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Opinion

Point/Counterpoint: Are we winning the war on drugs?

Melissa Correa: Yes It's been 33 years since President Nixon declared a war on drugs. I believe our government, politicians and communities are working extremely hard to reduce the amount of drugs on the streets and put cartels behind bars. 

I don't understand why those opposing a war on drugs believe we are spending too much money ? what is too much money? We spend billions of dollars each year fighting crime; we're getting criminals ? rapists, murderers, sex offenders and domestic abusers ? off the streets, and no one thinks we need to give up just because crime is never going to go away. Since our pal Nixon began America's crusade, it's tougher for drugs to make it to the streets and into our homes.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy reported drug abuse leads to poor health, sickness and ultimately, death. Particularly devastating to an abuser's health is the contraction of needle-born illnesses, including hepatitis and HIV, through intravenous drug use. 

I don't understand why so many smart, educated individuals succumb to drugs. We should know by now that drugs are addictive. If you watch Oprah, you know that drugs kill, ruin lives and break families. Yet people still do it. I don't agree with the argument that making drugs illegal is unconstitutional. I truly believe if drug use were rampant in the streets, our society would be worse off. We wouldn't feel driven, and we'd wake up in the morning looking for our next fix.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that in 2004, more than 3.5 million individuals age 18 and older admitted to having injected an illicit drug during their lifetimes. Of these individuals, 14 percent (498,000) were under the age of 25. Our young people are facing a serious drug problem. With the retirement of baby boomers and the onset of our generation entering the workforce, it's time we step up our efforts to crack down on drugs.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 123,235 adults living with AIDS in the United States in 2003 contracted the disease from intravenous drug use, and their survival rate is less than that for persons who contracted AIDS from any other mode of transmission. CDC further reported that more than 25,000 people died in 2003 from drug-induced effects.

With the statistics mirroring those who have died fighting the War on Terror, I wonder if Americans truly understand our current situation. For the most part, we can all agree we need a military, and these men and women are fighting for a great cause ? America. Yet, drug users are choosing to fall into an illegal well of drugs, and our country is spending all it can to help untangle individuals from the trap ? but it's hard to do when so many people are against the government and its agencies.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse's research shows tobacco causes the most deaths per year with 390,000; alcohol and cocaine follow with 80,000 and 2,200 deaths per year, respectively.

I smoke and drink because it's legal. I think it's safe to assume that if drugs were to become legal, the death tolls would rise. The institute failed to mention that methamphetamine is the leading cause of emergency room check-ins in the United States. Meth ? as it is fondly known on the streets ? is the leading cause of emergency room admissions across the country growing to 72 percent in three years, beating out those related to other illegal substances. 

Steve Robertson, public affairs official for the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the war on drugs is "a long struggle, but we win every time we take an individual off the street or bust drug traffickers trying to pass through our borders."

The Rio Grande Valley, along the southern border of Texas, sits along the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Border Patrol public affairs officer Roy Cervantes said it's a tough job, but he and his team have made trafficking drugs into the United States more difficult for smugglers trying to break through. It's men like Cervantes who keep the war on drugs alive and kicking.

In 2004, the RGV division seized more than $409 million worth of illegal substances. Within the first two months of 2006, the RGV division seized more than $89 million worth of narcotics. If Cervantes and his team continue to seize as much drugs as they have within the past two months, at the end of the year, the RGV division will have seized $534 million of narcotics ? an increase of $125 million within two years.

Robertson agrees. In 2005, the DEA reported 8.7 million kilograms of drugs seized. The amount of drug seized in 1995 was about 3 million kilograms. A difference of 5.7 million kilograms of drugs seized in 10 years is a testament to DEA efforts.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse released "good news" in Dec. 2005. While there was no substantive change in any illicit drug use between 2004 and 2005, there has been an approximately 19 percent decline over the last four years in drug use among high school students. If all of these numbers don't point to success, I don't know what does. 

"I've seen illegal drugs take the lives of our future," Robertson said. "These drugs are illegal for many reasons. They are highly addictive, detrimental to our health and lead to the use of other drugs. You can't control your actions when you are under the control of illegal drugs, thus becoming a danger to yourself and society."

One day, as I was in my car on Elgin Avenue waiting to get on Interstate 45, a homeless guy came up and asked if he could have a cigarette. I said sure. The light had just turned red, so I asked him how he became homeless. He told me he was once a teacher with a family but started using cocaine, and his life took a fast spiral down. Was the guy lying to get a smoke and maybe some money? I don't think he was lying at all. I think this guy is living the reality of drug use. 

