Marijuana offenses account for nearly half of New Mexico's drug arrests.
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The war on drugs is alive and well. These days, however, it seems to be the war on marijuana.
According to a new report from the Justice Policy Institute, there are 30,000 prisoners incarcerated for marijuana-related arrests. In New Mexico, 45 percent of all drug arrests are marijuana related.
The authors of Efficacy and Impact: The Criminal Justice Response to Marijuana Policy in the US, Jason Colburn and Jason Ziedenberg, also report that today's US $19.2 billion domestic drug control budget is 300 times what it was 35 years ago when marijuana was first made a Schedule I drug.
High-profile busts in Santa Fe County in the last few months certainly add to the perception that drug enforcement dollars are going toward the cannabis eradication.
In August, regional undercover agents with the Region III Narcotics Task Force seized at least 500 marijuana plants, just southwest of Madrid. And in July, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano and his officers tore up an irrigation system and another 500 marijuana plants on private land off of NM 14 outside of Madrid.
Federal funds are used by the task force for "marijuana eradication" efforts. The Region III Narcotics Task Force, as Solano explains, puts a focus not on individual or casual users, but on the "big players in the county."
"In my opinion the war on drugs is effective in the sense that it keeps a controlling factor over the distribution and use of drugs," he says.
Solano has indicated he plans to increase drug treatment available to county jail inmates when the control of the facility is restored to the county on Oct. 11.
However, Solano says, federal funding has been dramatically cut under the Bush Administration.
"We have cut administrative and other costs to the bone," he says, "and have had to supplement the task force through local means where, in the past, federal and state funding covered the costs…Republicans who once touted themselves as tough on crime have abandoned the idea, using the war in Iraq and Homeland Security as reasons."
All of which begs the question: Where is the drug control budget being spent, both in New Mexico and elsewhere?
A big chunk of the money is being spent on advertising and media outreach, to the tune of $4.2 billion since 1997. According to research cited in the JPI report, most of those advertising dollars have gone toward anti-marijuana advertisements intended to convince kids and parents that smoking marijuana not only supports terrorism but also leads to violent behavior. Despite the ad campaigns, youth in grades eight, 10 and 12 are registering increases in cannabis consumption, according to the
Monitoring the Future Survey
, an annual survey of 50,000 students.
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Drug reformers are no longer alone in calling the war on marijuana an incredible waste of money and energy. In a June 2005 research report, visiting Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron concluded that the annual cost of marijuana criminalization is now costing at least $5.1 billion per year. Replacing the current criminalization model with one of taxation and regulation, he projected, would produce combined savings and tax revenues of $10 to $14 billion per year.
"I'm not aware of any data that shows that relying on incarceration is effective for reducing marijuana use," Reena Szczepanski, executive director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico, says.
From the perspective of drug policy reformers, New Mexico needs to refocus on real threats to public health and human life-including an increasing problem with methamphetamine addiction-and prioritize scarce resources in doing so.
"Maybe we should look at the estimated $5 billion dollars we are spending on criminal justice responses to marijuana, and ask [if] this is really our first funding priority," Ziedenberg, co-author of the JPI report, says.
"There is still tremendous energy within communities to promote a rational, compassionate approach to drugs," Szczepanski adds. "We need to be smarter."
