sense they are not terribly useful. 15 That is if the -- the concern of this 16 committee is crime, people in prisons, et cetera. 17 If you don't legalize cocaine or 18 heroin, presumably you are not going to deal with 19 those kinds of crime. 20 If you legalize marijuana, marijuana 21 is not a big deal in terms of crime, you are not 22 going to do anything about the crime in the streets 23 by legalizing marijuana. 24 So that I am going to focus mainly on 25 what's going to happen if the country followed the 128 1 2 recommendations of those who say let's make cocaine 3 and heroin as freely available as alcohol to do 4 something about all these people in prison who are 5 there because they are arrested for just using the 6 drugs. 7 My predictions; use will sharply rise, 8 adolescent use will especially rise, crime and 9 violence will not decrease it will go up, social 10 cost will sharply rise and there will be no 11 financial peace dividend. 12 Why do I say this? 13 One, the market is not saturated as 14 you will see in the next slide. 15 As availability increases use 16 increases, as use increases addiction will increase 17 and since no one is really talking about making them 18 available for adolescents, you are going to keep a 19 forbidden fruit aspect. 20 There are three kinds of availability, 21 physical, economic and psychological. 22 Physical means access. 23 Legalizers argue that legal 24 availability would not increase use because drugs 25 are already available for anyone who wants to use. 129 1 2 Even if it were true, it ignores the 3 change in the economic and the psychological factors 4 which also determine use. 5 It's not true, less than fifty percent 6 of high school seniors and young adults and less 7 than forty percent of adults report that cocaine is 8 easily available. 9 Only one quarter report easy 10 availability of LSD, PCP or heroin. 11 Only eleven percent report drugs are 12 available where they live. 13 If you have these legal like alcohol 14 and tobacco you will have this in every 15 neighborhood, you will have drugstores everywhere in 16 the true sense of the word drugstore. 17 So that you are going to increase 18 markedly physical availability. 19 You are going to increase economic 20 availability because the price will sharply drop. 21 Cocaine right now costs about $10 if 22 you brought it into the country really it sells for 23 about $60 a gram. 24 Single doses if you lower it to $10 a 25 gram is about fifty cents putting it in the reach of 130 1 2 your children's lunch money. 3 Marijuana price would drop from $100 4 to $400 an ounce down to $10 to $20 an ounce a 5 single dose would cost much less than $1. 6 The legal industry will fight for 7 advertising and for keeping taxes low and if you 8 don't think they will be successful at this look 9 what happened in the last Congress to any of the 10 proposals to fund health care by increasing taxes on 11 nicotine or alcohol. 12 All you are going to do is create 13 another very powerful industry group and so you will 14 have nice ads like this pure Columbian cocaine, 15 light my fire with some sexy lady saying use our 16 brand of cocaine. 17 Psychological availability will also 18 sharply rise. 19 Legal status, influence and perception 20 of the morality of use, the risk of use and the 21 social desirability of use. 22 There was a wonderful picture in The 23 New York Times a month or so ago when the President 24 talked about changing the status of nicotine and 25 clamping down and one young fifteen year old said if 131 1 2 the stuff was that dangerous they wouldn't let it be 3 sold. 4 If you don't think that legal status 5 influences how things regard marijuana, cocaine or 6 heroin, think again. 7 Talk to adolescents. Of course it 8 influences what people think. 9 So with adolescent use you still have 10 a forbidden fruit, adults can use these drugs, use 11 it they are going to want to use it like they now 12 want to use alcohol and tobacco. 13 Use would increase to rival legal 14 drugs. 15 Look at high school seniors, less than 16 twenty percent use any illegal drug, thirty percent 17 smoke cigarettes, fifty-one percent use alcohol. 18 If illegal drugs rise to match alcohol 19 you have now doubled it. 20 The price will decrease and 21 availability will increase. 22 The conclusion is if you legalize 23 these drugs for adults, you are sharply going to 24 increase adolescent use and addiction. 25 What would happen? 132 1 2 Since cocaine and heroin are more 3 addicting than alcohol, since availability is a 4 crucial factor in addiction to these drugs, my 5 prediction is that if you make cocaine, let's stick 6 with cocaine for a minute, if you make cocaine as 7 freely available as alcohol and tobacco, the number 8 of addicts will rise to somewhere between alcohol 9 and tobacco, somewhere between 15 million and 50 10 million, my own guess is around 20 million and there 11 have been a number of econometric studies that 12 suggest the same thing that the rise will be 13 anywhere from five to twenty times. 14 What about the effect on crime? 15 People say well, use may rise but 16 crime is going to go town. 17 There are three kinds of crime, there 18 is distributive crime when dealers shoot each other 19 and innocent people get caught in the middle, 20 acquisitive crime which is a crime people commit to 21 support their habits and pharmocological, behavioral 22 toxicity, that's alcohol crime, that's spousal 23 abuse, drunk driving, et cetera. Which can happen 24 to all those crimes. 25 Distributive crime will go down, 133 1 2 acquisitive crime will go down for any individual 3 but if I am right and the number of addicts rise 4 acquisitive crime will markedly rise and 5 pharmacologic crime will markedly rise. 6 Look at the devastating effect that 7 alcohol has on this society. 8 Cocaine is more dangerous than 9 alcohol. 10 The paranoia that cocaine causes, the 11 irritability is much more likely to be associated 12 with desocialization, destabilization of a civil 13 society. 14 Look at the brains there, that's a PET 15 scan. 16 The top line is normal individuals. 17 Second is a cocaine abuser ten days 18 after his last dose of cocaine. 19 So this is someone who had been using 20 cocaine for a long period of time, as you can see 21 there what you want are the yellow back you don't 22 want the blue and what you can see, ten days after 23 he's quit using, the brain is not back to normal. 24 Well, okay, we will wait three months, 25 that's bottom slide, 100 days after the last use of 134 1 2 cocaine. 3 The brain is still sharply impaired. 4 Unfortunately it's hard to carry out 5 these studies over time and so I don't have any 6 slides past 100 days. 7 My own feeling from dealing with these 8 people clinically, at least six to nine months after 9 the last dose of heavy cocaine use the individual is 10 still impaired. 11 So it ain't easy to give up cocaine, 12 it's a very difficult drug, your brain is markedly 13 impaired. 14 I will wrap up in about three minutes. 15 Marijuana, see if I can sum it up very 16 quickly. 17 The legalizers argue that use would 18 not substantially increase since it's already 19 available, that it's not associated with violence, 20 it's not dangerous. 21 The reality is that it has lots of 22 physical effects, I am not going to run over them 23 because of time, it impairs short term memory and 24 energy levels, it increases auto accidents, paranoia 25 schizophrenic relapse, prenatal use is associated 135 1 2 with decreased IQ's of infants, adolescent marijuana 3 users are twice as likely to have unprotected sex, 4 it ain't the harmless giggle that John Lennon talked 5 about, it is a harmful drug which has lots of 6 effects. 7 If Kessler described cigarette smoking 8 as a pediatric disease, my own feeling is that legal 9 marijuana would be a pediatric epidemic. 10 Would there be a peace dividend, we 11 are going to save all this money. 12 Look at alcohol and tobacco. 13 We bring in $18 billion a year in 14 state and federal alcohol tax revenue, we spend $140 15 billion in health, motor vehicle and crime problems. 16 Foreign countries, what do we know 17 about foreign countries you have heard about these 18 models of Netherlands, what do we know about the 19 Netherlands between 1984 and 1992. 20 The use of cannabis among adolescents 21 rose 250 percent there was a twenty-nine percent 22 rise in cannabis addicts and a twenty-two percent 23 rise in total addicts between '88 and '93. 24 The Dutch government according to the 25 latest release plans on closing about fifty percent 136 1 2 of the coffee houses because of increased sales of 3 cocaine and heroin there and increase the minimum 4 age in the coffee houses to 18. 5 There has been a sixty percent crime 6 increase between '81 and '92 in Amsterdam, they have 7 twice as many police officers per capita than the 8 average U.S. city and the number of organized crime 9 groups there rose sharply between '88 and '93. 