Drug Dealer Decriminalization Helped Cartels
The false view of unregulated illicit drug use being without consequence to society and improper responses to sentencing disparities of minority groups for possession created an opening for the Mexican drug cartels to grow and thrive.
The latest national statistics on drug use in the United States are from the National Survey on Drug Use done in 2007. In general nearly 20% of the population older than 12 used illicit drugs. About 14% used marijuana, 6.9% psychotherapeutics, and 2.1% cocaine. The most prevalent age of drug users was in the 18 to 20 year old group however there was an increasing rate of use for those over age 50 that has occurred since 2002. Unemployment, low education, and living in a large city were, not surprisingly, significant risk factors. However this study and others show that drug use and the trafficking are penetrating more into suburban American . Almost ten percent of blacks over the age of twelve use drugs with the incidence of whites coming in second at 9% and Hispanics at 6%. This amounts to millions of Americans whose payments to Mexican cartels annually rack in profits in excess of $ 30 billion dollars
In the 1980’s in response to the widespread epidemic of cocaine usage both Federal and state government passed stiff enforcement laws calling for long incarceration for possession of cocaine. At that time as remains contemporaneously, most of those prosecuted where African American. Although the cartels supply the drugs into the United States most of those arrested as the final retailer are African American.
The laws were very unequal between the states and justice was applied very irregularly. Many times whites convicted of using cocaine powder received treatment programs while African Americans received sentences up to 30 years for possessing crack cocaine. This inequity of justice created a dilemma. Instead of focusing on equity in the application of justice and refining the enforcement model a new direction towards decriminalization was taken.
Efforts to determine who was selling and who just possessed became very complicated. Setting a minimum amount of grams in possession as stand alone proof of cocaine dealing was not well accepted in the courts. To convict a dealer a prosecutor had to rely on the often incredible witness of a drug addict or associate of the dealer who got a reduced sentence for his cooperation. The damaged view of the police by minority communities especially African American made undercover work very dangerous for police and disengendered them further from the public. Thus gradually prosecution efforts moved away from prosecuting small dealers as different from possession.
Most recently laws began to change with special drug courts and treatment programs being ordered for those who were thought to be addicted to drugs but not selling them. Still 24% of all inmates in prison were there for drug related offenses. The cost of constantly building and staffing prisons to house mostly African Americans created create social back pressure as well to push for alternatives to incarceration.
Many voices began to argue that these inmates even they were drug dealers were not a violent threat to society. Senator Leahy of Vermont said on the Senate floor even said we should not worry about small drug dealers. Society lapsed into believing that drug dealers were a benign group. Even now President Obama had implied in the past that young men who sell drugs in the ghetto might be seen as making a reasonable decision because society did not offer them other job opportunities. He purposed that drug dealing offenders not be criminalized but instead put into job training programs.
President Bush was heavily criticized when the federal government began to run commercials that said buying drugs was giving money to terrorism even though more than 70% of the time that was a true fact. The powerful domestic marijuana underground in concert with those who looked for any excuse to attack the President ridiculed the idea as preposterous while the Mexican cartels were rising to power in Mexico.
The first thing America has to do is to admit that viewing illicit drug sales as a victimless crime was a mistake. Millions of dollars of taxpayer expenditures in the form of Medicaid payments, food stamps, aid to well fare mothers, and social security are being exchanged for drugs initially to the local dealer but eventually to the Mexican cartels. To be fair not all drug users are poor, at the same time, middle class and above are also giving dollars to the cartels for their cocaine, heroin, amphetamine, and marijuana. Contrary to popular belief much of the marijuana sold in the United States is not being supplied by independent non-violent producers but by the cartel. Heroin once the scourge of the ghetto has now become in the “in-drug” for Hollywood.
America must develop a competent strategy for dealing with the small drug dealers to get them off the street. Currently in much of the United States those selling smaller amounts of cocaine even if for a third time are rarely sentenced for more than a year. Frequently they get released much earlier in return for work done while in jail. These drug dealers develop criminal associations and learn techniques to avoid prosecution from fellow inmates while in jail so that the recidivism many police believe is about 90% for small time dealers.
In my previous article in Contempo Magazine we outlined measures against the cartels the administration needs to bolster including criminal gang injunction, conspiracy, and new criminal illegal alien policies. But taking measures against the cartel and not the local dealers will be ignoring half of the problem. New strategies to successfully identify, prosecute, and incarcerate these offenders is necessary to take the drugs off the street and ultimately cut-off the flow of money to the cartels. This is now a matter of national security.
Law enforcement and the courts must endeavor to build community support for developing programs that clearly identify and differentiate those who are using and those who are selling. Society must once again recognize that although an act such as using drugs may arguably be a matter of free will, the illegal activity of trafficking these substances has created murder and chaos. The current drug program is an abortion of proper justice. Either the United States legalizes drugs and heavily regulates them or they must deliberately bring more effort against both the cartels and the small drug dealers.
Thanks for reading Contempo Magazine blog which discusses issues for McAllen, the Rio Grande Valley, and America from a conservative Hispanic point of view. Tony Magaña grew up in McAllen Texas, attended Texas A&M University, served as an officer in Army Reserve, and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. The co-founder of Contempo Magazine has participated in Valley business for over 20 years. He is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and also writes for the American Daily Revew
