National Radio Project

MAKING CONTACT

Transcript: #23-01 Quick Fixes: U.S. Drug Policy
June 6, 2001

Program description, guest contact information and audio files at http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2001/2301.html

Philip Babich: This week on Making Contact....

Ethan Nadlemann: All of the evidence shows that no matter what you do internationally, it has no impact on the domestic drug abuse problems of the United States.

Prentiss Alexander: My son, who's a non-violent offender, didn't kill anybody, didn't shoot anybody, you know, didn't stab anybody -- gets 20 years. I really think that poor people get a raw deal, a really raw deal.

Phillip Babich: The U.S. government has spent tens of billions of dollars on the so-called War on Drugs. Today, deaths from drug overdoses and the number of drug-related emergency room visits are at record levels.

On this program we take a look at whether stiff prison sentences and international drug interdiction efforts are reducing illegal drug use in the United States. We also examine some alternatives.

I'm Phillip Babich -- your host this week on Making Contact -- an international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information.

Across the United States, jails and prisons are brimming with inmates convicted of drug-related charges, many of them non-violent. The U.S. population behind bars has surpassed two million, and the overcrowding has caused some policymakers to rethink mandatory minimum sentences. In May 2001, the Louisiana state legislature voted to reduce drug possession sentences and end some mandatory minimum sentences. Alabama lawmakers are taking a look at their drug sentencing guidelines as the state's prison commissioner reports that they have "run out of space."

Here's a case in point: A prison in California was so crowded that when a newly arrived inmate, Kevin Alexander, was transferred from another facility he had to spend time in solitary confinement until a standard cell opened up. Sentenced under mandatory minimum laws, Alexander was arrested in 1989 for his involvement in a cocaine sale.

According to his mother, Prentiss Alexander, Kevin was set-up by a disgruntled ex-girlfriend, who introduced him to an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration official. The DEA agent asked Kevin if he knew where to get some cocaine. The agent made several small purchases through Kevin, then asked if it was possible to make a large purchase, 4 kilograms. Prentiss Alexander, who attended all of her son's court proceedings and followed his case closely, says the DEA agent asked Kevin to meet her in a restaurant to make arrangements for the purchase.

Prentiss Alexander: When my son and the lady met in the restaurant, she showed Kevin the money. Kevin was supposed to produce four kilos of cocaine the following day. Okay, he did, he was able to get the four kilos, but then when she asked him how did it come, he said it was in powder form. She said "Oh, could you have it rocked up for us?" .my son said "Well, I don't know, but I can go and ask the people," and so they did, they rocked it up for him, and it's like rocking up ten more years on his sentence, because you get less time for powder as opposed to rock cocaine.

Phillip Babich: Kevin picked up the rock -- or crack -- cocaine and took it to the undercover agent the next day.

Prentiss Alexander: They had picked a spot for them to meet down by the water, actually it was a dead-end down by the water, and he drove over there, he saw this person. She walked over to the car, she nodded her head and that was the sign for the FBI. They all rushed over, snatched my son out of the car, kicked him, stomped him. And then they were looking for a weapon, but my son, who was non-violent, he's never been involved in any violent activities, and they said he didn't have a gun. So, I mean, my son wasn't out to kill people. He had been in-between jobs and it's hard to find employment so with four, I think four children that he has, unfortunately, it's a means of survival.

Phillip Babich: For brokering the sale, Kevin was sentenced to 20 years in prison with no chance of parole. Prentiss knew her son should do some time for his crime, but when she got news that Kevin would spend two decades behind bars she was shattered.

Prentiss Alexander: Oh god, that was the most depressing day of my life. I was just, you know, just cried for a long time, wake up in the morning, have dreams, thinking your son is home, and he's not home. It's just like a nightmare, you know, just like it was for him too.

Phillip Babich: And for his family. One of Kevin's children has never seen her father outside prison. His first several years were spent in a prison in Phoenix, Arizona, many miles away from family in northern California.

Prentiss Alexander: Every time I go to visit, I take his children with me. I was usually only able to visit like once a year, because he was so far away. I took his four children, along with -- I have 11 grandchildren, I couldn't take all eleven, so I would take a couple of my grandchildren, with his four and we'd make a trip out there once a year, after I got my income tax back. We'd rent a van and drive the 12-13 hours to Phoenix, Arizona and he would always be glad to see us, but it's always so sad when we leave and the kids would cry. And I cried for about the first five years, but now I guess it's -- I'm just starting to feel like a hardened criminal myself. You know, just from being there, back and forth. So I guess it's -- it does get a little easier, but the pain never goes away.