10 And they have approximately the same 11 number of heroin addicts, same percent of heroin 12 addicts as we do, it ain't the panacea. 13 What about England? 14 People talk about maintaining people 15 on heroin in England. 16 There are 150,000 heroin addicts in 17 England, how many of those are maintained on 18 methadone, roughly 17,000, how many are maintained 19 on heroin? 20 Over 100 physicians can prescribe 21 heroin to addicts in England if they choose, 22 probably less than one dozen do so, there are less 23 than 100 addicts maintained on heroin legally in all 24 of England. 25 So people who say there was one 137 1 2 wonderful quote from John Marks that "The heroin 3 dealers are leaving the streets" if only 400 out of 4 150,000 are being maintained on heroin, any heroin 5 dealer whose leaving the streets is going inside for 6 a cup of coffee, it's not because he doesn't have a 7 market out there. 8 Switzerland, Mr. Nadelmann referred to 9 it, the numbers of heroin addicts are going up 10 there, violence in crime are rising, their heroin 11 related death rates are now the highest in Europe, 12 et cetera. 13 Italy decriminilized heroin for 14 personal possession, they now have the highest 15 heroin adistinction rate in all of Europe and one of 16 the highest HIV rates, seventy percent. 17 Sweden went the other route of 18 Netherlands and Italy, their use is sharply 19 dropping. 20 So when am I going to conclude? 21 Drug epidemics are cyclic, the cocaine 22 epidemic is already winding town, legalization of 23 these drugs would lead to institutionalizing it at 24 unacceptably high rates and there are no successful 25 models worldwide for us to immitate. 138 1 2 I would finally like to end with a 3 quote, Billy Sunday the famous preacher said when 4 prohibition was about to begin for alcohol, the rain 5 of tears is over, the slums will soon be a memory, 6 we will turn our prisons into factories and our 7 jails into storehouses, men will walk upright, women 8 will smile and children will laugh and hell will be 9 forever rent." 10 That was 1919, he was wrong. 11 Kevin Seas in 1991 said if we legalize 12 these drugs that are currently illegal, "We would be 13 able to walk virtually any street at night as crime 14 would be significantly reduced, our criminal justice 15 system would no longer be in gridlock our police 16 could spend their time becoming members of the 17 community, Courts would not be forced to plea 18 bargain." 19 Billy Sunday was wrong in 1919, Kevin 20 Seas and his colleagues are wrong in 1995. 21 Thank you. 22 MR. BROWN: Thank you very much, Dr. 23 Kleber. 24 We are going to reverse how we are 25 conducting this to get some more questions from the 139 1 2 audience. 3 Are there any questions from the 4 audience? 5 THE AUDIENCE: Dr. Kleber, on the one 6 hand you have talked about how treatment works and 7 that we need to put more resources into treatment. 8 So I will grant you the fact that if 9 drugs are legalized there may be an increase in use. 10 But on the other hand, it seems that 11 if we do have resources to put into treatment, it 12 seems the consequences of use, the consequences of 13 abuse would be minimized to a great extent. 14 So I am wondering how do you balance 15 that out? 16 It seems it very well may be an 17 increase in use could result in a decrease in drug 18 use problems with adequate resources to treatment. 19 DR. KLEBER: As I said earlier, if 20 these drugs caused no one to become addicted I 21 wouldn't be here. 22 If our treatment were as successful as 23 I would like it to be, I probably wouldn't be here 24 either. 25 The reality is that treatment works, 140 1 2 but you always need to hear the rest of my line, but 3 not as well or as often as we would like. 4 The Rand study in comparing treatment 5 versus supply reduction it its defense surveyed much 6 of the treatment literature and their conclusion was 7 that with cocaine, for example, if you took one 8 hundred people who entered treatment January 1st, 9 the following January 1st, approximately thirteen 10 percent would be abstinate from cocain. 11 I think that's too conservative, I 12 think the number is substantially higher. 13 I think it's probably closer to twenty 14 or twenty-five percent. 15 But it is not nearly as high as we 16 need to get if you are talking about the short term. 17 If you are talking about five or ten 18 years later, then I am much more optimistic, five 19 years later I think almost half the people will no 20 longer be using, but in the short term, one, two, 21 three years, unfortunately our current methods 22 aren't as good as they should be, nor are our 23 current prevention methods. 24 They are okay, and they need to be 25 strengthened, but they ain't perfect. 141 1 2 Anyone who does treatment or 3 prevention will tell you it's much harder to do them 4 when drugs are sold on every corner, when drugs are 5 sold in every school, it's harder to do prevention 6 when drugs are sold on every corner it's hard to do 7 treatment. 8 Not impossible, certainly as our 9 alcohol treatment shows, but it's difficult as hell. 10 MR. BROWN: Another question. 11 THE AUDIENCE: In -- it sounded very 12 important to you to prevent people from number one 13 using drugs, number two becoming addicted to drugs. 14 I am interested in two things, one is 15 the effect of various types of social conditions on 16 terms of how many people or what percentage of the 17 population get addicted, including a climate in 18 which people are put in prison. 19 The other thing I would like to know 20 is sort of on a cost benefit analysis perspective, 21 how many people is it a fair trade off to put in 22 prison to prevent a single person from using a given 23 drug or from becoming addicted to a given drug? 24 DR. KLEBER: There has been a lot of 25 myth about whose in prison and hopefully there will 142 1 2 be people who testify over the next three days who 3 are more expert in that than I am, but certainly my 4 reading of that literature is that the large 5 majority of people in prison are not there because 6 of simple use. Simple possession. 7 That the vast majority are there 8 because of crime committed to support such use. 9 Often violent crime, so that I don't 10 think I can engage in that arithmetic of how many 11 people are put in prison, that's sort of like people 12 who are in prison are innocent to save one person 13 from using drugs. 14 I think a better way of approaching 15 that is to say are there ways of trying to figure 16 out to keep the nonviolent criminal from just 17 spending time in prison, can we markedly expand the 18 number of therapeutic communities, for example, to 19 give people alternatives. 20 Really it's not alternatives to 21 incarceration, if you look at it, most of the time 22 it's alternatives to nonincarceration, that is most 23 of the people who commit crimes don't go to prison, 24 you have all these horrendous figures about how many 25 are in there, for example in Texas a ten year felony 143 1 2 sentence is equal to about ten months actually 3 served, you have all these people going in the front 4 door then people rapidly coming out the back door. 5 I don't think I can answer that last 6 equation. 7 The reason I don't want people to use 8 is a certain percentage of them will become 9 addicted. 10 Not all of them, although social 11 control certainly has an important role to play. 12 That's why we have 50 million nicotine 13 addicts and 15 million alcoholics and 2 million 14 cocaine addicts, because of the social controls and 15 a major part of that social control are the 16 sanctions given by the law. 17 If you ask teenagers one of the major 18 reasons they don't use is they could go to jail or 19 their parents don't approve, one of the reasons 20 their parents don't approve is because it's illegal. 21 About five and a half percent of 22 people use illegal drugs, suppose we say under 23 legalization that would only triple to fifteen 24 percent, those are millions and millions of people 25 who will then be in major trouble and I think that 144 1 2 is the more important thing. 3 How many people are you willing to see 4 die of drug abuse drug abuse in order to change a -- 5 justify a change in the law. 6 MR. BROWN: Two more questions from 7 the audience. 8 THE AUDIENCE: Dr. Kleber, in 9 reference to one of the charts in legalization 10 panacea or Pandora's box, the one where it showed 11 marijuana use among adolescents between 1992 and 12 1994 increasing as disapproval of the drug use 13 decreased, I just wanted to ask about the causal 14 relationship that you painted between the decrease 15 in disapproval and the increase in use. 16 I was wondering if that causality came 17 from the interview subjects themselves and how you 18 were able to interpret the use increase as following 19 from the decrease of disapproval as opposed to say 20 disapproval decreasing as it was as use increases as 21 evidence of use around these adolescents was more 22 and more available. 23 So how did you get to causality? 