From: Jim Rosenfield <[j n r] at [igc.apc.org]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Date: 11 Jun 94 11:45 PDT
Subject: Collateral Casualties-JAMA 6/1/94

Superb scholarly discussion of the War on Drugs from the 
June 1, 1994 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
can be found in the message (21kB)  following these excerpts:

`COLLATERAL CASUALTIES' CLIMB IN DRUG WAR  by Andrew A. Skolnick

SINCE PRESIDENT Nixon declared war on drugs in 1972, the nation's
primary remedy for illicit drug use has been an escalation of
federal, state, and local law enforcement activities aimed at
discouraging use by punishing both dealers and users.  However,
an increasing number of health, law, and other experts say the
current policy is clearly failing and shows no sign of ever doing
more good than harm.
...................

"There appears to be an unwillingness among many national leaders
to collect all the data needed for an objective analysis of the
nation's drug policy, ' says Baltimore (Md) Mayor Kurt Schmoke.
"So much of the nation's drug policy is driven by politics and
emotions rather than any objective analysis of the most important
data." 
............
With nearly five in every 1000 Americans behind bars on any given
day, the United States has the dubious distinction of
incarcerating a higher percentage of its citizens than any
country in the world. Thanks in large part to the country's war
on drugs......

................at least some of this resistance (to looking at
the collateral damage to people) reflects an underlying belief
that illicit drug users should pay for their crime with their
lives and that their deaths will deter others from using such
drugs.
******************************************

This posting made with no permission whatsoever.  This 'email'
version was OCRed and retyped by Jim Rosenfield from the original
personal copy and is shared in this form strictly for the purpose
of furthering this informal public discourse.  It is intended for
no commercial purpose whatsoever and all readers are advised to
contact JAMA regarding any issue of copyright.