Phillip Babich: The Bush Administration is likely to continue emphasizing long prison sentences as a primary component of its drug policy. On May 10, 2001, President Bush nominated John P. Walters to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

President Bush: I'm pleased to announce that, as of today, the federal government is waging an all out effort to reduce illegal drug use in America. And I'm proud to nominate John P. Walters as my director of national drug control policy, where he will serve as a valuable member of my cabinet.

Phillip Babich: Walters, former Deputy Director of Supply Reduction under Bush Sr.'s drug czar, William Bennett, stands firmly against reducing prison sentences for drug offenders. In a March 5, 2001, commentary in the conservative Weekly Standard, Walters wrote that "instead of retreating from punishment, we should be contemplating the limited demographic window before us: by 2010, the population between the ages of 15 and 17, just entering crime-prone years, will be 31 percent larger than it was in 1990." His claims are reminiscent of charges he and co-authors Bennett and John Dilulio made in the book Body Count, which asserted that young "super-predators" threaten our safety.

Upon accepting Bush's nomination at a Rose Garden ceremony, Walters said that when government agencies "push back, the drug problem gets smaller."

John P. Walters: We will especially protect our children from drug use, we will help the addicted find effective treatment and remain in recovery, we will shield our communities from the terrible human toll taken by illegal drugs, we will stop illegal drug use and the drug trade from funding threats to democratic institutions throughout our hemisphere."

Phillip Babich: Walters was the acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy for a short time during the Clinton Administration, which he has routinely criticized for being soft on drugs, a claim not supported by arrest numbers and incarceration rates. He has also criticized those who say the war on drugs is too severe and racially biased. Walters cites what he terms are three great urban myths of our time: 1) we are imprisoning too many people for possessing illegal drugs; 2) drug sentences are too long and harsh; and the third urban myth, according to Walters, is that "the criminal justice system is unjustly punishing young black men."

Ethan Nadlemann: The worrisome thing is how delusional John Walters is being when he says things like that.

Phillip Babich: Ethan Nadlemann, a leading proponent of drug policy reform, is executive director of the Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Foundation.

Ethan Nadlemann: You look in New York State, 95 percent of all the people incarcerated for violating the Rockefeller and other drug laws, are black or Latino. You look as some federal judicial districts around the United States and not one white person has ever been prosecuted on a crack offense, crack cocaine offense, even though many are showing up looking for treatment. You look at the evidence, the number of white people incarcerated on drug charges maybe doubled between the 80's and 90's. The number of black people incarcerated went up more than 10-fold. It was the number one factor driving the rapid growth in incarceration of young African-American men and now women. So I think what it goes to, I think, is that the President is willing to appoint somebody who has not the slightest regard for the facts or the evidence.

Phillip Babich: President Bush has selected Republican Congressman Asa Hutchinson to head the Drug Enforcement Administration. A former prosecutor, Hutchinson is a strong supporter of U.S. military involvement in Colombia and has said that the war on drugs is "imperative." Kevin Zeese, President of Common Sense for Drug Policy, says Bush's choices for key law enforcement and drug policy positions means government efforts to reduce drug use will be focused on military and police tactics, not public health strategies.

Kevin Zeese: The Walters nomination is beginning to round out basically a drug war cabinet, led by John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, who was one of the harshest drug warriors in the Senate, and whose first statement when he became Attorney General was his desire to escalate the war on drugs -- actually using those words 'War on Drugs'. And then you have Asa Hutchinson, who is the former impeachment prosecutor from Arkansas, who also is a very long-term, drug warrior, very harsh drug warrior, who believes that we should call the drug war and should fight it very aggressively and primarily with a law-enforcement, military-type effort. And of course there's John Walters, the Drug Czar, and then they're considering for the FBI, a former DEA head for Bush One, Jack Lawn. So we're starting to see really a very much a harsh drug war cabinet that will be pushing a more militaristic, more law-enforcement minded drug war, and it's happening at a time when the American public is starting to turn away from the drug war. The voters have voted in over a dozen initiatives in the last three election cycles against the drug war. They voted for medical marijuana, they voted for ending forfeiture abuse by police, they voted for marijuana decriminalization, and they voted for treatment instead of prison. And yet we have the Bush Administration going backwards to the old military law-enforcement strategy, rather than forwards to a public health approach.

