As President Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón met in Washington this week, drug cartel continue their terrorist war with the Mexican Army and just about anyone else in Mexico, including American diplomats and tourist. Estimates put the casualty rate at over 23,000 since Calderón began fighting the drug lords after his 2006 election. Meanwhile a retired LA Sheriff says Mexican drug cartels have been infiltrating several small cities in Los Angeles County, including city councils and political campaigns.
On Tuesday the new US “drug czar” Gil Kerlikowske announced the Obama administration’s new National Drug Control Strategy, a five-year plan to reduce drug use that already has disappointed some who had hoped for a bolder shift toward prevention and treatment.
Dr Inaba offers his comments and stresses the need for more resources for treatment, education and “demand reduction.”
Transcript (edited):
CNS: Welcome to the CNS Podcast featuring Dr. Darryl Inaba, research director for CNS Productions.
CNS: Hi and welcome once again to the CNS Addiction Podcast. I am Howard LaMere, here with Dr. Darryl Inaba. The visit of Mexican President Calderon to the U.S. is in the news and there are lots of stories about the war on drugs once again. Since he was elected in 2006, there have been tens of thousands of drug related deaths in Mexico, tourists kidnapped and held hostage and so he is here talking with President Obama about the new drug policy and what the US can do to assist in Mexicos war on drugs. The Obama Administration has a new policy that focuses less on enforcement and punishment and more on reducing the demand, but the budget doesnt support that. There is more money for law enforcement and less for treatment.
DARRYL: You know its just extremely frustrating. Its the same old story, going back to when Nixon coined the term war on drugs, but I think the concept goes as far back as Abraham Lincolns time – thats when the U.S. government started to recognize that addiction posed a serious threat to our country and started to spend some federal monies to deal with the situation. There are 2 fronts – supply reduction versus demand reduction. Regardless of who is president, what the rhetoric is, who controls Congress weve had the same formula. We spend anywhere from 2/3 to 80% of the money set aside for the war on drugs on the supply reduction side of the equation. The interdictions, the policing, the, you know, trying to keep drugs from making it to the borders and streets of our cities while only 30% gets spent on demand reduction in terms of treatment prevention. And the irony of that is that today, or even way before today, pretty much everyone is convinced that the war on drugs is a dismal failure from the supply reduction standpoint or strategy. We keep doing a lot of things to try and prevent drugs from entering the country and making it to our streets including international treaties and funneling monies to international governments to try and eradicate growing or development of drugs, but the more we do, the more drugs get onto our street.
CNS: It seems to have universally failed.
DARRYL: Everyone agrees. Its interesting that the current administration wants to put a new face on it by saying, well were not going to call it the war on drugs anymore so no one can say that we failed it, were going to call it something else. Were going to make up a new phrase. It bothers me to no end that when you actually look at the budget numbers the current administration is going to much continue the formula of spending more for interdiction, supply reduction and spend much less for demand reduction, treatment and prevention. Not only the percentage, but also the dollars are going up, so even though the government is spending more on whatever theyre going to call it the war on drugs or reduction of substance abuse or whatever cute name they come up with, the reality is theyre going to continue that formula and actually spend more money more actual cash on the supply reduction than before. And the irony again is that when you look at the demand side of it, the field of substance abuse treatment and the advances in the science of understanding it, developing interventions and treatments for addiction, continues to show more and more positive outcomes. People are getting better and better through treatment. People are more able to enter recovery. Theyre able to control their lives better, there is less crime, all the other measurements are positive. Were actually seeing real advancements and real progress in the treatment of addiction and now were beginning to show advances in drug abuse prevention. Were actually showing decreases magnificent decreases in illicit drug abuse since the late 1990s.
CNS: How is that coming about in your opinion?
DARRYL: Well, its all linked if public perception of drugs and alcohol, especially amongst youth, is that theyre dangerous, then theres a decrease in experimentation, a decrease therefore in recreational use and a decrease therefore of addiction. And I think that is what people are focusing on right now. What is the perception? Unfortunately that leads to maybe reintroducing scare tactics. Hopefully we learned a lesson in the 1960s that if you provide false information to make the perception that drugs are a problem, it has the opposite effect. So we must continue to emphasize only factual data, only the realities of whats happened with drugs and if that education goes out and creates the perception of drugs as harmful, I think prevention will continue to show positive results. But we also forget that drugs are a whole bunch of different things. You know, its not just heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, but its 4000 psychoactive substances that alter states of consciousness that human beings have abused throughout history. Sixty or so are still being abused and used by human beings. What we missed over the last 10 or 12 years is prescription drugs, diversion of medicines from legitimate practices, and to abuse practices and while weve seen a decrease in abuse of illicit drugs, weve had a fairly large increase in the diversion and abuse of Vicodin, OxyContin, the anti ADHD drugs, Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta .and the sedatives, so you know, the goal of lowering drug abuse in America is not happening because we have legal diverted drugs replacing the illicit drugs.
CNS: Possibly because prescription medicine is prescribed by a doctor and therefore safe of course its not safe unless its used exactly the way its specified and even then, as anyone who has ever taken any drugs knows, the chances of side effects are great.
