1 1 2 THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 3 ----------------------------------------------X 4 DRUG POLICY HEARINGS 5 ----------------------------------------------X 6 DATE: OCTOBER 11, 1995 7 TIME: 9 a.m. 8 9 Drug Policy Hearings, held at THE 10 ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 42 11 West 44th Street, New York, New York before a 12 Notary Public of the State of New York. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 2 1 2 THE PANEL: 3 4 KATHY ROCKLEN, CHAIRPERSON 5 ELEANOR JACKSON PIEL 6 DAVID FISCHER 7 CHARLES KNAPP 8 NANCY BRESLOW 9 DAVID AFFLER 10 LEO KAYSER 11 12 * * * 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 3 1 2 SCHEDULED TESTIMONY BY: 3 4 5 MR. ARNOLD TREBACH 6 DR. LESTER GRINSPOON 7 MR. ROBERT GANGI 8 MR. WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. 9 DR. WILLIAM M. LONDON 10 DR. DIANA GORDON 11 DR. JOYCE LOWINSON 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 4 1 DRUG HEARING 2 MS. PIEL: We thank you Diamond Reporting 3 Service for your pro bono work today and we are now 4 underway. 5 Our first speaker is Dr. Arnold 6 Trebach, who is the chairman and president of the 7 Drug Policy Foundation in Washington and for more 8 than 25 years, he's been an advocate of fundamental 9 drug policy change and he is a professor in the 10 Department of Justice, Law and Society at the 11 School of Public Affairs at American University in 12 Washington. He's written books on the subject and 13 he is a national figure in the field. 14 Without more, I introduce Dr. Arnold 15 Trebach. 16 TESTIMONY BY DR. ARNOLD TREBACH: 17 Thank you very much, Ms. Piel, and it's 18 a pleasure to be here. I remember years ago as a 19 very young lawyer working with other lawyers such 20 as Robert Von Mayo (sic.) and Emory Bounell (sic.) 21 on a committee to the endeavor systems. I think 22 the work of your committee is historic and I want 23 you to know that I want to help and the foundation 24 wants to help you as you pursue further work in 25 this area. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 5 1 DRUG HEARING 2 I'm in very strong agreement with your 3 conclusion ending prohibition of drugs would indeed 4 be the wiser course of direction for the nation. 5 It's a fundamental point that many good people 6 agree on and there are many people who disagree and 7 we respect their opinion. But, there are many 8 reasons for my opinion which are laid out in my 9 extensive statement which I sent you for your 10 records. 11 Mainly, it is my view and the view of 12 so many other people that the current situation is 13 so horrible that when you look at the cost of the 14 current situation, I think most sensible people 15 would say it's terrible and we have to seek a 16 change. For many years moreover, I was among those 17 people who felt that however bad the situation now 18 is from drug prohibition, there must have been good 19 reasons for commencing with drug prohibition around 20 the turn of the century. Recently, I have gone 21 back and looked at that earlier era and what I 22 found was -- and I'm speaking now as a lawyer and 23 even though I'm social scientist and a lawyer, I 24 tend to approach this as a lawyer. I look for 25 evidence. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 6 1 DRUG HEARING 2 I recently went back and looked at the 3 evidence at the turn of the century about the need 4 for criminal laws prohibiting the use of drugs and 5 I found no reliable evidence on the need for such 6 drastic legislation. So, I concluded that the 7 original basis for the drug prohibition laws was 8 faulty. 9 Now, that to me, had a profound effect 10 on my thinking. It pushed me even further into 11 being a reformer and seeking change. I think there 12 are many people, many lawyers, many government 13 officials, who are surprised when you tell them 14 that drug prohibition is relatively new in our 15 history relatively. It came into effect on March 16 1st 1915. I mean that's just a little older then I 17 am and I don't consider myself that old and I'm 18 capable of learning new tricks and the country is 19 capable of learning new tricks. 20 Drug prohibition is not something 21 written in the tablets of the bible. It is not 22 written in the constitution. It is not something 23 that is an immunable part of the American life. 24 I'm sure you've spoken to many people who have 25 testified here, who have said if you take away drug DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 7 1 DRUG HEARING 2 prohibition, the sky will fall. Addiction will go 3 through the roof. Crime will be rampant. We'll be 4 a nation of drug zombies. They may believe that 5 from the information they see, but when I look at 6 the information, I don't find any evidence of that, 7 any reliable evidence. 