24 DR. KLEBER: Those figures were 25 derived from Lloyd Johnson's study of high school 145 1 2 students called monitoring the future, it's been 3 carried out since the mid-70's and each year as part 4 of that study it's an anonymous study, kids fill out 5 the survey form then they drop them into a box at 6 the front of the room with no identifiers, et 7 cetera. 8 They ask about use and they also ask 9 about perceived risk, disapproval, et cetera and 10 Lloyd has been tracking those for roughly fifteen, 11 twenty years. 12 So clearly it's not a one to one 13 correspondence, I can't show that everyone who said 14 increased risk or decreased risk changed their drug 15 use accordingly. 16 What you are dealing with thousands of 17 individuals filling out these surveys and the key 18 thing is to look at the trend lines. 19 As long as risk was increasing use was 20 going town. 21 Having worked in many, many schools 22 and during the '70's I worked in a number of high 23 schools in the New Haven area helping set up drug 24 prevention programs. 25 What you saw with marijuana there was 146 1 2 a perception "everyone is doing it." 3 Everyone new people who had gotten 4 into trouble or people wandering around high school 5 stoned all the time flunking out, et cetera, part of 6 that had a feedback inhibition so when I see someone 7 stoned all the time I may be a little more reluctant 8 to use it. 9 As fewer people use you see "fewer bad 10 examples." 11 At some point you reach a point where 12 people again say gee this drug must be safe because 13 everyone I see using it is getting away with it 14 because so few are using it. 15 So it must be safer because people 16 aren't getting into trouble, therefore it's okay to 17 try it, more people try it, more people get into 18 trouble. 19 I think the best example of that are 20 the psychadelics, they never go away, they never get 21 very high because behavioral toxicity is such that 22 it's readily apparent if too many people take acid 23 you are going to see much more dramatically than 24 with marijuana the behavioral toxicity, the bad 25 trips, et cetera. 147 1 2 MR. BROWN: You have a question, Mr. 3 Wilson? 4 THE AUDIENCE: I have a question about 5 a confusion that I have about an apparent 6 contradiction in your logic concerning the legal 7 status of drugs and the level of use in society and 8 the contradiction I note is this. 9 Your argument is that because illegal 10 drugs are illegal there is less use in society and 11 if we change their legal status use would increase. 12 Wouldn't it follow what we should be 13 doing is making alcohol and tobacco illegal because 14 the reason why they are so commonly used is because 15 of their legal status? 16 But I assume you are not advocating a 17 return to the Volstadt Act. 18 I was just wondering how you 19 rationalize or deal with that contradiction. 20 DR. KLEBER: Remember the drugs that 21 were illegal was legal, cocaine was legal at the 22 turn of the century, not just in Coca Cola as Ethan 23 mentioned, but in all sort of patent medicines you 24 could buy in the drugstore for about fifteen cents 25 the equivalent now of about twenty dollars worth of 148 1 2 cocaine. 3 Cocaine use got so out of hand that in 4 1910 precedent Taft said the use of cocaine is the 5 worst public health problem the United States had 6 ever encountered. 7 That's when cocaine was legal and 8 freely available in every drugstore in a variety of 9 forms. 10 What do I think about alcohol and 11 tobacco using your paradigm? 12 Well the problem with alcohol, 13 prohibition was repealed not because it didn't work, 14 it did work, if you look at terms of decreasing 15 alcohol use, decreasing consequences like sirrhosis, 16 drunken driving et cetera, all those things markedly 17 decreased, I have all that data if you want to see 18 it, it's in our white paper. 19 Prohibition was repealed because a 20 majority of Americans said I can handle alcohol and 21 I don't want to be deprived of use of it. 22 If you saw what happened in Barrow, 23 Alaska maybe you saw that article in the times a 24 couple of weeks ago, Barrow totally made alcohol 25 illegal and apparently the closest place you could 149 1 2 go to buy it was like 150 miles away. And a fifth 3 of vodka was over $150. 4 What happened in that year, crime 5 sharply dropped, the number of ER episodes dropped 6 by ninety percent, spousal abuse dropped, drunken 7 driving stopped, all sorts of crime and accidents 8 dropped. 9 What is the response of the citizens, 10 they are petitioning now for a referendum to reverse 11 it and to put alcohol back. 12 The reason we can't make alcohol 13 illegal is because a majority of Americans say I can 14 handle it. 15 And I think most do, we have 100 16 million drinkers, 15 million who are alcoholics or 17 problem drinkers who get into trouble. 18 Am I in favor of making alcohol 19 illegal, absolutely not because I think the average 20 American who uses it can use it in moderation. 21 Tobacco is another, it's a totally 22 different story. 23 If tobacco came on today I would be 24 the first to say let's not let this drug be put on 25 to the market. 150 1 2 It is the only drug around that uses 3 advertised will kill you. 4 It's a dreadful drug, 50 million 5 addicts, it's my addiction, I smoked two packs a day 6 for twenty-five years I have now been clean for 7 twenty years. 8 It was one of the harder things I have 9 ever done in my life, it's one of the most difficult 10 things to give up. 11 If you ask my opinion we should try 12 and wean society away from it. 13 You are not going to make a drug 14 illegal when 50 million addicts exist in society. 15 And we can't get our kids to stop 16 doing it. 17 One of the things that breaks my heart 18 is my daughter who started as a teen at thirty is 19 still addicted to tobacco in spite of everything I 20 know and have tried and all that. 21 I worry given death rates. 22 So tobacco I feel very differently 23 about, but I would turn your argumentment around and 24 say my God we have 50 million nicotine addicts and 2 25 million cocaine addicts let's not do anything that 151 1 2 will increase that number of cocaine addicts, let's 3 do everything we can to decrease the number of 4 nicotine addicts. 5 MR. BROWN: Before we bid fare well to 6 Dr. Kleber, any questions from the panel. 7 Mr. Doyle, Eleanor? 8 MS. PEALE: I do have a question that 9 has to do with we are convened here as a committee 10 of the Bar Association and we started our inquiry at 11 least one of our motivations had to do with the fact 12 that our criminal justice system is really breaking 13 down not just criminal, our civil justice system 14 because we are devoting so much time to prosecuting 15 drug cases and that goes on. 16 We now have, this country has over 1 17 million people in jail, many of whom are there 18 because of not just drug offenses having to do with 19 drugs, but because of possession of drugs and 20 because of mandatory sentencing. 21 Now you have not addressed that issue, 22 I know you are a psychiatrist so perhaps it don't 23 concern you, but we as a committee here are 24 extremely concerned about the fact that prosecutions 25 are increasing, our civil justice system is breaking 152 1 2 down, judges are getting very cross about the whole 3 thing, cross is perhaps too light a word yet you 4 have not addressed that in any way in your remarks. 5 DR. KLEBER: I didn't address it 6 because I was I was asked not to. 7 I was asked being a psychiatrist to 8 limit my remarks to the effects of what would happen 9 in terms of use, what would happen can we present 10 something of that by treatment and prevention. 11 I was not asked to address, if you 12 would like me to I will give you my thoughts on it, 13 remember they are from a psychiatrist, not from a 14 criminal justice expert. 15 I think that there are ways of 16 improving what's going on without legalizing these 17 substances. 18 One way would be even with treatment 19 being as flawed as it is, and not being as 20 successful as we would like it, we have two and a 21 half million people a year who need treatment, 1.5 22 million treatment episodes, if we could increase 23 that so that that gap were met, I think many of the 24 people who go to prison would be not end up going to 25 prison. 153 1 2 Those who are coming out of prison 3 wouldn't be recitvists, treatment in prison can be 4 quite effective, a number of studies have shown 5 that, yet that's been a bipartisan failure. 6 When I worked under President Bush he 7 did not ask for enough money for treatment and the 8 democratic Congress gave us one-third of what we 9 asked for. 10 When President Clinton asked for $300 11 million to treat the hard core addict the Congress 12 which at that point was democratic zeroed it out. 13 So that funding for treatment has been 14 a bipartisan failure and I think that would be one 15 of the major ways if we could markedly increase the 16 availability of treatment both in prison and out of 17 prison, I think many fewer people would go to prison 18 and I think the mandatory minimums need to be 19 reexamined. 