Phillip Babich: You're listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, or if you'd like to get in touch with any of our guests, we'll be giving out our toll free number at the end of this program...

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy -- essentially the war room of U.S. drug policy -- oversees about $19 billion in annual federal spending. The office coordinates anti-drug efforts with a multitude of federal departments, including Defense, Justice, State and the Treasury. Some of the office's resources are directed toward domestic drug treatment programs, but most of its budget is spent on prosecution and drug interdiction.

When it comes to drug treatment, U.S. policy emphasizes abstinence. But many public health officials and community organizers say that approach may ultimately hurt drug users. Instead, they advocate an alternative philosophy known as harm reduction, a health care method that seeks to reduce risks associated with drug use. Correspondent Ed Rippy has more.

Ed Rippy: The Harm Reduction Coalition and Training Institute, is a national organization working in the United States to provide information on how to avoid many risks associated with drug use. They give training to health care and community service workers and distribute pamphlets such as the 'Straight Dope' series, which has information on various drugs, how to avoid overdosing, and what to do if a friend overdoses. Maria Chavez-King is West Coast Regional Director of the Institute. She says so-called U.S drug policy is just an excuse to lock up an unwanted underclass, throw away the key, and forget them:

Maria Chavez-King: Drug use is not about one individual and their drug use, it's about a society that consistently has not found ways to deal with community issues in a way that minimizes harm and promotes the health and well-being of the entire community. We've come up with solutions that have devastated communities and that will continue - I think the repercussions - for example, the jailing of large portions of the African-American community and the Latino community behind drug offenses and behind people's drug use - that's going to have repercussions for many, many years to come.

Ed Rippy: Chavez-King says that criminalizing people and locking them up harms them and their communities far more than the drugs themselves. A 1997 issue of "Harm Reduction Communication," the coalition's magazine, contains a personal plea from a member whose friend died of a heroin overdose. It implores the reader not to shoot up alone and to test the contents of each bag before using it all. The anonymous East Coast professional concludes with "It would break my heart to read about your death from an overdose next month or next year. And we can't afford to lose you."

Chavez-King's goal is to expose the so-called War On Drugs as another vehicle to attack the same people who, she says, have always borne the brunt of U.S. oppression: people of color and poor people:

Maria Chavez-King: We're talking about how information about overdose can prevent somebody from overdosing, we're talking about many, many deaths that happen here, and they are all preventable. And we're talking about the people that our society has decided are expendable. Those people are drug users, they're people of color, they're people who are poor people, they're people who don't conform.

Ed Rippy: Harm reduction advocates say that most drug treatment programs don't take each recovering addict's personal needs into account. Janine Guerriere, program co-ordinator at the Harm Reduction Coalition and Training Institute, is also a volunteer with the Berkeley Needle Exchange. She says she wants people to be as safe, happy, and healthy as possible whether or not they use drugs. She went through a traditional drug treatment program, but found it highly regimented and authoritarian. She recounts how the authorities stripped her of all her dignity, even watching her while she gave mandatory urine samples.

Janine Guerriere: I didn't decide I wanted to be completely and totally abstinent when I was in treatment, the treatment program did. I mean, I went there, of course, it was voluntary, but it's not respectful because they don't really ask for any input from the person who's going for treatment. It's pretty much- they define the goals, whereas in Harm Reduction, I'm able to define my own goals and decide what I want to do with my drug use. So it's empowering. It makes me feel like I'm making the decisions for my life around my drug use - which everybody gets to do, but in terms of when you're actually going and seeking help you don't usually get to make your own decisions.

Ed Rippy: Many users don't seek medical attention when they need it for fear of being turned in to the police. Guerriere says the stigma they face as criminals leads to preventable deaths by blood poisoning, infections, overdoses or impurities in the drugs. Advocates for the so-called War On Drugs say that doing anything less than prosecuting drug users shows approval for illegal drug use. Guerierre says this is uncaring, writing drug users off as human beings. People in the Harm Reduction Movement, she says, are more compassionate, and committed to meeting the users where they are. The staff at the traditional program she went to, she says, treated people as though they owned them.

Janine Guerriere: Without them I was just a junkie and if I didn't do exactly what they said, and follow all their rules, and not talk to any of the men in the program, because that was one of the rules -- women and men weren't allowed to speak to each other. If I didn't make my bed perfectly right, if my clothes weren't folded perfectly right, if all these little things weren't correct then I was just nothing but a junkie - that's just the feeling that I got. I didn't feel that I was supported in a way that was going to actually help me to stay off of drugs, although I did, but I think it was more through sheer willpower than anything.