8 When I was speaking to Ms. Rocklen, I 9 said that I would concentrate in my presentation on 10 the early years because I don't think many people 11 have spent time on that. I certainly have not 12 until a few years ago. So, when I went back, I 13 looked at some of the leading scholars such as 14 David Miusto (sic.) or Cartwright, who are very 15 good writers and very good scholars and their 16 research is often used to provide a buttress to the 17 concept. 18 In the old days we had rampant 19 prohibition. Thank God, we got the prohibition 20 laws that repealed prohibition. It's simply not in 21 the records. I used to think it was. It's not in 22 the records. I went back oh, about three years ago 23 with the help of a lot of young people, mainly 24 unpaid interns at the foundation, and I said find 25 me evidence of what was wrong around the 1870's, DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 8 1 DRUG HEARING 2 1880, and we couldn't come up with anything. What 3 we come up with was this. A large number of people 4 were using drugs and a large number of people were 5 getting in trouble with drugs, but on a comparative 6 basis, they were a finite portion of the 7 population. There was no definitive evidence at all 8 that Navy ships didn't sail, that factories closed 9 down, that neighborhoods were destroyed by the 10 process of drugs and as if it were written in 11 stone, the idea of Civil War because of the 12 presence of drugs. Although, information from on 13 the battlefields -- we had battalions of addicted 14 soldiers. As far as I'm concerned, it was a myth 15 which we all accepted. 16 So, what did we have back then? We had 17 a situation where you could buy the drugs sometimes 18 from the Sears, Roebuck catalogue for a very low 19 price. As it also happens, you could buy a cure 20 for a couple of bucks. The cure didn't work, the 21 drugs did. There were many places where it was 22 bought over-the-counter. There were opium dens. 23 We believe it was a custom brought by Chinese 24 workers to do the work that white people wouldn't 25 and in those opium dens, people went and smoked DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 9 1 DRUG HEARING 2 opium and around at the 1870's or 1880's, perfectly 3 decent white folks, men and women of tender ages, 4 went there to enjoy the smoking. 5 This caused enormous resentment and I 6 believe that was the start of prohibition movements 7 in this country. And, if you look at opium and its 8 habits, smoking opium is dangerous. It was 9 generally a peaceful vice. There was no evidence 10 that out of those opium dens people spewed and 11 attacked the neighborhood. Opium was a problem for 12 the people who smoked it and was a problem for 13 families of people who got addicted, but there was 14 no evidence that this disrupted the society, but I 15 believe this was the start of the process of 16 prohibition and once they started that, they 17 realized that those laws didn't work. People get 18 high doing it. 19 Well, the result was, we've got to get 20 tougher. So, they got tougher and then we got the 21 Harrison Act which was passed on December 17, 1914 22 as an amendment to one of the anti-opium statutes. 23 It went into effect on March 1st 1915. That was 24 our first national anti-prohibition law. It's 25 never worked and we keep saying we've got to get DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 10 1 DRUG HEARING 2 tougher, we've got to get tougher. Now people 3 forget this history and they will sit here and 4 appear before Congress and right backs and say 5 national prohibition saved us and I find now no 6 evidence of that. 7 I summarized all of this in my 8 statement and we'll make it available to you. I 9 want to point out one part of my statement which I 10 think was very new for me. I mobilized these young 11 people and said let's see if we can create at least 12 some comparative data -- because there is none -- 13 of crime before and after prohibition and I viewed 14 that that was one evidence of a major social 15 problem that could flow from the easy availability 16 of drugs. 17 We found 10 cities -- and we worked 18 like the dickens to find them -- that had records 19 that would be comparative. Ten cities had arrest 20 records in 1918 and 1919. We picked two days 21 essentially apart and we looked at three crimes, 22 homicide, robbery and burglary. Remember our 23 questions was that is there evidence of the 24 presence of easily available drugs a century ago 25 that had the side effects of creating a vast amount DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 11 1 DRUG HEARING 2 of crime. We worked on this quite a deal. 3 It's in my statement on Page 16 and if 4 you look at the table, you realize in almost every 5 case a century ago crime was significantly lower. 6 We did it by rate. We did a rate in population. 