20 I testified in front of the sentencing 21 commission about the -- about that 100 to one 22 dispair pair at this between crack and powder 23 cocaine and I felt there should be some difference 24 recognized between the two but instead of 100 to one 25 or a 100 to one it should be more like five to one. 154 1 2 I think there are ways to fine tune 3 the system without throwing out the baby with the 4 bath water. 5 MR. BROWN: One more question from the 6 panel, Mr. Knapp. 7 MR. KNAPP: Just a clarification of 8 your statistics. 9 You had 50 million nicotine addicts 10 approximately 15 million alcohol addicts on 11 marijuana you referred to them as users at least 12 once a week and then when you discuss marijuana in 13 the Netherlands you referred to them as addicts. 14 Leaving that aside, what is the 15 overlap starting with the 50 million addicted to 16 nicotine, how many of those 50 million are also 17 among the 15 million alcohol addicts, the 2 million 18 cocaine, addicts, what's the overlap of all of that? 19 DR. KLEBER: The easiest way to 20 approach it is the other way, one of the things that 21 anyone who has dealt with addicts will tell you is 22 that practically all of them smoke, so about ninety 23 percent of our heroin addicts, probably eighty-five 24 percent or more of our cocain addicts, probably 25 eighty or ninety percent of our alcoholics, smoke. 155 1 2 Probably the same is true of 3 marijuana. 4 So that there is enormous overlap 5 there, nicotine is one of the gateway drugs par 6 excellence that leads to use of other drugs. 7 In terms of marijuana, the discrepancy 8 in the numbers sometimes I use use, sometimes I use 9 depends, clearly not everyone who uses marijuana is 10 an addict. 11 The 5 million are individuals who use 12 at least weekly, I consider in my practice when I 13 see someone who is in trouble with marijuana they 14 are usually individuals who are using anywhere from 15 two to ten joints a day, have been unable to stop, 16 are paying enormous prices in terms of their life 17 and they are clearly as dependent upon that as 18 individuals are on alcohol. 19 It is a dependence inducing drug. 20 Do most people who use marijuana get 21 addicted, of course not, do most people who drink 22 become alcoholics? No, so we are not talking about 23 an all or nothing phenomenon. 24 MR. BROWN: All right, we could 25 probably go on for much longer but in the interests 156 1 2 of time I think we need to move on and I would like 3 to thank Dr. Kleber for coming here to speak with 4 us. 5 MR. BROWN: We will take the next 6 speaker now, Theodore Kheel. 7 Mr. Kheel he's a lawyer, he has been 8 engaged in the past conflict prevention and 9 resolution for over half a century. 10 MR. KHEEL: I am pleased to be here 11 and to speak on the special committee's report even 12 though it is an hour and a half after I was 13 scheduled to speak. 14 But apart from that, I am pleased that 15 I heard this morning the testimony of Dr. Kleber and 16 the testimony of Professor Nadelmann because it 17 helps illustrate the one point that I propose to 18 make here today. 19 You can tell from the brief 20 description of my background that I have not written 21 on drug policy and that I am not an expert in the 22 field. 23 I want to make that clear because I am 24 not going to be talking about the subjects that were 25 discussed specifically by either Professor Nadelmann 157 1 2 or Dr. Kleber. 3 I do have some experience in resolving 4 disputes and there is a major national dispute 5 underway and it is being framed in very general 6 language as legalization versus prohibition. 7 What interested me about the report, 8 which I think is an excellent indictment of what it 9 calls the failed policy of drug prohibition, what 10 interested me was the report also says that it's 11 call for ending drug prohibition cannot be the end 12 of the Committee's inquiry or the sum of its 13 recommendation, and that what forms of governmental 14 regulation, if any, are appropriateness of 15 prohibition has to be answered. 16 The discussion today indicated that 17 both Mr. Sterling who spoke first and doctor -- and 18 Professor Nadelmann, recognized that abolishing -- 19 eliminating drug prohibition is not the end of the 20 problem and that the question of what comes in its 21 place particularly in the form of regulation and 22 control has to be tried. 23 It is not I imagine it's a matter of 24 time, but also the complexity of the subject, it is 25 not addressed in the committee's report. 158 1 2 Now, I think from the point of view of 3 conflict resolution, which is a subject on which I 4 have experience if not expertise, that is 5 unfortunate, because at the present time the word 6 legalization is being misconstrued in terms of what 7 would follow from legalization and it was 8 illustrated here today by Dr. Kleber. 9 Dr. Kleber is, together with Joseph 10 Califano, former Secretary of Health, Education and 11 Welfare, the author of the report the editor and 12 reviewer of the report legal panacea or Pandora's 13 box about which he spoke this morning, but merely 14 told you what he thinks, what the committee -- the 15 center for addiction and drug abuse at Columbia 16 University which put this out, called it a white 17 paper, which of course means that it's intended to 18 be very impressive and it does have a lot of 19 impressive directors and officers in addition to Mr. 20 Califano, the wives of two former Presidents, there 21 is the former head of the United Automobile Workers 22 whom I know quite well and is a very fine man and so 23 forth. 24 The fact is that the report of the 25 white paper of the center undertakes to define what 159 1 2 it thinks legalization means and it's definition is 3 a far cry from what Professor Nadelmann said would 4 follow in the wake of legalization. 5 I have included in my brief paper 6 which you have in your book but I have also as usual 7 made some changes after I submitted it and I have 8 copies here and I would if you care to read it, 9 refer you to it. 10 But the interest paper in the absence 11 of any specific regulatory regime that is being 12 proposed by proponents of legalization, and that is 13 the fact and indeed there was a study in the Hofstra 14 Law Review in 1990 by a Mark Kleinman and a Ron 15 Sager in which they observed that perhaps the most 16 prominent inadequacy of current legalization 17 arguments is their failure to specify what is meant 18 by legalization. 19 That while legalization advocates do 20 not deny that some sort of controls will be 21 required, their proposals rarely address the 22 question of how far on the spectrum a given drug 23 should be moved or how to accomplish such a 24 movement. 25 Now what the center it is in the 160 1 2 absence of a definite significance of what 3 legalization would mean, particularly with regard to 4 legalization and control in its place, the center 5 undertakes to say what they think it means and then 6 having defined the definition of legalization, they 7 proceed to give the statistics that you heard today 8 from Dr. Kleber in which he concludes that drug 9 utilization would go up. 10 Now that's a speculation. 11 Professor Nadelmann would argue 12 exactly to the reverse, you argue to the reverse, we 13 are all talking about what would happen under a set 14 of circumstances that don't exist at the present 15 time. 16 The center lists as what they construe 17 legalization to mean as making marijuana cigarettes 18 as available as tobacco cigarettes, establishing an 19 open and free market for drugs. 20 Making drugs legal for the adult 21 population but illegal for minors, having only the 22 government produce and sell drugs and allowing a 23 private market in drugs but with restrictions on 24 advertising, dosage and place of consumption. 25 Now, when the committee I think it was 161 1 2 Mr. Daly asked Professor Nadelmann what would you 3 propose as the middle ground in place of 4 legalization, I counted nine things that he said 5 would be introduced and he said and there are many 6 others. 7 You do have this debate taking place 8 over legalization versus prohibition and the 9 question of what is legalization and what controls 10 if any the committee says if any, leaving open the 11 possibility that there would be none, would exist 12 and then on the terms of different interpretations, 13 all kinds of dire consequences are predicted or 14 beneficial results. 15 Now I think a good example of that 16 sort of thing is the many articles, I counted 21, 17 that A.M. Rosenthal, the former editor of the New 18 York Times has got very distinguished credentials, 19 equal to those of the board of directors of the 20 center on addiction and substance abuse. 21 He has written 21 articles I got it 22 from Lexis Nexis, that's one of the privileges of 23 being a lawyer and I have a couple of quotes from 24 what he said and these are all on the assumption and 25 Dr. Kleber repeated it today, that drugs would be 162 1 2 freely available in the same manner as tobacco. 