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DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION

The Drug War - General

The war on drugs has wasted billions while coinciding with higher drug usage, production, and creation of new criminals while failing to stop substance abuse in any capacity.

The Hill: Clark 18
- $100 billion a year is spent waging the war on drugs globally
- $40 billion of that is spent in the United States alone
- Despite this, drug use rose by 31% between 2011 and 2016.
- Illegal drug markets have expanded relentlessly to meet this growing demand, with opium and [cocaine] production rising respectively by 130% and 34% between 2009 and 2018.
Justice Policy Institute: McVay et al. 04
- Among drug offenders released from prison, 41.2% will be re-arrested on another drug offense.
Center on Addiction 10
- Approximately 65% of prison inmates in the US meet the diagnostic criteria for addiction [but] only 11% receive any form of treatment.
- “In 2005, federal, state and local governments spent $74 billion on incarceration, court proceedings, probation and parole for substance-involved adult and juvenile offenders and less than 1% of that amount—$632 million–on prevention and treatment for them”
Skywood Recovery: O’Leary 18
- Widely cited collection of statistics, although not from an academic source and thus should be used cautiously.
- Approximately 95% of incarcerated addicts will return to substance abuse after their release from prison.
- 60% to 80% of them will commit new crimes.
- Others will become addicted while in prison due to access to smuggled drugs.
- There have been a number of reports of individuals dying from severe withdrawal while in prison.
Pew 18
- Great article on the failure of the war on drugs, but also features their own study on whether or not locking up drug offenders causes less drug use
- ‘Pew compared state drug imprisonment rates with three important measures of drug problems— self-reported drug use (excluding marijuana), drug arrest, and overdose death—and found no statistically significant relationship between drug imprisonment and these indicators’
- The results hold even when controlling for standard demographic variables, including the percentage of the population with bachelor’s degrees, the unemployment rate, the percentage of the population that is nonwhite, and median household income.*

Decriminalization

The decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs has been demonstrated to massively reduce gang violence and decimate illegal markets.

The Economic Journal: Gavrilova et al. 17
- Analyses the effects of medical marijuana laws, which institute lax criminal penalties, on homicides and drug prices at the southern border.
- The study concludes that, when such policies are implemented:
  - violent crimes such as homicides and robberies decrease in states that border Mexico
  - homicides decrease, (due to drug-law and juvenile-gang related homicides being reduced)
  - the amount of cocaine seized at the border decreases, while the price of cocaine is increased (this makes it harder to obtain due to the strainput on the illegal market)
Drug Policy Alliance 15 (easier to read)
- An empirical analysis of drug decriminalization in Portugal
- As a result of decriminalizing all drugs, Portugal experienced:
  - No major increase in overall drug use
  - Reduced problematic and adolescent drug use
  - Reduced drug-induced death
  - More people receiving drug treatment
- Over 70 percent of those who seek treatment receive opioid-substitution therapy
- This is while treatment is still voluntary
  - Reduction in HIV cases among people who use drugs declining from 1,575 to 78
  - 18% reduction in the social costs of drug misuse (legal and health related)
- The European Union also confirmed in 2013 that countries like Portugal that have decriminalized drug possession, have not experienced increases in monthly rates of use – and in fact tend to have lower rates than countries with punitive policies
- Separate informational piece - Drug Policy Alliance: notes also that overdose deaths decreased by over 80%
- Cool Statista infographic:
Choo et al. 14
- Looks at adolescent marijuana use before and after legalization of medical marijuana
- ‘There were no statistically significant differences in marijuana use before and after policy change for any state pairing. In the regression analysis, we did not find an overall increased probability of marijuana use related to the policy change’

Treatment

Drug treatment from a public health approach functions far more successfully at reducing drug addiction and abuse

Chandler et al. 09
- A META-ANALYSIS of 78 comparison-group community-based drug treatment studies
- Treatment is up to 1.8 times [180%] better in reducing drug use than the usual alternatives.
- “Research has consistently shown that community-based drug abuse treatment can reduce drug use and drug-related criminal behavior.”
de Andrade et al. 18
- “Therapeutic communities are effective in reducing recidivism and, to a lesser extent, substance use after release.”
- “Opioid maintenance treatment is effective in reducing the risk of drug use after release from prison for opioid users.”
- Both types of intervention are further enhanced by care after prison.
Justice Policy Institute: McVay et al. 04
- Offenders who went through treatment showed a nearly two-thirds decline in overall arrests and an over 50% drop in drug possession arrests

Safe Consumption Rooms

Potier et al. 14
- Meta analysis of 75 studies on supervised injection services
- ‘All studies converged to find that SISs were efficacious in attracting the most marginalized PWID [people who inject drugs], promoting safer injection conditions, enhancing access to primary health care, and reducing the overdose frequency. SISs were not found to increase drug injecting, drug trafficking or crime in the surrounding environments. SISs were found to be associated with reduced levels of public drug injections and dropped syringes.’
Marshall et al.11
- Looks at the overdose mortality rate before and after the opening of a safe consumption room in Vancouver, the first in North America
- ‘The fatal overdose rate in this area [500m radius of the centre] decreased by 35·0% after the opening of the SIF, from 253·8 to 165·1 deaths per 100 000 person-years’
- ‘By contrast, during the same period, the fatal overdose rate in the rest of the city decreased by only 9·3%, from 7·6 to 6·9 deaths per 100 000 person-years’
Ng et al. 17
- Another study on Vancouver
- ‘Best evidence from cohort and modeling studies suggests that SISs are associated with lower overdose mortality (88 fewer overdose deaths per 100 000 person-years [PYs]), 67% fewer ambulance calls for treating overdoses, and a decrease in HIV infections.’
Bayoumi & Zaric 08
- Another study on Vancouver, this time concentrating on cost
- ‘Focusing on the base assumption of decreased needle sharing as the only effect of the supervised injection facility, we found that the facility was associated with an incremental net savings of almost $14 million and 920 life-years gained over 10 years. When we also considered the health effect of increased use of safe injection practices, the incremental net savings increased to more than $20 million and the number of life-years gained to 1070. Further increases were estimated when we considered all 3 health benefits: the incremental net savings was more than $18 million and the number of life-years gained 1175.’