Ed Rippy: Emanuel Saferios is the Founder and Director of Dance Safe, a national harm reduction organization promoting health and safety in the rave and night club scene. Dance-Safe furthers harm reduction by providing information and services to those who choose to use drugs, such as Ecstasy, and training young people to educate their peers. Saferios says his program has been well accepted by law enforcement:

Emanuel Saferios: Even with our on-site adulterant screening or pill-testing program we have negotiated amnesty arrangements with police in a dozen cities around the country; police who agree not to arrest the user approaching our booth because they understand that it's a vital health and safety service similar to needle exchange programs. Or if someone overdoses and is taken to a hospital, there's a lot of departments -- unfortunately not all the police departments around the country -- but most will have policies where they won't pursue charges against someone seeking medical attention for a drug overdose, because if they did, then people wouldn't seek that medical attention and there'd be a lot more deaths. It's the same type of amnesty that we've been able to negotiate with the police as well.

Ed Rippy: Dance Safe distributes cards which look like the cards advertising raves but contain information on various drugs: their appearance, effects at different doses, and possible side effects. They also sell kits to identify different drugs so users can know what they're getting. Saferios says these approaches are helping:

Emanuel Saferios: Young people will get their pills tested more often to make sure that they're not getting some of the more dangerous compounds. They'll start with half a pill to see how strong it is before they take another. They won't mix drugs. They'll lessen their use. Some people abstain.

Ed Rippy: But Saferios knows not everyone will choose to abstain and believes that giving those who continue to use drugs accurate information about the risks is the best way to reduce their harm. For Making Contact, this Is Ed Rippy.

Phillip Babich: Over the past decade needle exchange programs across the United States have demonstrated success in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases among intravenous substance abusers. Connecticut was one of the first states to initiate needle exchange programs in the early 1990s. In January 2001 a federal court issued a precedent-setting ruling that protects needle exchange clients in Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city. As correspondent Scott Harris reports, the court said it was unlawful for police to harass individuals participating in syringe exchange programs.

Scott Harris: Bridgeport's needle exchange program got its start in 1993 and operates like many others around the nation. A van staffed by health department employees travels to various areas of the city on a regular schedule. At the van intravenous drug users turn in their old needles in exchange for new sterile syringes and healthy doses of risk reduction counseling and substance abuse treatment referrals from the staff. Robin Clark Smith oversees the city health department's needle exchange program:

Robin Clark Smith: Really the reality here is to get people off of the streets and get them clean. We, I think, put 77 people in the last three months into some form of treatment. So it's not just syringe exchange, it's offering the necessary services that are available, and you meet the clients where their needs are. If they need counseling and testing, if they find out that someone they had sex with a couple of years ago is positive, those are just some of the things. But the idea is to offer services to the clients who may be alienated from other places that are a little bit less user friendly.

Scott Harris: The National Institutes of Health has concluded from numerous studies that needle exchange programs have reduced HIV and AIDS transmission among injecting drug users by 33 to 40 percent. NIH has also found that needle exchange projects do not increase the use of drugs as charged by some critics.

Although Connecticut decriminalized possession of syringes in 1990, as have 13 other states, police harassment of needle exchange clients has discouraged participation. As is common at the 140 locations where needle exchange programs now operate, Bridgeport police have routinely confiscated or destroyed syringes found on drug users, sometimes arresting them for trace amounts of narcotics found in the needles.

The law enforcement intimidation prompted the American Civil Liberties Union, the Connecticut Harm Reduction Coalition and two anonymous needle exchange clients to file a lawsuit against the Bridgeport Police Department in federal court. Graham Boyd is the director of the ACLU's Drug Policy Litigation Project and one of the attorneys who argued the case.

Graham Boyd: Police all around the country have, and unfortunately in many places continue to harass people in legal needle exchanges, and most people have thought, you know you don't want to stand up and make an issue out of this, because if you do there might be a backlash. You know if we actually stand up and say the police have to respect our rights, there might be a backlash. And so, it's been an issue that's just been swept under the rug, you try to work it out through negotiations, but you never really go to court over it. That's been the conventional wisdom for ten years now. In Bridgeport, the activists, the people who organized themselves got together and said "This is something we really want to stand up and defend our rights." And there has been an attempted backlash. There was a bill introduced into the state legislature to basically overturn our court decision, saying "No, take away these rights from these drug addicts." But I think common sense has prevailed and the idea is that people should, whether they're using drugs or not, they don't need to be getting AIDs, their innocent children don't need to be born with AIDS or HIV and so we should have needle exchange.

