| I know decriminalizing marijuana isn't the biggest issue around, but the war on drugs is one of the larger issues we face. Mandatory minimums on non-violent drug offenses are clogging our prison system with people the government thinks need to be protect from themselves. According to one study:
Contrary to the public perception that the incarceration of violent offenders has driven America's prison growth, the Institute found that 77% of the growth in intake to America's state and federal prisons between 1978 and 1996 was accounted for by nonviolent offenders. According to data collected by the United States Justice Department, from 1978 to 1996, the number of violent offenders entering our nation's prisons doubled (from 43,733 to 98,672 inmates); the number of nonviolent offenders tripled (from 83,721 to 261,796 inmates) and the number of drug offenders increased seven-fold (from 14,241 to 114,071 inmates). Justice Department surveys show that 52.7% of state prison inmates, 73.7% of jail inmates, and 87.6% of federal inmates were imprisoned for offenses which involved neither harm, nor the threat of harm, to a victim. Based on this data, we estimate that by the end of 1998, there were 440,088 nonviolent jail inmates, 639,280 nonviolent state prison inmates, and 106,090 nonviolent federal prisoners locked up in America, for a total 1,185,458 nonviolent prisoners.
Now, there are obviously non-violent crimes for which people should be incarcerated. However, when these non-violent "crimes" are protecting people from themselves, that is simply something that I don't think the government should be in the business of doing. Not to mention that, when combined with mandatory minimums, felony disenfranchisement, and racial profiling, these laws tend to be more of a war on African-American and other youth of color than anything else:
Nationally, more than four million Americans are denied the right to vote as a result of laws that prohibit voting by felons or ex-felons. In 48 states (with the exception of Maine and Vermont) and the District of Columbia prisoners cannot vote, in 35 states felons on probation or parole are disenfranchised, and in 14 states a felony conviction can result in a lifetime ban long after the completion of a sentence. This fundamental obstacle to participation in democratic life is exacerbated by racial disparities in the criminal justice system, resulting in an estimated 13% of black men unable to vote.
This is the case pretty much no matter the specific example, but the problem becomes especially egregious when we are talking about something that at least half of the country has engaged in during their lives:
CNN/Time Poll conducted by Harris Interactive. Oct. 23-24, 2002. N=1,007 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.1.
"According to statistics, lots of people have tried marijuana at least once. How about you, have you tried marijuana at least once?"
Yes 47%--50% No
The actual totals are probably even higher, since there are some people who do not want to tell a stranger that they have broken the law. If half of the country is doing something to their own body out of personal choice, and mandatory minimum laws remain in place, doesn't it strike other people as a bad idea to keep that something illegal?
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like a bad idea to Joe Biden and John Edwards:
Russert: Senator Dodd, you went on the Bill Maher show last month and said that you were for decriminalizing marijuana.
Is there anyone here who disagrees with Senator Dodd in decriminalizing marijuana?
Senator Biden, Senator...
(Laughter)
Senator Edwards, why?
Edwards: Because I think it sends the wrong signal to young people. And I think the president of the United States has a responsibility to ensure that we're sending the right signals to young people.
Dodd: Can I respond just why I think it ought to be?
We're locking up too many people in our system here today. We've got mandatory minimum sentences, they are filling our jails with people that don't belong there.
My idea is to decriminalize this, reduce that problem here. We've gone from 800,000 to 2 million people, in our penal institutions in this country. We've got to get a lot smarter about this issue than we are. And as president, I'd try and achieve that.
Good for Chris Dodd. Bad for Edwards and Biden. Granted most of the people in jail for these offenses are in local and state prisons, so the federal side isn't the most essential piece of the puzzle here. Still, almost half of the federal prison population is incarcerated for non-violent drug offensives, so it does matter. Also, it is very disappointing to me that image is more important than reality here. Is the "message" we send to children more important than the reality of hundreds of thousands of Americans in jail because of marijuana, or that half of the country has tried marijuana? Let me put this in a different perspective. If roughly half of the adult population of the United States has tried marijuana, that means over 100,000,000 Americans are in violation of this law. And if only 1% of those 100,000 are in jail because of it, it certainly seems like certain people and certain groups are being unfairly singled out by a law that the population is openly flaunting. Not only does that strike me as more important than any message we send to children, but it also strikes me that said message is self-defeating from the start. No matter what the President says, kids will quickly learn that a lot of people smoke marijuana from time to time, and almost everyone gets away with it.
Our laws need to be designed around reality, not image or message. Continuing to keep marijuana illegal seems roughly equivalent to the catastrophic failure of Prohibition eighty years ago. Not only should the government not be in the business of regulating personal behavior, it clearly is failing to do so in this area. All it is doing is making a criminal underclass in our society. And it is too bad that Senator Edwards, who usually says very good things, doesn't see that. Hopefully, his mind can be changed. |