The reality is drugs are illegal and will stay illegal ? if not for our homeless friend, then for you and me.

Correa, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at mel_correa@yahoo.com.

Henry Darragh: No There is a battle being lost worldwide. No, I am not speaking of the men, women and children being lost each day in a far-off land; this war is happening in the land of the free, home of the brave. The war I am talking about is going on in our classrooms, our campus, our city, our country and our great state. America is losing its "drug war."

On the legal drugs front:

Pharmaceutical companies continue to test chemicals on human subjects in search of pain-management, modifying brain chemistry for those with mental illness along with the cure for heartburn, headaches, fever, cancer and AIDS. Why is America so dependent on these cures? Why is our society so addicted to the fast-food philosophy that quick fixes promise to bring? How is that different from a heroin user fixing dope in a spoon and running from his pain in the same way one might take Tylenol for that headache? 

OK, so ingesting opiates for a stomachache or a headache is a bad idea, but how safe is aspirin? Who benefits monetarily from the legal drug business? 

I was shocked (briefly) in recent news by the story about Bayer and what they did with some tainted product. They sold it to poor, unfortunate souls in another country and it killed people. Will those who were responsible for selling a killer product spend time in a cell next to a young man who sold free-based cocaine in his neighborhood? Likely no, that corporate person(s), who is most likely a rich, white man, will suffer in a different way.

Please don't consider this an attack on the entire mainstream medical mindset. There are, in my opinion, good doctors, but to me, the entire system seems to be supported financially by a system that wants to keep America sick.

On the illegal drugs front:

What moral basis is there to criminalize marijuana? Why is pot regarded any differently than alcohol? Countless Texans are incarcerated for DWI and their lives are marked by stigma once entering the system, effectively limiting their chances of working. Why would, if it came down to choice, a person who had an alcohol conviction be chosen over one with a drug conviction? What if said conviction was possession of one marijuana cigarette and the DWI in question caused $20,000 in property damage? Maybe this example isn't relevant to you, but I just wonder what Ms. Correa thinks about drug users being made second-class citizens and their rights and chances for success being changed forever by the courts.

Is this possibly a war influenced by race? I wonder, given that most of the incarcerated population is black and more than half of that population is in for drug-related crimes, could it be said that this is a racist war? Is it some conspiracy theory the Drug Enforcement Administration introduced freebase into black neighborhoods in Los Angeles?

Last year, I spent my Spring Break in Austin as a lobbyist for prison reform. Will anything change? That's yet to be seen, other than my becoming more informed on the laws of the state and the lives of families affected by those laws. 

Texas Inmates Families Association is a great resource for those who have an incarcerated loved one. My family joined when I was there. I think it helped them deal with the shame of having a convict for a son. 

Does the current war on drug users help their targets? It is no news that drug use in America is an epidemic. What is the cure? Vilify the sick person and isolate them from society as lepers were in ancient times? Where are the morals in removing fathers and mothers from their homes and children and sending them to crime school and releasing them into the world with the deck stacked against success? We can have a president who didn't inhale and a president possessed cocaine and found God, but we cannot have legal marijuana for those of or over the age of 21, or even 18? You can die in an illegal war for oil but you cannot legally get stoned in hopes of forgetting that war you are fighting in. Who wins?

In my opinion, the current war is, like so many other wars, one of failure. We are encouraging youngsters, through the mystification of drug use, to get high. When I was a teenager, people told me what to do and I rebelled. Times have changed, but not that much. The more that laws criminalize drugs, the more revolution occurs. If marijuana were monitored, graded and taxed and sold like alcohol, the abuse of drugs would decrease. Sure, legalizing heroin, cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine is a hard sell, but consider the drug war's own argument.

Yes, the gateway idea. Consider a child purchasing marijuana from a dealer. Perhaps that dealer only sells pot, but like many entrepreneurs, he or she will likely sell more than only one product. Now the child has access to harder drugs. Is that wise? This, by the way, is not endorsement for getting stoned. I personally choose not to get high anymore. I used to smoke crack and shoot dope socially, but now I have pretty much squared up, not that I am particularly proposing that either. To each his own, as they say.

As we celebrate the stoner holiday, I say smoke 'em if you got 'em, please stay out of my daughter's neighborhood and I don't want any, but do enjoy the cartoons and the drop-out world to which to condemn yourself.

I have many pages written on this topic and maybe this, like much of my writing, seems unclear. I think the war is a crooked concept and just pray that people might seek answers for a solution to our epidemic; it affects us all.

Darragh, an opinion columnist for The Daily Cougar, 
can be reached at hadarragh@uh.edu.