Two cheers

This is one of those stories where what is being said is less interesting than who it is saying it.

Peter N. Letang was one of those law-and-order, tough-on-crime prosecutors. He was a Republican deputy attorney general in the state of Delaware from 1974 to 1980, and from 1986 until he stepped down Friday.

Now that he's in private practice, what does this tough former chief prosecutor have to say? The "war on drugs has failed."

Letang ... said it is possible to order almost any illegal substance through contacts in Wilmington today and get it here tomorrow.

And the drugs come "in good-size quantities. ... That tells me, notwithstanding all the efforts and money we are throwing at this thing, that we are not having very much success," he said.

Prohibition failed to stop the consumption of alcohol in the Roaring '20s, he said, and generations of law enforcement haven't been able to stop prostitution.

"I think we are deluding ourselves to think we are able to stem the tide, the influx of drugs. It is a situation where we have had very little success in trying to shut it down. Something has to be done to reduce the profit motive from the drug trade," he said.

Letang isn't calling for legalization -- he's no Kurt Schmoke or "Bunny Colvin" -- not quite at least, but after nearly 30 years of locking up drug dealers as part of the so-called War on Drugs, he's ready to try a different strategy:

Letang said he does not know what the solution is, but added, "If we can take away from your need to pay for a $500-a-day or $200-a-day habit, if we can reduce that to 10 bucks, then you'd hit a lot less people over the head or steal a lot fewer cars than you are now."

"There are many reasons why you don't want to decriminalize this. I don't think you ought to be able to go into Happy Harry's and buy it over the counter. But if there is some middle ground somewhere, we should pursue it."

If the state put all the money it spends on interdiction into treatment instead, Letang said, "You could have a counselor holding the hand of every student in the state." And then, "it might have some impact."

Instead, all interdiction seems to be doing is driving up the price of drugs, making them more and more lucrative for those who sell them.

"It is an economics argument," he said.

When the big drug dealers are taken off the street ... "Boom, someone else takes his place. Pull someone else off the conveyer belt," he said. "The only thing you can try to do is take the profit incentive out of it somehow," he said.

So two cheers for Peter Letang. (Only two because he's still hedging his bets a bit here, and because he waited until after retiring to say all this.) His comments also allowed reporter Sean O'Sullivan to ask Wilmington's mayor what he thought about the War on Drugs:

Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker said he agreed with everything Letang said without reservation.

"I've said all along that if this was a real war, we would have surrendered long ago."

Comments

[bulbul]

If we can take away from your need to pay for a $500-a-day or $200-a-day habit, if we can reduce that to 10 bucks
... i.e. bring stuff like pot, cocaine or heroin to the level of alcohol. And not only as far as prices are concerned: I'd imagine some health/safety standards would be put in place and the government would probably want to tax the shit out of the good shit. Broaden the scope of the DUI laws accordingly, sort out stuff like the legal status of the wholesalers and importers and I am sold.

[bulbul]

Re: war on drugs.
One aspect of this war is conspicuously absent from most of the debate I have seen: the Columbian theatre of operations. As dumb as the whole idea of "war" on drugs may be, the only real military operation in this war is a textbook screwup as well. And I'd rather not go into the whole "wrecking lives of brown people to try to solve rich white people's problem" thing.

[Mr. Bill]

For me, one of the central insanities of the War on Drugs is that the distinction between drugs is not made. The most extreme characterizations of drug use are used to determine sentencing, instead of a measure of actual harm. It's more about political posturing.
Marijuana is not heroin. Meth is not cocaine. Steroids aren't ecstasy. But crack is cocaine, and ice is, in fact meth. Sentencing should reflect this.
By sweeping all these thing together, we force would be users into the black market, increasing the chance of the 'gateway drug' phenomenon..
The measures used to 'fight drugs' are corrosive to civil liberties, and the unhinged response pathological.

[pharoute]

*sigh* Mr. Letang joins the long list of people speaking the truth to power only after they are in no position to do anything about it. But you don't get elected telling the American public what they don't want to hear....

[Jim]

People, people, people...the problem is not with the supply side, it is with the demand side. As long as people hurt and want to escape from lives which are dull and painful, drugs will have a demand. It is that simple. Drugs make you feel better. Now, if we spent the money we spend on this "war" on treating the causes for the demand at our end...
Easily said, much, much harder to do.
I feel a little verklempt (sp?). Talk amongst yourselves for a while...*grin* (with apologies to SNL...)

[Erick Oppeen]

I will admit that I wonder how the Drug Warriors live with themselves. Thanks to Drug War hysteria, chronic-pain patients often can't be prescribed the medications they need b/c doctors are afraid that prescribing "too much" of the "wrong" sort of drugs will get the DEA after them.

[J]

People, people, people...the problem is not with the supply side, it is with the demand side. As long as people hurt and want to escape from lives which are dull and painful, drugs will have a demand. It is that simple.

No, actually it isn't. Why do you think people drink and smoke pot at parties and concerts? Drugs don't simply "make you feel better"--drug-taking is NOT the same as self-medication. Lots of happy people take drugs. I think it is a matter of pure semantism and culture that champagne is drunk at weddings rather than passing around marijuana joints.

[bulbul]

People, people, people...the problem is not with the supply side, it is with the demand side
Sure it is. Same goes for prostitution. So? No one is stupid enough to believe they can make this demand disappear.

I think it is a matter of pure semantism and culture that champagne is drunk at weddings rather than passing around marijuana joints.
That and maybe practical concerns - it's easier and more hygienic to pour liquid to individual glasses than to pass a joint around :o)
Then again, at the end of a working day, you and me may go down to the local bar and down a few beers with our buddies. My Moroccan friends gather in a local tavern around a hookkah filled with tobacco and hash.

[Chuck]

No one is stupid enough to believe they can make this demand disappear.

The demand for prostitution? Actually, I suspect you could advance technology to the point of not needing prostitutes: Realistic sex robots and/or fully-immersive VR. I think it was Scott Adams who theorized that the invention of the holodeck would result in the extinction of the human species.

[cjmr]

Actually, I suspect you could advance technology to the point of not needing prostitutes: Realistic sex robots and/or fully-immersive VR. I think it was Scott Adams who theorized that the invention of the holodeck would result in the extinction of the human species.

Aldous Huxley would be so proud!

[Majromax]

So would Malthus.

[bulbul]

Actually, I suspect you could advance technology to the point of not needing prostitutes
Sure, but that does not do anything for the demand.

[Erick Oppeen]

I'd not be too keen on a robo-prostitute, for the following reason:

"Hi, welcome to Robo-Prostitutes. I am your robo-hostess, Mimi. Relax, everything is under control, and nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...go wrong..."

The kind of thing that would result from glitches in a place like that would make my blood freeze.

[bulbul]

I know, what you mean, Erick. Imagine oral sex going wrong... Ugh.
No thanks, it's virtual reality for me.

[J]

For the pros and cons of robo-prostitutes, see Episode 1 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

(Warning: Website plays music. Really cool music.)

[rachelrachel]

Letang isn't calling for legalization -- he's no Kurt Schmoke

Schmoke (also a tough-on-crime prosecutor) likewise hedged his bets and never really came out unambiguously in favor of wholesale drug legalization; as far as I can tell, his position was not much different from that of Letang, supporting some kind of "middle ground." Mr. Schmoke deserves enormous credit because he took his stance while he was mayor, shortly after being sworn in for the first time, and he did so at a time when there wasn't much public debate on the topic. He also made small concrete reforms in drug policy during his term, including a needle-exchange program.

[Pat]

Mr. Letang has come face to face with the "Creating chaos and instability" component that is built into the drug war.