3 That is not in the report itself, nor 4 is that generally considered to be part of what 5 legalization means. 6 The vast majority of the people, 7 according to Abe Rosenthal, construe legalization to 8 mean that anybody could get drugs at any time and 9 that is what he says in effect in his articles. 10 Just let me give you two quotes. 11 One from an article he wrote, it's the 12 column is called on his mind and you can figure out 13 what is on his mind from the articles. 14 In January of this year Mr. Rosenthal 15 characterized legalization as one of the most cruel 16 and selfish movements in America and he freely 17 predicted without giving any statistical support 18 that legalization would create more addicts, more 19 abused children, more victims or muggings and 20 robbery, millions more every single year. 21 His first column on April 22, 1988, he 22 said legalization would create a pusher parties in 23 which the government would dole out or sell drugs a 24 couple of doses at a time. 25 And that if addicts could only get 163 1 2 those weak shots you buy at the government crack 3 parlor, pushers would urge them to come right over 4 to us, the pushers for the rest, saying that we have 5 got the stuff for the real highs, just go get the 6 money and what's more you don't have to worry about 7 drug possession because it is legal, man, legal, can 8 you believe it? 9 I end the quote there. 10 Now if you make that the national 11 issue and you have the former editor of the New York 12 Times on the column of the Op-Ed page of the New 13 York Times at least once a week saying things like 14 that, you have a problem of conflict resolution. 15 The most important first step in 16 resolving any conflict and I have been in a lot of 17 them, principally involving labor, is to define the 18 issues. 19 It is amazing how many serious 20 disputes exist in which the issue in conflict is not 21 defined. 22 I submit that the issue legalization 23 versus prohibition has not been properly defined and 24 that as long as it is allowed to be argued in terms 25 of the dire consequences that will flow from drugs 164 1 2 becoming freely available without getting into the 3 details that the committee says it has to address of 4 a substitute system in place of prohibition, that 5 the battle to accomplish what the committee 6 recommends, ending drug prohibition and the title 7 doesn't say anything more about the alternatives, 8 although they are mentioned in the body of the 9 report, but without including any recommendations, 10 of course that issue continues to be the issue, the 11 cause of legalization is doomed. 12 I have suggested a slight modification 13 that doesn't change the main thrust of your report 14 which is entitled a wiser course ending drug 15 prohibition and I would suggest, respectfully that 16 it -- a title a wiser course focusing on education 17 treatment and regulation in place of drug 18 prohibition, may not be as catchy. 19 There are advantages to the use of the 20 word legalization, because it attracts attention. 21 When Abe Rosenthal writes an article 22 it gets a lot of people terribly disturbed and there 23 are answers to it and a lot of people believe that 24 it is correct what he says. 25 I think that in a national debate of 165 1 2 this importance, the definition of the issue is 3 vital and that is the main point and the only point 4 that led me to accept your invitation to testify 5 here today. 6 Thank you. 7 MR. BROWN: Thank you very much. 8 MR. BROWN: I will start with Mr. 9 Salomon, since he lost out last time. 10 MR. SALOMON: Good morning, Mr. Kheel. 11 One question, apropos of the misuse 12 and misunderstanding of the word legalization, do 13 you have any views on the term war on drugs as it 14 has been used? 15 MR. KHEEL: I dislike it as much as I 16 dislike the use of legalization standing by itself. 17 I frame the issue that is being 18 debated nationally as legalization versus 19 prohibition. 20 The war on drugs assumes prohibition 21 is the key to it. 22 I don't like that phrase either. 23 Now what do you do about it, catchy 24 phrases stick and they are easy to use because 25 instead of saying, as Professor Nadelmann did today 166 1 2 when he was asked what do you propose and he spoke 3 for about five or ten minutes and he had nine 4 proposals then he had more to come. 5 So that if you could just say 6 legalization, it's a lot easier. 7 And it does attract attention, but it 8 does mislead; that's the trouble with the term 9 legalization unaccompanied by a program for 10 regulation and control in place of legalization. 11 The same thing is wrong with the war 12 on drugs. 13 When you are fighting a war you are in 14 there to win and you waive the flag and get all 15 emotional about it. 16 It is not a precise issue. 17 The discussion today by Professor 18 Nadelmann was right on target, he said there is a 19 middle ground, and that you can't just simply say 20 legalization and tomorrow anybody could go out and 21 buy drugs, you have to have a well thought through 22 program. 23 The committee, the special committee 24 is on the right trail but you didn't finish the job. 25 MR. BROWN: Mr. Doyle, would you like 167 1 2 to ask a question? 3 MR. DOYLE: If we had a model that 4 incorporated Dr. Nadelmann's ideas of the syringes 5 and the methadone maintenance, the injectable 6 methadone, he stops short of heroin and cocaine 7 becoming available even on a regulated basis, at 8 least he didn't say he was ready for that. 9 But let me just ask you, if we had a 10 very tightly controlled model that did include the 11 availability of heroin and cocain, heroin available 12 perhaps as in England and Switzerland on a very 13 medically controlled basis and cocain distributable, 14 regulated even as poison but at least made available 15 to the public and some of the resources used in the 16 war on drugs if you will pardon the expression, 17 being reallocated to education and treatment, is 18 that an approach that would be attractive to you? 19 MR. KHEEL: I was afraid you would ask 20 that question. 21 That is why I said in the beginning I 22 am not an expert on drug policy. 23 I do not know, I am not qualified to 24 answer that question. 25 I think that the very many options 168 1 2 that were mentioned and others that follow are 3 certainly things that should be made part of the 4 package. 5 There is while I am at that, you do 6 have a statement in your report that I think can be 7 challenged. 8 You say very early on the committee 9 believes the necessary inquiry cannot begin, inquiry 10 into drug policy which it calls upon to take place, 11 cannot begin in earnest so long as our nation 12 remains committed to the illusion that drug use can 13 be prohibited at an acceptable cost. 14 And that only by recognizing that this 15 is no longer true can we fashion a method for 16 controlling drugs. 17 If you could convince the public that 18 this is an illusion, that drug prohibition is an 19 illusion, then you would have time to go on and say 20 now this is what we should have in substitution. 21 But you -- but it can be equally said 22 that an earnest discussion of drug policy cannot 23 begin as long as people think that legalization 24 means that drugs would be freely available. 25 And you have got to disabuse the 169 1 2 public of that to prevent the kind of attacks you 3 get from Abe Rosenthal, and he's not alone. 4 He happens to speak in the vernacular 5 of the drug user, that I am sure he knows so well, 6 and that the report, the center's report is cut from 7 the same cloth, but it does it in a little more 8 polite language. 9 But it deliberately -- not 10 deliberately, I don't know why they did it, I think 11 the proponents of legalization are partly to blame 12 because they don't include a program, a detailed 13 specific program of regulation and control in place. 14 What that should be I decline to try 15 to answer, I just don't know enough. 16 MR. BROWN: All right, I think we can 17 take a couple of questions from the audience before 18 we move on for the day Mr. Sterling, you testified 19 earlier today. 20 MR. STERLING: I was just going to say 21 I encourage people to read the report, I prepared a 22 fifty page paper which I did not read aloud and you 23 are not here for my testimony so you didn't have an 24 opportunity to hear that there were proposals about 25 what I call a consulting pharmacist, taxation, about 170 1 2 ways in which shelters would provide drugs, which 3 drug users would be licensed and so on. 4 Speaking as a former legislative 5 counsel, trying to draft a very detailed legislative 6 program is extremely difficult and the advocates of 7 legalization represent a broad range from the 8 libertarians, the people like myself who would favor 9 very strict regulation. 10 So it's unlikely there is going to be 11 a consensus, because there are philosophical 12 differences among those critics of prohibition. 