DARRYL: And must be monitored correctly under medical care. When youre taking drugs without a prescription there is no medical necessity for taking that drug and drugs work differently for medical purposes than for recreational or abuse purposes. The psycho-stimulants, like methamphetamine, amphetamine itself, Ritalin and things like that work if you have a medical necessity like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or attention deficit disorder. They help people deal with their condition, but they dont lead to abuse. But if there is no medical necessity and you take the drug anyway, that will often lead to abuse and addiction.
CNS: Now lets look at the economic side of things. It began with the legalization of marijuana for medical use, which is now legal in half of the states and how that is evolving to full scale legalization. Its on the ballot in California this coming November and theres talk about putting it on the ballot in Oregon and several other states. We can compare this to prohibition there were a lot of personal stills, moon shining, and back room activities which, not unlike the Mexican drug cartels, created very powerful criminal gangs and I thought it was interesting that President Obama characterized Mexican President Calderon as the Elliott Ness of Mexico. But if we do legalize marijuana, we introduce a change in the economy. Marijuana is a huge cash crop in Northern California. Its a huge cash crop in Mexico and for the poor farmer in Mexico that is their best shot at subsistence. How do we address this? Its going to be dangerous to legalize it because were going to need more treatment. I just read a couple of days ago that driving drugged is now right up there, if not above, driving under the influence of alcohol. The poor farmer subsisting in Mexico is caught in a terribly difficult place between the drug cartels on the one side and starvation on the other. Do you see any way to address that?
DARRYL: I dont see how its totally linked together because the subsistent farmer, who grows marijuana and would not exist without it
Im not sure thats correct. I know its failed in the past, but there have been attempts to get people who are growing illicit drug crops to produce something else. Produce something else that has more immediate value to the people who are producing it in terms of food, in terms of resources, but also something that could have good value and marketability.
CNS: There it is. It is the value
the cost.
DARRYL: Theyre (the growers) going to make more money selling an illegal drug if theres a demand for it. Lets step back for a second. Felipe Calderon I dont know if he is an Elliot Ness, but because he is suffering so much in terms of his initiative, his war on the drug cartels there have been 23,000 or more drug related deaths in Mexico since he took office and began to crack down on it. I dont think Elliott Ness suffered that many losses, you know, trying to control alcohol. So hes in a desperate situation. He has accurately identified the biggest problem is that America his neighbor and supposedly, as Obama says, were partners and were friends but America happens to be the largest consumer of illicit drugs and the largest customer of the products the illegal drug trafficking that is coming out of Mexico. And he has repeatedly asked for help and his help is being responded to .again that frustrating thing by increasing interdiction, increasing armies, increasing the supply reduction side whereas if somebody would just recognize that we can help them most if we can reduce our demand for drugs and we can reduce the demand by providing more treatment, more effective prevention. Will legalization provides a way of decreasing demand? Im not so sure. I think the demand will actually increase, but the supplier becomes more acceptable becomes a legal provider. I think we have a very good history of that in terms of legal alcohol and legal caffeine and legal nicotine in our country.
CNS: And thats part of whats driving it, – a cash resource for the states.
DARRYL: Its huge tax revenue for a state; I think thats what driving legalization is more than anything.
CNS: And the states are so hurting for money.
DARRYL: But its a short-term gain is how I look at it. Its short-term money into the coffers because who is going to pay for all of the problems we have already? When we project the problems we have with tobacco, that we have with alcohol, even from caffeine, and then decide to legalize and tax marijuana we create more problems. Historically we havent converted money from those taxes to funds to provide treatment prevention, because thats sort of antithetical why would you legalize something then control it or try to discourage it? That was one of the mantras of this legalization effort lets legalize it, lets tax it and then lets discourage it. Why would you want to discourage something if youre interested in the revenue youre going to gain from it? But youre going to end up with huge downstream costs the health costs, the auto accidents, the legal costs and none of that is being looked at. But it is interesting from the standpoint you mentioned, that the current illegal providers of these substances are most active against these drugs being legalized. A lot of the illegal marijuana growers do not want to see marijuana legalized because they know that they would be squeezed out of the provider market. They would be either controlled or bought up by bigger providers. Their profit margin will greatly decrease as big industry takes over. These people have more backing and more resources because they deal with legal drugs tobacco and nicotine. I can see them getting deeply involved because in 1937 when marijuana was made illegal they actually fought to make that happen because they thought it would compete with tobacco and alcohol. But now they know that isnt what happens with addiction. When you provide multiple addictive drugs the use of all those drugs actually increases and nothing decreases. We give a mouse who has their own access to morphine, a lot of alcohol to drink as much as they want thinking, well why would the mouse use more morphine if theyre drinking or drunk already, but what we find in every case, was the mouse actually drinks more alcohol and drinks more morphine if theyre given access to both of them. Companies involved in selling tobacco and alcohol are not dumb. They will see this. They will form different brand names under the corporate veil. Some might have begun to trade-mark or patent names, because names themselves may become important. If you own the name Maui Waui or Kona Gold, you know, that is valuable. People are going to make money on drugs of addiction, and if they are legalized, well who is going to make that money? I think the current illegal growers, the small time growers in California and even maybe the Mexican cartels realize that theyre going to be squeezed out so they dont want to see it legalized.
CNS: Well, somethings going to happen and well find out as it evolves. Like everything, its not likely to stay the same. As you said, theres a lot of vested interest here of every sort.