After my post on Friday, Brian O’Dea, former drug smuggler and current author-slash-filmmaker, sent me the video of his interview with CNN’s Kyra Phillips last week.
O’Dea thinks domestic drug policy is backwards. “We brag about increased [drug] arrest rates. That’s not something to brag about,” he said, adding that decriminalization would increase the number of addicts seeking treatment, although it’s not quite clear from his interview exactly how. As I type, I’m working through a policy study from The Cato Institute on drug decriminalization in Portugal, which O’dea used as a case study in decriminalization. Maybe the answer’s in there.
It’s hard to call drug decriminalization an inherently responsible or safe piece of public policy, but it’s even harder to argue with the empirical evidence that says it has reduced drug consumption and generated other favorable results. And drug policy is one area of public policy that’s far more important than it initially seems: chasing and locking up dealers and users diverts police forces and clogs up the criminal courts, and imprisonment is the most economically unproductive thing I can think of. It’s also not ridiculous to point out that drug consumption plays a role in funding the kind of terrorism that necessitates yet more funds to try and contain through war and military occupation.
O’Dea is absolutely right to point out that current drug policy isn’t working, and that perhaps the answer lies in some form of decriminalization.
(Note: O’Dea is on Twitter and wrote a book about his former role as an international drug trafficker that I’m anxious to read.)
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