Issue date: 4/2/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Jim Moldenhauer / Daily Vidette Senior Staff

While drugs may not be the best thing to use, their criminalization is causing more harm, according to a panel that discussed the issue at ISU.

At a presentation last Thursday entitled "Prohibition Kills - An Evaluation on the War on Drugs," a panel of people active in the war on drugs spoke on the current war and the lack of progress it has made.

"We're here to say prohibition doesn't work," Greg Francisco, a representative for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, said. "It is well-intentioned, but is a failure."

Francisco, a former member of the U.S. Coast Guard, Drug Interdiction, said he saw a trend after President Ronald Reagan started his zero tolerance policy. He found more of the boats he searched had a lot of weapons.

"I asked them, 'Are those there to be used on us?'" he explained. "They said 'No, they are for the other dealers.'"

Because these drugs are illegal to sell, it creates a demand for them, which means competing dealers have to fight with each other for control of markets.

This creates an arms race, according to Francisco, not just with the dealers, but with the law enforcers as well.

The drug war has had no success in reducing the number of drugs either.

"Between 1986 and 1994 the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] seized over one million kilograms of cocaine," Pete Guither, the author and editor of DrugWarRant.com and assistant to the dean in the College of Fine Arts, said. "That's enough to fill eight A380 airbuses with coke."

Still, in this time, the street price of cocaine went down. These seizes do not affect the supply, more can just be grown, according to Guither.

There is also the matter of social inequalities with the war, added George Pappas, executive director for the IDEAL Reform.

"Whites make up 70 percent of drug users, but 80 percent of those jailed are black," Pappas said. "This is not about pot or the freedom to intoxicate. It is about black and brown people being put into prisons."

IDEAL Reform is a program trying to enact an effective medical cannabis law in Illinois. All three panelists said they agreed that at least decriminalization is the best route to take with these drugs, even if it is taken one step at a time.

"Legalization can come in many different forms," Guither said.

Guither added there are very few politicians that will talk about drug policy.

"If anyone brings it up, they are labeled as peddling drugs to kids," Pappas said.

The event was put on by Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, an organization with many chapters around the country, including ISU.

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