{news} 'War on drugs' produces inner-city battlefields

Tue Jun 20 11:26:18 EDT 2006

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'War on drugs' produces inner-city battlefields 
By: Cliff Thornton 
06/20/2006
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Keeping guns out of the hands of criminals is a great idea, as far as it goes. Unfortunately it's not as simple as it seems. 

There are about 200 million guns in America. Combine that with a strong demand among criminals for guns and one begins to see the problem. 

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So who has all these guns?

Places with the highest rate of gun ownership tend to be rural and small-town. But gun crime there is low. Most gun crime is in our cities. Why?

In rural and small-town America, family structures are largely strong, so these communities are more stable. So the problem of violence in cities seems to have less to do with the availability of guns than with the dysfunctionality of families and the lack of a sense of community.

What group in cities is largely responsible for the shootings that have become so common there? 

After declining for several years, the black teenage homicide rate began soaring in 1987. Guns did not become more available after 1987. No, after 1987 the "war on drugs" intensified as a result of crack cocaine.

The "war on drugs" has lived up to its name by producing a war in inner-city America. The black market created in drugs by this war caused an epidemic of violence in cities. Lured by the huge profits created by drug prohibition, large numbers of poor, jobless young black people got into the drug business.

Since drug dealers are likely to be carrying large amounts of money, they are at serious risk of robbery. Since they cannot rely on the police for protection, they must protect themselves. When drug dealers engage in commercial transactions with each other, there are no laws and courts to resolve disputes about the quality of goods sold. So disgruntled buyers often resort to violence. 

Similarly, addicts who sell drugs often end up consuming drugs they were supposed to sell or stealing cash they received in payment. Higher-level dealers, having no legal means of debt collection, then resort to violence too.

For those unfortunate enough to live in one of the war zones created by drug prohibition, life has deteriorated. Neighborhoods have been ravaged by drug dealers shooting it out on the streets. Many families have fled. Police have raided houses damaged properties in the process. Houses have been abandoned and then occupied by squatters using and selling drugs. Families have been destroyed by shootings and by the imprisonment of fathers caught dealing or using drugs. As city neighborhoods have deteriorated, so have city schools. 

Reducing urban violence requires a direct attack on the social ills that cause so many young people to grow up believing that their own lives and the lives of others are worthless. 

Since more drug prohibition has not reduced drugs in cities, why should we expect that more gun control will reduce guns there? Legislators must consider not only immediate steps to get juvenile criminals off the streets but also the social ills that breed crime.

The challenge is to reduce the motive for people to arm themselves. Convincing people not to own and use guns requires convincing them that they can survive in their neighborhoods otherwise. We must convince them that the police can be relied upon.

Because police have been given with the impossible task of eradicating drugs, they are viewed as a sort of occupying army. 

Several studies have shown a link between police anti-drug activity and crime against people and property. A recent study by two Le Moyne College economists of more than 1,300 counties in the United States over seven years found that "the recent focus on marijuana law enforcement has been counterproductive for addressing non-drug crime."

The study added: "By removing the legal restrictions against possessing marijuana and ending its sale in the underground economy ... fewer burglaries, larcenies, and motor-vehicle thefts are likely to be committed. A similar result also holds for marijuana sales with respect to the incidence of arrests for homicide and hard drug possession."

We need to do four things: get the repeat violent offenders off the streets; curb the supply of illegal guns; end drug prohibition; and increase opportunity for city young people most at risk.

The relationship between these things is at once strong and vague. For instance, if we somehow succeeded in reducing the number of illegal guns brought into in the state, that might raise their prices, causing increases in burglaries to steal guns locally, increased smuggling, and more crime to get the money for the now higher-priced guns.

Only by simultaneously attacking all elements of the problem can we expect any benefit. To do only some of these things probably will only make the problem worse.

Cliff Thornton founded Efficacy, a drug law reform organization based in Hartford, and is Green Party candidate for governor of Connecticut. He can be reached at Efficacy at msn.com.

©Journal Inquirer 2006 

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