Summer of 1927 – Déjà vu All Over Again

I’ve been reading Bill Bryson’s “Summer of 1927,” a fascinating historical look at one astounding year in America. One section – about prohibition – caught my attention. Prohibition, wrote Bryson, “was easily the most extreme, ill-judged, costly, and ignored experiment in social engineering ever conducted by an otherwise rational nation … It made criminal out of honest people and actually led to an increase in the amount of drinking in the country.” As I read Bryson’s tragic yet comedic recounting of prohibition, I couldn’t help but think of the nation’s current “War on Drugs.” We learned nothing from prohibition.

            America has 25% of the worlds incarcerated. Approximately 40% of the men and women behind bars are in prison due to some drug-related conviction. The sale of drugs is one of the primary means gangs use to finance their operations. Over fifty-thousand Mexicans have died as that nation – under direct pressure from the United States – seeks to curb the flow of illegal drugs north.

            Heroin and crystal Meth use are rapidly increasing as is crime associated with the manufacture and sale of these drugs. Prescription pain medication abuse is near epidemic levels. The inner cities are as awash in drugs as they were in the late 60’s and early 70’s. New synthetic drugs such as ecstasy are easily found in almost any high school in America. And this nation’s response? Criminalize it, drive it underground, and treat it like booze in the 1920s. Does anyone see the insanity of this approach?

            Who benefits from America’s “War on Drugs?” For one, the drug cartels and gangs who make billions off this illegal cash business without any taxes being paid. And all that cash gets serviced by banks; America’s financial services industry launders the money.

            Then there’s the prison industrial complex - companies who make billions providing services to state prison systems at a breaking point due to America’s drug war. From inmate medical care, to alcohol and drug treatment, food services – even whole privately-owned prisons with corporate employees serving as guards – these corporations make billions off the incarcerated and their families.

            And law enforcement itself. $60 billion dollars a year for prisons; $120 billion a year for the criminal justice apparatus. Police departments get more and more dollars as others – schools, and community health care, and transportation – fight over the rest. You would think we would have learned from prohibition.

            So guys come to prison, get out, go right back to the drugs, and come right back in. The drug bosses and the CEOs of C.C.A., and GEO and Keefe. Keep smiling because the money’s still coming in.