13 MR. KHEEL: I think you are absolutely 14 right and I did know, although I hadn't mentioned it 15 that you did say you favored a regime of regulation 16 and control and I haven't had the pleasure of 17 reading your statement, but I do think the problem 18 of trying to define a program of regulation that can 19 be used in the catchy way like the term legalization 20 is very difficult, and I don't know the answer to 21 it, but I to think the way the thing is going now 22 you are going to be on the short end of the stick in 23 recommending legalization. 24 There must be or there should -- you 25 should try to define some standards of regulation 171 1 2 without necessarily getting into every detail and 3 you should only say and that's why I suggested the 4 focus of the report should be on education treatment 5 and regulation in place of drug prohibition. 6 MR. BROWN: All right, we won't take 7 any more questions now just so we can move on we are 8 really running behind, we wound up having him on an 9 hour and a half later than he should have been. 10 I thank you for appearing today on 11 behalf of the Committee. 12 MR. BROWN: Our next speaker this 13 morning will be Mary M. Cleveland. 14 While we are waiting I will briefly 15 introduce Ms. Cleveland, she's a Graduate of Harvard 16 Radcliff with a BA in physics, she graduated from 17 the university of Berkley with a PhD in economics, 18 she is an Executive Committee member of the 19 partnership for responsible drug information and 20 there is too much more here let's just move on to 21 the program. 22 Everyone welcome Mary Cleveland. 23 MS. CLEVELAND: Thank you, it's a 24 pleasure and honor to be here and I think you have 25 done a magnificent job in reviewing what is an 172 1 2 enormous and complicated issue. 3 I am going to speak as an economist I 4 am going to address the economics of the issue and 5 respond a little bit to some of the points made by 6 the dissenters on the committee. 7 My title is ending drug prohibition 8 while controlling drug use and protecting children 9 which I think can be done simultaneously as long as 10 we don't think in absolutes. 11 There were -- these are the first 12 three objections of the dissenters to the wiser 13 course legalizing drugs would reduce the cost, 14 increase demand and addiction, a failure to provide 15 a concrete proposal and what is essentially the same 16 thing as one, a concern that you relax controls you 17 will get a lot of extra use. 18 While these are reasonable objections, 19 they reflect what I think is a major problem with 20 thinking on drug issues, which is a tendency to all 21 or nothing thinking. 22 A tendency to think in extremes. 23 So this is -- my recommendation as we 24 continue this debate is to avoid this kind of 25 either/or, all or nothing thinking. 173 1 2 I put a few examples up, they should 3 look familiar. 4 In response to the issue of whether we 5 have a concrete proposal, I think at this point we 6 need to be trying a lot of small alternatives, 7 rather than no one end all solution to the whole 8 thing and one of the most obvious alternatives that 9 are before us without any change in law at all is to 10 shift resources to treatment and away from 11 enforcement and this is data from the Rand study in 12 1994 on supply versus demand control on cocaine. 13 If you look at this pie, seven percent 14 of the cocaine pie is devoted to treatment and the 15 rest of it is devoted to various forms of control. 16 According to them, the top bar graph 17 is source country control is very inefective, very 18 costly for the dollar and treatment is relatively 19 much more effective. 20 If you slide it up, the inverse of 21 that is that per dollar spent on treatment you get a 22 much bigger bang for your buck than you do for 23 source country control. 24 By their calculations, source country 25 control interdiction and domestic enforcement don't 174 1 2 even break even, that is the costs exceed the 3 benefits. 4 So so I am saying that's an example of 5 stuff that can be done right now without any changes 6 in the laws. 7 This is a statement by -- the fear of 8 drug prohibition is that if you let loose a little 9 bit on the controls you will get an explosion in use 10 and an explosion in addiction. 11 This is Dr. Kleber's estimate. I mean 12 I think it's more a guess than anything with an 13 economic basis but in any case I am going to address 14 this fear as an economist, what do we really know 15 about what happens in drug markets. 16 Historical, socialogical, economic 17 evidence all of it indicates that drug use like 18 other consumption is primarily determined by taste, 19 norms, fads, fashions, rather than laws or costs. 20 I mean costs and laws have an effect 21 at the margins, but not overall. 22 I think we will start with an example 23 of alcohol consumption during prohibition, it fell 24 dramatically at first by the time prohibition was 25 over, thirteen years later, alcohol consumption was 175 1 2 up to an estimated seventy percent of what it had 3 been preprohibition and then it stayed there, 4 amazingly enough for another ten years when 5 prohibition was lifted. 6 My sense of what happened is light 7 drinkers stopped drinking all together then they 8 just didn't pick up again when prohibition was 9 lifted. 10 While the heavy drinkers soon found 11 their alcohol and kept right ongoing, prohibition or 12 not. 13 Again another illustration of what has 14 of how much more important tastes are to laws, 15 prisons are full of illegal drugs. 16 If you can't keep them out of prisons, 17 prisoners who like drugs will get their drugs even 18 if it means smuggling them past the guards. 19 On the other hand, most people even 20 given the opportunity will not try drugs. 21 And that's the third example up there 22 which comes from a Casa report survey of drug use in 23 a survey of 6th through 12th graders, thirty percent 24 said they could easily get cocaine or heroin however 25 eighty percent of the same group, none of their 176 1 2 circles of friends used hard drugs, thirteen percent 3 less than half, five percent said more than half and 4 again CASA as you know defines any drug use as 5 abuse. 6 So the point is most people with easy 7 access to drugs won't touch them but people who are 8 committed to using drugs are going to get them 9 anyhow, regardless of what the laws are. 10 These are some national statistics, 11 again, people also prefer safer drugs. 12 I am not going to go into that here, 13 but the marijuana is much more prevalent than 14 cocaine which is between much more prevalent than 15 heroin and on the other hand alcohol is vastly more 16 popular than the other drugs. 17 The second thing is from the Harvard 18 survey of drinking in colleges and they in passing 19 surveyed the other drugs. 20 But again and I don't know where Dr. 21 Kleber gets his figure on 2 million cocaine addicts, 22 even -- these are the numbers the national 23 households survey, even 1.3 once a month is not 24 addiction and that's not 2 million. 25 So, as an economist I am going to look 177 1 2 at characteristics of drug users to see how drug 3 users behave, who they are and what that means for 4 policy I have divided drug users up into three 5 categories here for purposes of understanding 6 behavior, experimenters are very, very light users, 7 there are lots of them. 8 Regular users, that is people who use 9 drugs on a regular basis but their use is not out of 10 control then heavy users, abusers, over at the right 11 and you can see some of the comparisons there, the 12 heavy use, the heavy users are the smallest group 13 but of course they consume most of what gets 14 consumed. 15 The entry to the group will come back 16 to but that's curiosity, peer pressure, easy 17 opportunity, is most important to becoming a light 18 user then you move on to being a heavier user if you 19 enjoy the experience you escape problems and in each 20 case you are moving on to a much smaller group. 21 What's most interesting down at the 22 bottom there is how people are likely to respond to 23 public policy. 24 Treatment, regular users are going to 25 be resistent, their use isn't out of control, 178 1 2 addicts may be more perceptive, public information 3 depends on credibility. 4 Law enforcement has some effect on 5 light users, minimum effect on the others, response 6 to price is not important to either light users or 7 regular users and the reason for that is that 8 regular users often deal and in dealing drugs they 9 are essentially paying for their own use by passing 10 it on to their customers who will either be the 11 heavy users or the experimenters. 12 However, a response to convenience, 13 convenience is very important for a light user, not 14 so important for the other user, the heavy users who 15 are connected. 16 In any case the effect of prohibition 17 on the drug market is to create what I call a 18 Tupperware market. 19 Everybody who is out there using at 20 all regularly is also out there selling. 