7 We didn't look at absolute numbers, but I will just 8 pick up Manhattan and start my questions until, I 9 assume, my time is up. 10 In 1989, whereas far as I can tell, 11 drugs were easily available there and by the way, 12 there were local pharmacy laws, but you would and 13 could get drugs quite easily in Manhattan. It had 14 a population of a million-and-a-half. It had 119 15 homicides and 659 burglary arrests. Clearly, there 16 was more, but I was looking for comparatives and 17 the rates were 7.9 for homicide, 12.2 for robbery 18 and 21.3 for burglary and by 1989, the population. 19 Of Manhattan went down slightly. It was a 20 1,400,000, 1,408,000, but the homicides were 338, 21 robberies were 9,051. In other words, the rise in 22 rates is not something, but the rise in rate per 23 100,000 was 3400. In other words, it went up 34 24 times. 25 Now, what do you conclude from all this DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 12 1 DRUG HEARING 2 data? What I conclude is this. I am not making a 3 cause and effect connection that the advent of 4 drugs prohibition jammed this attendant crime. It 5 may have, but I'm talking very carefully like a 6 lawyer here, I am saying there is an answer absent 7 of evidence that there were a reduction in related 8 crimes problems back before prohibition and there 9 is some indication that crime is much worse now by 10 rate then it was then. 11 Where does this all lead me or I hope, 12 where it leads you? It should strengthen your 13 resolve because while the past cannot foretell the 14 future clearly, we have one test case here as to 15 how the American people react to the presence of 16 relatively, freely available drugs and we can say 17 they behaved quite well, thank you. Some of them 18 got into trouble, but even through the most 19 pessimist text scenarios, the number of people 20 addicted was like .4 percent or .3 percent, and I 21 would say that it should give us hope as we move 22 forward that the American people can do well 23 without your friendly, local policeman telling them 24 what chemicals to put in their own bodies. 25 Thank you very much. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 13 1 DRUG HEARING 2 MS. PIEL: We're going to start 3 questioning with the panel. Should we start with 4 you Mr. Fischer? 5 MR. FISCHER: Sure. 6 QUESTION BY MR. FISCHER: If the rate 7 of addiction was .4 percent, is that something that 8 I heard correctly -- 9 DR. TREBACH: I went over and invite 10 you to do and by the way a lot of this is included 11 in some of my reports and a lot of my section of 12 book which I wrote with Jim Sines (sic.), "Legalize 13 It." It's debate book put out by the American 14 University Press. I went back and looked at the 15 data that these scholars such as Musto (sic.) and 16 Corrad (sic.) used. 17 I concluded first of all, if you took 18 them at their worst -- I will tell you the number 19 exactly -- it's the number itself about -- we had 20 the most. It was either 99.59 percent or 99.67 21 percent of the American population was not 22 addicted. These are figures at their worst, but I 23 went beyond that. My next step was to go back and 24 look at and see is there a basis for their 25 estimates which are widely credited and you find -- DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 14 1 DRUG HEARING 2 by the way, the best place you can go for this? 3 Terry Palisi's (sic.) book, "The Opium Problem," 4 which came out in '28, and they reviewed all the 5 drugs in our surveys that had been done on them and 6 if you read them, it will boggle your mind, 7 especially as lawyers and as social scientists. 8 Their estimates vary so widely. The town of 9 Monroe, Michigan the doctor reported one opium, 10 either as they called them in the town and the 11 pharmacist reported 60. How do you use that as a 12 basis for calculation? 13 So, the conclusion was I made widely 14 available data now responsible. An expert or 15 lawyer can say we have reliable data to compare. 16 MR. FISCHER: Opium is not one of the 17 drugs that's considered much of a problem these 18 days. I believe heroin was developed late in the 19 19th century because it was hoped or expected to be 20 non-addictive and turned out to be much more 21 addictive then opium is; is my recollection 22 correct? 23 RESPONSE BY DR. TREBACH: Well, there 24 were many other drugs available then. Opium as I 25 said, was an emotional thing because there was DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 15 1 DRUG HEARING 2 opium smoking by aliens, but there were many other 3 drugs were available. Information means available 4 and needles were available and on heroin -- if I 5 can talk about that for just a second -- it was 6 widely believed that heroin was developed in the 7 19th century by Bayer Company and it was developed 8 as a cure for mentalism. This field is full of 9 myths. That's another myth. In fact, heroin was 10 discovered by C. Oral Wright (sic.). He published 11 it in an English journal. It was also joined by 12 Antole Dresser (sic.), a fellow physician in 13 Germany. They experimented with it and found it 14 was a wonderful cough medicine. It was never 15 marketed for a cure for morphine addiction. It was 16 used primarily as a sedative for coughs, which was 17 very effective. 