The Obama drug war budget and the definition of insanity

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The words were encouraging, especially coming from the surgeon general of the United States. “We have some preliminary data showing that for certain medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can be helpful. So I think we have to use that data to drive policy making, and I’m very interested to see where that data takes us,” said newly appointed Vivek Murthy last week during a television interview.

I’d argue there were more than “preliminary data” out there, but never mind. And there was more. In its budget proposal for 2016, the Obama administration declares that the old ways to run the drug war have to change. The “enforcementcentric” approach the United States has used for almost a century isn’t working, says a president who is on record as saying that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol.

A bipartisan House bill just introduced would allow government physicians to recommend medical marijuana to veterans in states where it is legal. The Justice Department declines to prosecute states passing legalization or medical cannabis laws that are illegal on a federal level. And now the surgeon general is saying positive things about cannabis easing symptoms of certain medical conditions.

It’s all good, right? The budget request is called a “21st century approach to drug policy that outlines innovative policies and programs and recognizes that substance use disorders are not just a criminal justice issue, but also a major public health concern” and brags that more than $12 billion will be spent on public health, more than any previous year.

And yet the request asks for even more spending that basically emphasizes the same approach its own leaders admit isn’t working.

“The President’s 2016 budget calls for the largest commitment to substance use disorder treatment and prevention efforts to date,” said Michael Botticelli, the appointed-on-Monday director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy — the nation’s drug czar. “This budget demonstrates the Obama administration’s ongoing commitment to a science-based drug policy with a balanced approach to public health and public safety.”

Spending $12 billion for public health is a lot of cash, but it’s hardly a molehill in the amount of money being sought for the law-enforcement side of the equation. The total amount being asked is truly staggering: $27.5 billion — almost a $2 billion increase over this year.

And more than two-thirds of that dough is being sought, as it always is and has been and probably always will be, for the triumvirate of criminal justice against drug users: the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Justice. The administration wants to spend almost $4 billion just to incarcerate users and sellers and another $3 billion to fund the Drug Enforcement Administration. Oh, there are some multi-million dollar cuts here and there, and a few higher numbers shuffled around to address “public health concerns.”

But who’s even noticing, or questioning, such enormous numbers? After a while, they just begin to run together. What’s another $2 or $3 billion here or there? A few hundred million moved into another department?

And by the time the budget goes through Congress and is finally enacted, Republicans will probably add even more pork to please their law-andorder constituency and put a capital letter on the complete disconnect in our nation’s approach to drugs.

A recent study by researchers from the ArcView Group, a cannabis industry investment and research company, found that the U.S. market for legal cannabis in 2014 is about $2.7 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2013, and projects even more growth as state laws continue to change.

So let’s review: We have cannabis, a Schedule 1 drug, defined as being dangerously addictive and having no currently accepted medical use. And we have a $2.7 billion industry, with at least 1.5 million citizens legally using marijuana to help relieve symptoms of various diseases in almost half our states. The federal government has also just given its blessing to Native American tribes to sell cannabis on their reservations. Veterans Affairs doctors may soon be able to prescribe medical marijuana to vets.

About 35 million other people, or one in every 10 Americans, have chosen, for whatever reason and despite the federal prohibition, to use cannabis, which has created a market that operates at a pretty high level of efficiency despite the billions being spent to stop it. Who even knows how large this market is?

These Americans are going to use it no matter what the government says, and at this point just about anyone who wants it and has a couple hundred dollars can buy an ounce of pot.

Yet our elected representatives will allot more than $35 billion of your tax money next year to keep things pretty much the same.

Just looking at our own history, we could learn that prohibition of pleasurable substances doesn’t work. We could come up with a better way to handle drugs that doesn’t entail $35 billion a year, Homeland Security or the Justice Department. But no, we continue on a drug policy that is hypocritical, irrational and foolish. 

And that, my friends, is the definition of insanity.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU. http:// news.kgnu.org/weed