21 The sellers are everywhere, most of 22 them sell very little and they don't make much money 23 at it, but they are out there everywhere, they are 24 in the schools, they are at work, they are in homes, 25 they are in the playgrounds, everywhere you go there 179 1 2 are dealers and this is a direct consequence of drug 3 prohibition. 4 I cited up at the top a Rand study of 5 Washington, D.C. in which an absolutely staggering 6 number of young black men and teenagers are involved 7 in dealing drugs. 8 Most of them started out dealing 9 without using, then they become users. 10 As they get a little older, they are 11 out there dealing, they are both working at low wage 12 jobs and they are dealing to support their habits. 13 This is very consistent with the 14 sentencing project findings, too. 15 The numbers are astounding, there you 16 have the figures from the urban institute survey, 17 sixteen percent of -- these are kids around 15, 16, 18 had sold drugs and eleven percent had used drugs, 19 there is actually not too much overlap between the 20 two, that is the sellers are generally not the 21 users, but again the figures are staggering. 22 This is dividing up our three kinds of 23 users again to see what the effect of policy will 24 be, low income heavy users are most affected by 25 price. 180 1 2 Which means if the price falls their 3 consumption will increase but you are talking about 4 a very small group. 5 The other two groups control their 6 use, they are not much affected by price. 7 For light users it's access that's 8 important and that's a very critical issue because 9 if you are talking about children encountering drugs 10 for the first time, it's access that counts for more 11 than anything else. 12 If their friends are passing them out 13 they may try drugs, if their friends aren't they 14 won't. 15 Our middle group which is actually the 16 key group the regular users are not affected either 17 by convenience or price because they can balance 18 off-price fluctuations by dealing. 19 This is a little bit of information 20 from the Rand study again on supply and demand 21 control for cocaine, the first graph just shows the 22 plummet of price in cocaine right in the midst of 23 the drug war the price of cocaine was going down, 24 down, down, down which shows just how effective the 25 drug war was, so the real price of cocaine plunged 181 1 2 and yet at the same time I think for reasons of 3 health and a whole variety of other reasons, casual 4 use declined, let's go on to the next one. 5 Is very interesting, the top graph 6 shows that during that same period that the price 7 was plunging the number of light users was going 8 down dramatically, too while the number of heavy 9 users remained about constant and probably per 10 capita almost exactly constant. 11 But if you the heavy users consumed 12 more and between you are talking about a very small 13 group and they consumed more I would say basically 14 because the price went down. 15 But in terms of this fear that if the 16 price goes down people are going to start taking 17 cocaine all over the place, look at what happened. 18 The price went down at the same time 19 that the light users reduced their use. 20 So now I am coming on to policy and I 21 think these are three sensible limited objectives of 22 policy. 23 Obviously no one disagrees, help heavy 24 users and abusers, control their use and avoid 25 endangering their health, no disagreement with that 182 1 2 at all. 3 The second one I think is critical 4 which is to reduce the population of user dealers, 5 especially teenage user dealers because they are the 6 source of drugs for under age people and third, 7 minimize the access and appeal of drugs to 8 teenagers, which as you will see amounts to pretty 9 much the same thing. 10 I am referring the teenage dealer user 11 connection. 12 The CASA survey asked teenagers why 13 they think someone gets started on drugs and two of 14 the responses were because friends use drugs and to 15 be cool, if you put those together you have got a 16 very strong impact of peer pressure. 17 So what you have going on here, if you 18 have teenage dealers sell to heavy users to make 19 money, teenage dealers become users if they aren't 20 already, teenage user dealers turn other teenagers 21 on to drugs. 22 So at the very least if we want to 23 protect teenagers from being exposed to drugs before 24 they don't have much judgment, we've got to get the 25 teenage user dealers out of the market as best we 183 1 2 can. 3 This is very well-known, it's 4 discussed in the Rand study. 5 The reason teenagers deal is they have 6 very low earning opportunities elsewhere, even if 7 they are middle class, if they have a poor education 8 this is doubly true because they don't have much 9 prospects either, they are less risk averse and they 10 face lower criminal penalties. 11 What follows from this as long as 12 there exists a large illicit market, teenagers will 13 dominate low volume retail sales, that means 14 teenagers are going to be out there selling or 15 offering drugs to other teenagers. 16 So now getting down to more specifics, 17 if we want to reduce the numbers of teenage user 18 dealers, we have to shrink the black market in which 19 they operate. 20 That means number one you want to get 21 their primary customers out of the market. 22 If we want to get heavy users and 23 addicts out of the market, because those are the 24 primary customers of the teenage user dealers and 25 Ethan has gone through a lot of different proposals 184 1 2 for that, nobody disagrees, provide treatment to 3 anyone who wants it. 4 Upgrade methadone treatment, even 5 provide hard drugs in a very limited fashion, just 6 to get the market off the streets. 7 Secondly, between this is what the 8 Dutch are doing or the British are doing, is if you 9 give adult users some limited access to these -- to 10 the drugs, it again reduces the opportunities for 11 teenagers in an illegal market. 12 So in other words Dr. Kleber is 13 talking about how you don't -- how a certain number 14 of people if they are exposed are going to become 15 addicted and so forth, if you want to stop underage 16 exposure to drugs, you have got to get rid of the 17 teenage user dealers. 18 I don't see any other opportunity to 19 do that except by trying to minimize the black 20 market in this fashion. 21 It looks like The New York Times has 22 sort of gotten the message, this is their editorial 23 last Saturday on the report of the sentencing 24 project which is the absolute devastating effect of 25 the drug markets on low income black neighborhoods. 185 1 2 There again you have these young men 3 out there selling drugs, most of them work they make 4 a little extra money they smoke a little dope for 5 recreation and next thing they know they are in jail 6 for ten years. 7 I am saying to some extent I am not 8 making a new argument, here one of the arguments 9 made by the opponents to alcohol prohibition was 10 that alcohol prohibition endangered children. 11 Quite apart from the gunfire in the 12 streets, there was a concern that as this woman 13 stated, that when you banned alcohol, you couldn't 14 control access of children and children were going 15 to the speakeasys when they never would have gone to 16 the saloons beforehand. 17 So that prohibition, certainly if it 18 was intended to protect children it was backfiring 19 and that's sort of the gist of my message here, it's 20 the duty of economists to proclaim the law of 21 unintended consequences and that's exactly what we 22 have here in trying to protect children we are 23 actually exposing children to drugs far more than 24 under some sensible system of control and 25 restriction. 186 1 2 Do you have questions? 3 MR. BROWN: We have time for some 4 questions from the audience. 5 This young lady in the front row. 6 THE AUDIENCE: As an economist I was 7 wondering if you could answer a couple of questions 8 for me, if you could maybe talk a little bit about 9 the prison boom and construction on the U.S. 10 The relationship between our surplus 11 population and the crime drug rates and our 12 imprisonment rates if there is a relationship 13 between our unemployed surplus population and our 14 imprisonment rates little more of the relationship 15 between drug use and socio-economic factors of those 16 people who are using and selling drugs. 17 I was wondering if you ever thought 18 about the effects of decriminalization on those 19 hundreds of thousands of people who do make a living 20 by selling drugs, what will happen to these people 21 when they become a little bit more unemployed, will 22 crime rates then of course go up even further? 23 MS. CLEVELAND: I am not sure what you 24 mean by surplus population, I hope there isn't any 25 surplus population here. 187 1 2 THE AUDIENCE: They are in the 3 prisons. 4 MS. CLEVELAND: Surplus population is 5 in the prisons. 