18 MR. FISCHER: I guess just to leave the 19 microphone, my question is the extent to which 20 information we have about opium 100 years ago which 21 is not really an abused drug today or certainly not 22 one of the leading abused drugs today. Can you 23 really give us much guidance to current policy 24 where I think heroin and cocaine are probably 25 considered the major problem drugs? DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 16 1 DRUG HEARING 2 RESPONSE BY DR. TREBACH: What I'm 3 getting at is, what I was looking at were all of 4 the drugs available to them then and there were 5 many drugs available then. I simply say that opium 6 was the one that drew the most attention, but other 7 drugs did as well. By the turn of the century 8 heroin was being used and abused and other drugs 9 were being used and morphine was always being 10 abused. 11 So what I am saying is, there is no 12 reliable evidence in the surveys which covered all 13 the drugs that there was a problem of such 14 dimension that we were justified in creating an 15 army of police and prisonkeepers to control our 16 drug appetites. 17 MS. PIEL: Thank you. We have another 18 question from a member of our panel, Mr. Knapp. 19 MR. KNAPP: You mentioned the existence 20 of certain pharmacies in the 19th century? 21 DR. TREBACH: Yes. 22 QUESTION BY MR. KNAPP: Can you give 23 the committee a brief synopsis? 24 RESPONSE BY DR. TREBACH: These were 25 all state laws as opposed to national laws. There DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 17 1 DRUG HEARING 2 were some national laws and, as a matter of fact, I 3 think Musto (sic.), who I criticized, gives an 4 excellent summary of many of the state laws. They 5 put controls on the manner in which drugs could be 6 dispensed and they put internal controls on purity 7 and how the businesses could be run, but there was 8 some restrictions on sales in some states, but it 9 was very easy to get around them and there was no 10 national fabric of control and you could easily 11 order them through the mail. In one of my books, 12 "The Heroin Solution," many people have published 13 it, there is an ad from the Bayer Company saying 14 please send away for aspirin and heroin and one 15 other drug. So, that the controls -- you do order 16 the stuff and I have Sears, Roebuck catalogs with 17 all the drugs listed and you could find many ways 18 of getting that, but if you wish I'd be glad to 19 provide you with information. 20 QUESTION BY MR. KNAPP: But, your 21 overall conclusion in the historical records was 22 that those pharmacy laws proved to be ineffective? 23 RESPONSE BY DR. TREBACH: But mind you, 24 I am not at all against a whole series of new laws 25 that we put together. In fact, I talk about this DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 18 1 DRUG HEARING 2 in some of my work in this book, but I think the 3 task of the future is to create a new set of laws 4 that do not start and end with prohibition. 5 You look at the alcohol laws and I've 6 dealt with that on some occasions and some of you 7 perhaps have, there are a vast array of laws 8 regulating the sale of alcohol, the use of alcohol, 9 penalties for drunk driving, and I think they ought 10 to be the task I recommend as one place to start is 11 right here in New York, and I believe you probably 12 heard from Senator Joseph Gallagher. His law for a 13 new way of regulation is very intriguing and I 14 think worthy of attention. 15 I am not at all recommending that we 16 throw away the laws, but where we -- 17 post-prohibition laws, for example, you'd want age 18 limits, you'd want purity standards, you'd want 19 label standards. You would want a requirement that 20 people who sell these drugs not have criminal 21 records. I would hope that they're trained 22 properly. 23 In fact, one of the proposals I made 24 and I would make to you, is that in the future we 25 would consider creating two channels for obtaining DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 19 1 DRUG HEARING 2 these drugs. One would be the tradition channel we 3 now have. If you want to get codeine -- I just got 4 a prescription for antibiotic yesterday -- I called 5 my pharmacist. I went to my doctor and got advice 6 and I think people who want that route should have 7 it. It should still be there. It would be the one 8 I would prefer and there should be a nonmedical 9 route. If you are an adult and you want to 10 purchase these drugs and you have been given some 11 basic education and perhaps, have obtained a drug 12 license, you can go to a nonmedical drug store and 13 buy the drugs you want. 14 I think most people wouldn't go the 15 current route. You want a doctor, a pharmacist. 