Scott Harris: In a strongly worded decision issued in January 2001 - the Connecticut federal court ruled that police may not interfere with any public health initiative that effectively combats disease though education and prevention. AIDS activists and others in the health field around the country hailed the decision as a precedent that they hope will deter future police harassment.

Waldemer Jimenez is an HIV risk reduction counselor who works on the Bridgeport Health Department's needle exchange van. He feels strongly that the development of trust between clients and health workers is key to building an effective program that reduces the spread of infectious diseases while providing substance abusers the opportunity for treatment to overcome their addiction.

Valdemer Jimenez: While they come to a place that they feel that they can talk to the staff, that they can joke with the staff, that they can tell what's going on in their life, they can ask for things, I think the trust there is a very, very important issue. If you don't have that, I don't think you're going to get too much from the clients.

Scott Harris: Despite the documented success of needle exchange programs across the U.S. and around the world, the federal government has refused to fundprograms like Bridgeport's. President Clinton ignored the advice of his own Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to allocate funds supporting syringe exchange, fearing that his administration would be labeled soft on drugs.

Matthew Briggs is a research associate with the Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Foundation.

Matthew Briggs: Here we continue to decry needle exchange as an endorsement of drug use and all this nonsense, when study after study was indicating that it reduces the spread of HIV and other infectious diseases, including hepatitis C, without increasing drug use. I mean it's a win-win situation, science is on our side, humanity is on our side and drug war logic and cruelty is on the other side.

Scott Harris: With the appointment of John Walters - a staunch opponent of drug policy reform, as the Bush Administration's new drug czar, it's almost certain that the fight over needle exchange is far from over. For Making Contact I'm Scott Harris in Bridgeport, Connecticut

Phillip Babich: Other advocates of drug policy reform suggest that legalizing some illicit substances could reduce the social costs of the drug trade. Last year, there were over 700,000 arrests for marijuana-related charges in the United States, a staggering figure given that some doctors recommend using the drug for certain health conditions. Ethan Nadlemann of the Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Foundation.

Ethan Nadlemann: The bottom line is, I don't see any justification for continuing marijuana prohibition. Marijuana can be a dangerous drug, any drug can be dangerous. There are people who have marijuana problems, there's problems with kids smoking it before they go to school and what have you. But it's also, probably, as a former DEA judge once said, the least dangerous substance, psychoactive substance, known in human history. You know we've doubled the number of marijuana arrests in this country to almost 700,000 a year, we're taking away kids' eligibility for going to college, getting federal loans, because they once got busted for marijuana. I think whatever harms are associated with marijuana are greatly exceeded by harms associated with marijuana prohibition. Then I look at Europe and you see there they're increasingly moving in the direction of decriminalizing and regulating and ultimately legalizing marijuana. Switzerland, the Netherlands, other countries, and yet their marijuana-use rates among young people, among teenagers, is roughly half what it is in the United States.

Phillip Babich: On May 14, 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that using marijuana for medicinal purposes violates federal law.

President Bush has said that legalization would be a social catastrophe. But Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy says that what we have in this country now is a social catastrophe.

Kevin Zeese: We're seeing our Constitution undermined, we're seeing our adolescent development undermined, we're seeing urban economies undermined, we're seeing racism made worse, we're seeing the spread of HIV/AIDS increase. And we're seeing militarism abroad. So we're seeing on many fronts a whole variety of things made worse because of our approach we're taking. If instead we stepped back and looked at this honestly, and recognized that what we're doing is not working, we would then try a new approach and a new approach would be one that recognized that drug abuse is a public health problem with social and economic consequences.

Phillip Babich: That's it for this edition of Making Contact: A look at U.S. drug policy. Thanks for listening. And special thanks to Robert Frazier for recorded portions.

Laura Livoti is our managing director. Peggy Law, executive director. Associate producers, Stephanie Welch and Shereen Meraji. Women's desk director, Lisa Rudman. Senior advisor, Norman Solomon. National producer, David Barsamian. And, I'm your host and managing producer Phillip Babich.

If you want more information about the subject of this week's program, or you would like to get in touch with any of our guests, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736.