By Carter Bundy

We all know we’re in the middle of an historic year. The Dem primary is like nothing we’ve seen in decades. We’re in the middle of epic economic and foreign-affairs struggles.

Both Dems have extensive position papers on all kinds of issues, and even McCain, while lacking detail, has taken strong stands.

Somehow, though, in the middle of this dramatic year, none of the leading candidates is talking in any depth about an issue that impacts our economy, our judicial system, our culture, our law enforcement, our health, organized crime, foreign affairs and the military: the war on drugs.

It’s hard to know if any of the three major candidates would change our drug policy in any significant way, because none of the three includes drug policy as a staple of their media appearances or stump speeches.

Barack says something about our jail population every now and then, but hasn’t proposed anything like decriminalization of marijuana possession, sentencing reform for non-violent drug crimes, or any other significant revision to the war on drugs.

This isn’t a partisan issue; even uber-conservative economist Milton Friedman joined 500 other economists in signing onto a study by Harvard visiting professor Jeffrey Miron emphasizing that the costs of keeping marijuana illegal ran into the tens of billions of dollars.

And when Sammy Hagar, touring with Van Halen, asks the then-governor of New Mexico whether he’s “holding” in front of 12,000 fans at Journal Pavilion, you know this isn’t just being driven by legalization advocate Woody Harrelson.

I’m not necessarily advocating legalization, but how can you discuss the economy, crime and foreign affairs without discussing the war on drugs and the current administration’s mono-directional and myopic approach to it?

Cashish

Here in Kentucky, three random individuals in separate venues, talking about the economy of the state, have mentioned that marijuana is their No. 1 cash crop. Turns out, studies indicate they’re right.

A 2006 study reported by ABC News estimated marijuana production nationally had a value of $35.8 billion, $5 billion more than corn and wheat combined. The study also indicated that marijuana is the largest cash crop in 12 states. Despite Kentucky’s status as a leading producer of tobacco, the study placed marijuana’s “production value” at over 10 times the value of the Bluegrass State’s tobacco ($4.47 billion to $410 million).

Same study puts marijuana at third in New Mexico, behind hay and vegetables, if you’re curious.

What does that mean? For starters, the war on drugs – at least marijuana – is a dismal failure by any objective standard. When you outlaw something and it still ranks as the largest agricultural product of your country (to say nothing of production from other countries) and in the top three in 30 states, something’s gone badly wrong.

Money up in smoke

In FY ‘03, the Office of National Drug Control Policy identified $18.8 billion in federal government expenditures on the drug war, with more than two-thirds directly related to law enforcement. That doesn’t count the loss of economic activity from the hundreds of thousands of workers taken out of the labor pool.

As with prohibition, not only are the law-enforcement costs enormous, but so are the lost revenues from moderate taxation – revenues that could be used for effective education, treatment and rehabilitation.

Some of that money is being spent abroad on interdiction. Some drugs are caught, but a much larger percentage get through. “Traffic” shows how the money involved (money that is made much larger by the illicit status of drugs) results in a nearly endless supply of young men and women willing to risk their lives to ensure the consumer gets his or her product.

Our foreign policy – and the domestic tranquility or chaos of other countries like Colombia – largely revolves around the American war on drugs. When a nation’s laws are so deeply divorced from its citizens’ demands, black marketeers, organized crime and foreign enemies are the direct beneficiaries, from Afghanistan to Venezuela.

We’re No. 1?

Meanwhile, we have the highest incarceration rates in the world – over 700 per 100,000 people. That’s in the world. Not in the developed world, not in the Western world. The entire world.

China, with the caveat that reliable numbers are difficult to come by, according to many sources actually has fewer inmates than the United States in real numbers, despite having a population about four times larger.

It costs about $40,000 to lock up a person for a year. That’s about the same amount that a New Mexican pulling in a million dollars a year pays in state taxes, or the gross receipts tax paid on well over $600,000 worth of purchases by average citizens.

If we’re going to tax at that level, we ought to be incarcerating for a damn better reason than “they got high.” Jailing someone is a big, big deal. It ends normal family life, increases the chances of children growing up with their own anti-social problems, stops any kind of parenting and child-support payments, and causes the loss of taxes paid by that person, their work productivity or any other positive contributions to society.

Prescriptions wanted

Policy prescriptions, that is, not Rush Limbaugh prescriptions. Let’s start with an easy one: according to an early 2008 ACLU survey conducted by national polling firm Belden, Russonello & Stewart, “Three quarters of Americans favor treatment and probation over prison for non-violent drug use.”

Regardless of what solutions McCain, Clinton or Obama find most appealing, we need some serious suggestions and ideas. I haven’t even touched on numerous other problems with the war on drugs, such as the starkly varying arrests, charges and sentences based on race and economic status.

Or the hypocrisy of legalizing alcohol and tobacco, each of which carries health and societal ills at least as damaging as marijuana’s. Or the power and money handed on a silver platter to organized crime. Or the corruption of our law enforcement infrastructure. Or basic principles of freedom, privacy and libertarianism.

Even if you’re not into civil rights, the economic, cultural and foreign-policy disasters stemming from the current war on drugs are enough to demand answers and change from our next president and Congress. Where are they?

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. He’s in Kentucky because his union has endorsed Clinton in the presidential race and he’s been traveling to primary and caucus states to campaign for her. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.