Meet the Drug War Winners & Losers | Common Sense for Drug Policy

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"Meet the Drug War Winners & Losers" Winners: Prison Guards, Prison Owners, and the Drug Testing Industry among others. Losers include Education, Public Safety, Police Departments, and our Children. Isn't it about time we tried peace?

This public service advertisement appeared in the National Review, the New Republic, the American Prospect, The Nation, Reason Magazine, and The Progressive in the spring of 2007.

A camera-ready copy of this PSA is available in Portable Document Format (PDF).

Foot Notes
Prison Guards: Pay scales and benefits – see California Dept. of Personnel Administration Pay Scales, CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitations Correctional Officers Pay & Benefits Membership, political clout – see "Prison Guards' Clout Difficult to Challenge," San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 2, 2004 Prison Owners: see A Critical Look at its First Twenty Years," Grassroots Leadership, Washington, DC, Dec. 2003 CCA Annual Report, 2006 GEO Group, Inc. Annual Report 2006 Drug Testing Industry: Yamaguchi, Ryoko, Lloyd D. Johnston & Patrick M. O'Malley, Relationship Between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug-Testing Policies," Journal of School Health, April 2003, Vol. 73, No. 4, p. 164. QEV Analytics, "National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse VIII: Teens and Parents" (New York, NY: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, August 2003), pp. 20-21. "The Bush Administration has made drug testing a priority and has embarked on a student drug testing initiative to provide resources for communities across the country that want to test students. Implementing a program is a local decision and is not linked to Federal education funding. Currently, there are more than 480 federally funded programs in the Nation, and many others supported by community funds." Executive Office of the President, National Drug Control Strategy, Feb. 2007, p. 16 Official Corruption and Forfeiture: Blumenson, E. & and Nilsen, E., "Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden Economic Agenda," University of Chicago Law Review, 65: 35-114 (1998, Winter). A Guide to Equitable Sharing of Federally Forfeited Property for State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, U.S. Department of Justice, March 1994. Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, US Dept. of Justice, "Assets Forfeiture Fund and Seized Asset Deposit Fund Annual Financial Statement Fiscal Year 2006" (Audit Report 07-15, January 2007), p. 6. Pharmaceutical Industry: Baker, David, Pryce, Gareth, Giovannoni, Gavin, and Thompson, Alan J., "The Therapeutic Potential of Cannabis," The Lancet Neurology, Vol. 2, May 2003, p. 291. Robichaux, Mark, "Researchers Aim to Develop Marijuana Without the High," The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 28, 2001 Barthwell, Andrea G., MD, "From Mockery to Medicine: The Story of the Development of a Serious Modern Medicine," Journal of Global Drug Policy & Practice, July 17, 2006 Terrorists: According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "[T]he value of the global illicit drug market for the year 2003 was estimated at US$13 bn [billion] at the production level, at $94 bn at the wholesale level (taking seizures into account), and at US$322bn based on retail prices and taking seizures and other losses into account. This indicates that despite seizures and losses, the value of the drugs increase substantially as they move from producer to consumer." Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2005 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, June 2005), p. 127. Education: "State spending for corrections totaled $42.9 billion in fiscal 2005, a 5.1 percent increase compared to the previous year. The largest increase in corrections spending was in 1990, when it grew by nearly 19 percent. Since then, growth in state corrections expenditures has averaged about 7 percent." National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), 2005 State Expenditure Report (Washington, DC: NASBO, Fall 2006), p. 56. "During the recent state fiscal crisis, higher education was one of the first categories of spending to be cut. One rationale for this is that in most states higher education institutions have the ability to raise tuition and fees when state funding decreases and they have the discretion to make other reductions and budget adjustments on their own." National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), 2005 State Expenditure Report (Washington, DC: NASBO, Fall 2006), p. 22. Public Safety: # "Although residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods, neighborhoods with high concentrations of minorities, and neighborhoods with high population densities reported much higher levels of visible drug sales, they reported only slightly higher levels of drug use, along with somewhat higher levels of drug dependency. This finding indicates that conflating drug sales with use, so that poor and minority areas are assumed to be the focus of the problem of drug use, is plainly wrong. The finding is based on the data collected across 41 sites, including city and suburban (but not rural) areas in all regions." Source: Saxe, Leonard, PhD, Charles Kadushin, PhD, Andrew Beveridge, PhD, et al., "The Visibility of Illicit Drugs: Implications for Community-Based Drug Control Strategies," American Journal of Public Health (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, Dec. 2001), Vol. 91, No. 12, p. 1991. "Although serious drug use is slightly more prevalent in poor minority neighborhoods than elsewhere, the major problem for disadvantaged neighborhoods is drug distribution. These communities are victims not only of their own drug abuse but also of a criminal drug market that serves the entire society. The market establishes itself in disadvantaged communities in part because of the low social capital in these neighborhoods. The drug economy further erodes that social capital." Source: Ibid., p. 1992. Police Departments: ""...several studies and investigations of drug-related police corruption found on-duty police officers engaged in serious criminal activities, such as (1) conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures; (2) stealing money and/or drugs from drug dealers; (3) selling stolen drugs; (4) protecting drug operations; (5) providing false testimony; and (6) submitting false crime reports." Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 8. "Although profit was found to be a motive common to traditional and drug-related police corruption, New York City's Mollen Commission identified power and vigilante justice as two additional motives for drug-related police corruption." Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 3. Equality: "As a result, African Americans who use drugs are more likely to be arrested than other groups, and then to penetrate more deeply into the criminal justice system. While African Americans constitute 13% of the nation’s monthly drug users, they represent 35% of those persons arrested for drug crime, 53% of drug convictions, and 58% of those in prison for drug offenses. Higher arrest rates of African Americans generally reflect a law enforcement emphasis on inner city areas, where drug sales are more likely to take place in open air drug markets and fewer treatment resources are available." Source: The Sentencing Project, "Drug Policy and the Criminal Justice System," 2001, pp. 4-5. The Children: "Of the Nation's 72.3 million minor children in 1999, 2.1% had a parent in State or Federal prison. Black children (7.0%) were nearly 9 times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children (0.8%). Hispanic children (2.6%) were 3 times as likely as white children to have an inmate parent." Source: Mumola, Christopher J., US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, Incarcerated Parents and Their Children (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, August 2000), p. 2. "A majority of parents in both State (62%) and Federal (84%) prison were held more than 100 miles from their last place of residence." Source: Mumola, Christopher J., US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, Incarcerated Parents and Their Children (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, August 2000), p. 5. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that 2.8% of all children under age 18 have at least one parent in a local jail or a State or Federal prison - a total of 1,941,796 kids. One in 40 have an incarcerated father, and 1 in 359 have an incarcerated mother. Source: Greenfield, Lawrence A., and Snell, Tracy L., US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Women Offenders (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 1999), p. 8, Table 18.