16 You want advice, but if you are an adult, I think 17 the future ought to hold that you could go to the 18 store and obtain it and with the label saying if 19 you are pregnant, don't use this drug, etcetera, 20 etcetera. I think that's where the challenge is 21 and I think lawyers should take up the challenge of 22 that. 23 MS. PIEL: Maybe our next question is 24 Mr. Kayser. Mr. Kayser would like to question. 25 QUESTION FROM MR. KAYSER: Most you've DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 20 1 DRUG HEARING 2 responded to in advance, which is what I had asked 3 witnesses yesterday, which was their comment with 4 respect to license and pharmacies to sell drugs 5 generally with warning labels and so forth, but 6 there is one other element I would like to ask you 7 about which has to do with the issue of taxes that 8 would have to be collected on the legal sale of 9 drugs under some regulation and if you levy tax 10 commiserate with tobacco and alcohol-type taxes, do 11 you have any estimate as to the type of revenue 12 that might be raised and also whether that revenue 13 might be put into a dedicated fund for purposes of 14 treatment? 15 RESPONSE FROM DR. TREBACH: As a matter 16 of fact, Senator Gallagher's bill recommends that 17 the -- first of all, this is a cardinal rule. They 18 should not be confiscatory. They should not be out 19 of the ballpark. They should not push the drugs to 20 the point where a black market develops. So, the 21 taxes should be reasonable and again your advice, 22 the advice of a group like this -- and again, we'd 23 be willing to work with you on that-- is paramount 24 here. Reasonable taxes-- we had funds in the 25 reform movement estimating how much money we'd DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 21 1 DRUG HEARING 2 gain. It would be a lot. It would be billions 3 there's no doubt about it. I have heard estimates 4 on marijuana in the eight billion range and that's 5 probably in the ballpark, but I think that would be 6 something you want to revisit, but clearly though, 7 I could see those funds. And this, I believe, the 8 Gallagher bill recommends being educated to 9 education prevention and treatment. 10 Remember my feeling would be and I 11 don't like the idea of people using drugs. I'm 12 square in that regard and let's assume many people 13 are squares, but I don't want them made criminals 14 if someone disagrees with me -- some of my friends 15 vote republican for God's sake -- but if some of 16 them want to use drugs, why should I say to them 17 they're bad people? As long as they don't hurt 18 anybody else, I would certainly uphold the right of 19 people who use drugs, but I would not in any way 20 use the criminal law. I would use persuasion and 21 use education and everything in my power to 22 convince them that when you do use drugs, there is 23 danger, but I would not use the panelling rate the 24 danger. 25 QUESTION FROM MR. KAYSER: One other DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 22 1 DRUG HEARING 2 question with your lawyer hat on; do you have an 3 opinions as to whether or not it would be best to 4 repeal the Federal regulatory scheme with view to 5 leaving it to the states, the laboratories of 6 states, to experiment with different kinds of drug 7 regulation at the state level as opposed to having 8 a Federal policy? 9 RESPONSE FROM DR. TREBACH: I dealt 10 with that again, as it happens, in this book, and 11 there's a good book. I won't look it up, but it's 12 in here, but in brief, a law professor and 13 economist dealt with us and they literally drafted 14 statutes which I think are pretty good and I would 15 be in favor of a statute not a constitutional 16 amendment. Thank God we don't need that. I think 17 I could see a Federal statute merely following a 18 very conservative principle, let the states handle 19 it. This has a lot of support for this. You get 20 it from prestigious national committees that have 21 stated this and I would simply say that it could be 22 like the -- the amendment repeal prohibition saying 23 that the Federal government will support states in 24 the way they deal with this. So, I would frame 25 this statute in a very conservative fashion and it DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 23 1 DRUG HEARING 2 shudders me, come to think of it, if the current 3 party stays in power in Washington, it will meet 4 their philosophy which is get the Federal 5 government out of the business and speaking as a 6 lawyer, I view the Federal government and Federal 7 police agencies presumptively incompetent in the 8 drug arena. 9 MS. PIEL: Thank you. Kathy Rocklen, 10 our chair, has a question. 