6 I doubt the occupants of the prisons 7 would consider themselves surplus, but to start with 8 your last question, yes, this is a problem that the 9 legal markets of all sorts not just drug markets 10 provide employment for marginal people, but we are 11 dealing -- that's a problem with the economy and 12 it's something I have dealt with elsewhere in terms 13 of questions of distribution of wealth and 14 opportunity. 15 However I don't think providing people 16 with dangerous life threatening jobs is really a 17 solution to the problem of marginal people. 18 I mean you are talking about a much 19 broader problem of education, obviously our schools 20 need to be better, I am sort of at a loss as to how 21 to answer it further. 22 Can you be more specific, what in 23 particular? 24 THE AUDIENCE: You are sort of 25 touching on it but basically what I was trying to 188 1 2 ask and convey is the problem of -- for me being a 3 young person especially, the lack of hope of me 4 getting a job and I have a college education for 5 people who are perhaps not even out of high school, 6 the problems of employment are very real and 7 feelings of hopelessness. 8 I think that's all related to our drug 9 problems, our crime problems, our prison populations 10 and by unemployed surplus population that's what I 11 meant, the people who are underemployed or 12 unemployed with very little hope of anything, 13 especially with manual labor and other jobs being 14 pushed out of the country or taken over by say 15 computers of some sort. 16 Does that clear it up for you? 17 MS. CLEVELAND: I mean you are 18 talking -- drugs are just part of just one part of 19 the economy, yes, there is unemployment and I would 20 argue that our tax system creates much less 21 employment at the lower end than there would be if 22 there wasn't such a biased tax system, but yes, it 23 doesn't have anything to do with drugs and yes if 24 people are hopeless, you get a lot of not hopeless 25 people in Hollywood taking a lot of drugs. 189 1 2 MR. BROWN: Does anyone else have any 3 questions? 4 From the panel? 5 MR. DOYLE: Going to your focus on 6 teenage user dealers or the user dealers that 7 distribute to teenagers, what specifically would you 8 do to get them out of neighborhoods and schools, do 9 you have a specific proposal for that? 10 MS. CLEVELAND: To get teenage user 11 dealers out of neighborhoods and schools, I see no 12 alternative but to take their market away. 13 What keeps them going is that they are 14 selling into a very large black market and they have 15 what we call a comparative advantage in operating in 16 that market because they are willing to work for 17 very low wages. 18 So the only way to stop this -- these 19 are kids, these are kids who are ruining their 20 lives, the only way to get them out of this activity 21 is to take their market away. 22 Now, if you follow the tentative 23 directions in Europe of providing drugs to addicts 24 in clinics, prescribing methadone, our methadone 25 programs in this country are an absolute disgrace, 190 1 2 they are so tied up in red tape that they are almost 3 totally ineffective. 4 The only way to substantially reduce 5 the number of teenage user dealers is to dry up the 6 black market and that means getting most of the 7 heavy drug use out of the black market. 8 MS. ROCHLEN: But you are not talking 9 about making drugs available to minors, are you? 10 MS. CLEVELAND: On the contrary, I am 11 trying to make drugs available not to minors. 12 If you to have a black market you 13 aren't going to have teenagers starting off dealing 14 drugs then of course you know they sample the 15 merchandise and the next thing you know they are 16 regular users. 17 Are you asking about what you do about 18 underage addicts? 19 MS. ROCKLEN: I think as I said 20 earlier one of the biggest issues we have struggled 21 with is getting rid of the black market as far as 22 adults are concerned doesn't address the problem of 23 teenage interest in drugs or alcohol or anything 24 that may be new, exciting and sexy and that seems to 25 imply there will continue to be a black market at 191 1 2 least to supply minors. 3 MS. CLEVELAND: You are absolutely 4 right and this is of course there will continue to 5 be a black market and that's why we don't want to 6 look at this problem in terms of absolutes or 7 either/or but if you get the black market very small 8 so that it's sort of disintegrates, then -- and when 9 you recognize that most of the people to do the 10 selling or at least the retail end of the selling 11 are under age, you have accomplished something. 12 If you've got the black market down to 13 ten percent of what it was before, then that -- and 14 most of the people who were dealing in the black 15 market were under age, you have gotten an awful lot 16 of young people out of the black market, out of 17 operating in the black market. 18 There is no such thing as perfect. 19 MS. ROCKLEN: I suppose maybe it's 20 fair. 21 MS. CLEVELAND: It's better, it's not 22 perfect, but it's better than what we've got now. 23 MS. ROCKLEN: By analogy it's not my 24 impression there is a black market in making 25 alcoholic substances available to teenagers, I have 192 1 2 to assume there is some but I'm not aware there is 3 an organized black market delivering alcohol to 4 teenagers. 5 MS. CLEVELAND: That's correct, you 6 don't see for what it's worth, you don't see alcohol 7 being smuggled into schools and sold in schools so 8 that if you are a parent, you have a better chance 9 of keeping your kids away from alcohol if you make 10 sure you know what sorts of parties they are going 11 to than you have a chance of keeping your kids away 12 from drugs because the drugs are being dealt in the 13 schools and alcohol is not. 14 No program is airtight and it also 15 depends upon the cooperation of adults. 16 There is a massive amount of underage 17 drinking and smoking but the basic reason for that 18 is that adults tend to look the other way. 19 Kids who drink in high school get it 20 from their older siblings or older friends or from 21 their parents. 22 For any system to work to keep drugs 23 or alcohol or cigarettes from children, you have to 24 have adult cooperation. 25 If you don't have adult cooperation, 193 1 2 yes then of course the kids are going to get it but 3 the idea is just to make it harder you can't make it 4 impossible but you can make it harder. 5 MR. BROWN: Are there any more 6 questions from the audience? 7 THE AUDIENCE: It seems one of the key 8 issues is whether drug abuse itself is something 9 negative, you want to reduce kids if you don't want 10 to access for them or whether the effects, the 11 social effects that come with drug abuse you know a 12 kind of prohibition system which is drug users 13 selling to kids becoming involved in the whole 14 criminal justice system so that it clogs up the 15 system that people are ineffective. 16 How do you propose to separate those 17 two issues, make one a health care issue, saying 18 just say no drugs are bad have parents involved. 19 So alcohol there is still a whole 20 movement to try to educate kids on when to drink, 21 wait until you are 21, you don't have crime, you do 22 have teenage Mafia, the issue is you make money out 23 of judges, you become part of a gang so you don't 24 work at McDonalds, there is a whole system to put 25 money in your pocket then you become addicted but 194 1 2 that's a health issue, I have to feel like the issue 3 has to be separated. 4 I am wondering how you propose to 5 separate it. 6 MS. CLEVELAND: I don't understand 7 quite what your question is, can you put it in terms 8 of a question? 9 THE AUDIENCE: The teenage drug user 10 and you are say he sells drugs then he becomes a 11 user because he's dealing. 12 I think that's two separate issues, 13 why he's becoming a user and why he's dealing. 14 MS. CLEVELAND: Yes. 15 THE AUDIENCE: You can't have a one 16 tier attack, I think you have to separate either 17 he's going to become an user anyway whether it's 18 with alcohol -- 19 MS. CLEVELAND: Teenagers may become 20 users anyway, but the point is they are much more 21 likely to become users if they are dealers than if 22 drugs are very hard to get. 23 It's not impossible, anybody who wants 24 drugs badly enough can get them, even in Barrow, but 25 this is why I want, we don't want to look at things 195 1 2 in extremes. 3 It's better if it's harder for 4 children to get them, you can't make it impossible 5 and no, a lot of teenage marijuana, experimentation 6 is probably pretty harmless for most of them, but 7 you would rather they waited until they had more 8 judgment. 9 But again it's always a matter of 10 degree rather than of an either/or. 11 MR. BROWN: We are going to have to 12 cut short for now I would like to thank you very 13 much for appearing on behalf of the Committee and we 14 will reconvene at 2:00 for the rest of the witnesses 15 for this afternoon. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 196 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25