Foot Notes

Prison Guards:
Pay scales and benefits – see California Dept. of Personnel Administration Pay Scales, CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitations Correctional Officers Pay & Benefits
Membership, political clout – see "Prison Guards' Clout Difficult to Challenge," San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 2, 2004

Prison Owners: see
A Critical Look at its First Twenty Years," Grassroots Leadership, Washington, DC, Dec. 2003
CCA Annual Report, 2006
GEO Group, Inc. Annual Report 2006

Drug Testing Industry:
Yamaguchi, Ryoko, Lloyd D. Johnston & Patrick M. O'Malley, Relationship Between Student Illicit Drug Use and School Drug-Testing Policies," Journal of School Health, April 2003, Vol. 73, No. 4, p. 164.
QEV Analytics, "National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse VIII: Teens and Parents" (New York, NY: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, August 2003), pp. 20-21.
"The Bush Administration has made drug testing a priority and has embarked on a student drug testing initiative to provide resources for communities across the country that want to test students. Implementing a program is a local decision and is not linked to Federal education funding. Currently, there are more than 480 federally funded programs in the Nation, and many others supported by community funds." Executive Office of the President, National Drug Control Strategy, Feb. 2007, p. 16

Official Corruption and Forfeiture:
Blumenson, E. & and Nilsen, E., "Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden Economic Agenda," University of Chicago Law Review, 65: 35-114 (1998, Winter).
A Guide to Equitable Sharing of Federally Forfeited Property for State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, U.S. Department of Justice, March 1994.
Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, US Dept. of Justice, "Assets Forfeiture Fund and Seized Asset Deposit Fund Annual Financial Statement Fiscal Year 2006" (Audit Report 07-15, January 2007), p. 6.

Pharmaceutical Industry:
Baker, David, Pryce, Gareth, Giovannoni, Gavin, and Thompson, Alan J., "The Therapeutic Potential of Cannabis," The Lancet Neurology, Vol. 2, May 2003, p. 291.
Robichaux, Mark, "Researchers Aim to Develop Marijuana Without the High," The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 28, 2001
Barthwell, Andrea G., MD, "From Mockery to Medicine: The Story of the Development of a Serious Modern Medicine," Journal of Global Drug Policy & Practice, July 17, 2006

Terrorists:
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, "[T]he value of the global illicit drug market for the year 2003 was estimated at US$13 bn [billion] at the production level, at $94 bn at the wholesale level (taking seizures into account), and at US$322bn based on retail prices and taking seizures and other losses into account. This indicates that despite seizures and losses, the value of the drugs increase substantially as they move from producer to consumer."
Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2005 (Vienna, Austria: UNODC, June 2005), p. 127.

Education:
"State spending for corrections totaled $42.9 billion in fiscal 2005, a 5.1 percent increase compared to the previous year. The largest increase in corrections spending was in 1990, when it grew by nearly 19 percent. Since then, growth in state corrections expenditures has averaged about 7 percent." National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), 2005 State Expenditure Report (Washington, DC: NASBO, Fall 2006), p. 56.
"During the recent state fiscal crisis, higher education was one of the first categories of spending to be cut. One rationale for this is that in most states higher education institutions have the ability to raise tuition and fees when state funding decreases and they have the discretion to make other reductions and budget adjustments on their own." National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), 2005 State Expenditure Report (Washington, DC: NASBO, Fall 2006), p. 22.

Public Safety:
# "Although residents of disadvantaged neighborhoods, neighborhoods with high concentrations of minorities, and neighborhoods with high population densities reported much higher levels of visible drug sales, they reported only slightly higher levels of drug use, along with somewhat higher levels of drug dependency. This finding indicates that conflating drug sales with use, so that poor and minority areas are assumed to be the focus of the problem of drug use, is plainly wrong. The finding is based on the data collected across 41 sites, including city and suburban (but not rural) areas in all regions."
Source: Saxe, Leonard, PhD, Charles Kadushin, PhD, Andrew Beveridge, PhD, et al., "The Visibility of Illicit Drugs: Implications for Community-Based Drug Control Strategies," American Journal of Public Health (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, Dec. 2001), Vol. 91, No. 12, p. 1991.
"Although serious drug use is slightly more prevalent in poor minority neighborhoods than elsewhere, the major problem for disadvantaged neighborhoods is drug distribution. These communities are victims not only of their own drug abuse but also of a criminal drug market that serves the entire society. The market establishes itself in disadvantaged communities in part because of the low social capital in these neighborhoods. The drug economy further erodes that social capital."
Source: Ibid., p. 1992.

Police Departments:
""...several studies and investigations of drug-related police corruption found on-duty police officers engaged in serious criminal activities, such as (1) conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures; (2) stealing money and/or drugs from drug dealers; (3) selling stolen drugs; (4) protecting drug operations; (5) providing false testimony; and (6) submitting false crime reports."
Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 8.
"Although profit was found to be a motive common to traditional and drug-related police corruption, New York City's Mollen Commission identified power and vigilante justice as two additional motives for drug-related police corruption."
Source: General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel, House of Representatives, Law Enforcement: Information on Drug-Related Police Corruption (Washington, DC: USGPO, May 1998), p. 3.

Equality:
"As a result, African Americans who use drugs are more likely to be arrested than other groups, and then to penetrate more deeply into the criminal justice system. While African Americans constitute 13% of the nation’s monthly drug users, they represent 35% of those persons arrested for drug crime, 53% of drug convictions, and 58% of those in prison for drug offenses. Higher arrest rates of African Americans generally reflect a law enforcement emphasis on inner city areas, where drug sales are more likely to take place in open air drug markets and fewer treatment resources are available." Source: The Sentencing Project, "Drug Policy and the Criminal Justice System," 2001, pp. 4-5.

The Children:
"Of the Nation's 72.3 million minor children in 1999, 2.1% had a parent in State or Federal prison. Black children (7.0%) were nearly 9 times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children (0.8%). Hispanic children (2.6%) were 3 times as likely as white children to have an inmate parent."
Source: Mumola, Christopher J., US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, Incarcerated Parents and Their Children (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, August 2000), p. 2.
"A majority of parents in both State (62%) and Federal (84%) prison were held more than 100 miles from their last place of residence."
Source: Mumola, Christopher J., US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, Incarcerated Parents and Their Children (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, August 2000), p. 5.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that 2.8% of all children under age 18 have at least one parent in a local jail or a State or Federal prison - a total of 1,941,796 kids. One in 40 have an incarcerated father, and 1 in 359 have an incarcerated mother.
Source: Greenfield, Lawrence A., and Snell, Tracy L., US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Women Offenders (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 1999), p. 8, Table 18.

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