11 QUESTION FROM MS. ROCKLEN: I want to 12 return to the subject that we talked a little bit 13 about before, drug related crime, and I think we 14 are pretty well satisfied that crime related to 15 trafficking and crime related to drug traffic and 16 to people trying to support their habits is likely 17 to be vastly diminished by some sort of 18 decriminalization program and the area of main 19 concern to people is drug-induced crime and I guess 20 the question is, do you think that there are 21 particular drugs that are likely to induce crimes 22 whether domestic, violent crimes or crimes to the 23 third parties and if so, what are these drugs and 24 how do we deal with this problem in the context of 25 legalization? DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 24 1 DRUG HEARING 2 RESPONSE BY DR. TREBACH: I recommend 3 to you on page 1818 of "Legalize It," Goldstein and 4 Brownstein in 1990 they studied 414 homicides right 5 here in New York City with the help of the police. 6 They went over them to see whether or not they were 7 drug related and how you could work up a text on 8 the way to describe them. They came up with 9 classic psychological pharmacological, systemic and 10 economic compulsive. And the one thing we are 11 concerned about is crack because you hear that 12 crack is just destroying our city and in my view, I 13 view crack as a bad drug. It is a dangerous drug 14 that can hurt a lot of people. But, what they 15 concluded was and I'm just looking for the date 16 here quickly, and if he found one case and mind 17 you, they worked with the police on this, they say 18 what do you think happened here? They found one 19 case out of these 414 homicides that they randomly 20 selected in New York City that where an 18-year old 21 man beat his daughter to death while high on 22 crack. That's what you hear about and that's 23 horrible and they found out about 106, I believe it 24 is, were involved in the crack trade. So you had 25 one, you know, psychopharmacological induced DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 25 1 DRUG HEARING 2 homicide and 106 in the crack trades for the 3 future. 4 What would happen? I think you would 5 find all of the drugs have some danger of an impact 6 on a human being towards violence that they may 7 push a person toward violence, but in almost every 8 case, the potential is small. It would depend on 9 the particular psychopharmacological of their 10 social situation. 11 The death of that little baby was 12 horrible, but I would say the single drug that 13 would continue to have the most criminal effect 14 hands downs dead and based upon all the research 15 antidotal data is alcohol. There is no drug I can 16 find where there is more evidence of crimogenic 17 impact then alcohol, and I think all the -- by the 18 way, with some prescribed medication there is a 19 danger that a person would take it and have a bad 20 episode. You know, would act badly and cause harm, 21 but I think that danger is at the level of .1 22 compared to a level of 10 for dangers from the 23 prohibition of the crack trade, the cocaine trade. 24 By the way, for reasons I don't 25 understand, the cocaine and crack trade and I will DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 26 1 DRUG HEARING 2 put on my criminologist hat for a moment, is one of 3 the most violent we've ever seen. I've asked cops 4 this and I've asked other people this and I can't 5 figure it out. I think there is a tradition of 6 violence among the people who traffic in it, but 7 that's the business. I can come up with the 8 dangers of prohibition in terms of violence are 9 much higher then the dangers of pharmacological 10 impact. 11 MS. PIEL: Thank you very much. We are 12 not taking questions from the audience because of 13 time considerations and we thank you very much. 14 Our next speaker to testify is Dr. 15 Lester Grinspoon, a distinguished psychiatrist who 16 has written over 200 theses and books. Here is his 17 CV and one that has caught my eye. In 1969 he 18 wrote a piece for my husband's magazine Scientific 19 American on marijuana and I think he can answer in 20 more details some of the answers to the questions 21 of Professor Trebach concerning the effect of drugs 22 on persons, but in any event, Dr. Grinspoon. 23 TESTIMONY FROM DR. GRINSPOON: 24 Thank you. I'm going to talk about 25 just one part of the prohibition. Namely, the DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 27 1 DRUG HEARING 2 marijuana prohibition and I'm going to be even more 3 specific then that. Of all of the harmful effects 4 of prohibition against marijuana, no part is more 5 harmful and more tragic than the proscriptions 6 against using marijuana as a medicine. 7 Now, you know, in 1928, Alexander 8 Fleming (sic.) returned from his vacation to 9 discover that a petri dish, which had become 10 covered with staphylococci, except for one little 11 island where a mold had formed and to make a long 12 story short, this was the serendipitous discovery 13 of penicillin. I published this in 1929 and it 14 wasn't until 1944 when two investigators using just 15 six patients demonstrated its efficacy as an 16 antibiotic. Why did it not happen until 10 years? 17 But, it was at the pressure of World War II which 18 made it necessary to find antibiotics other than 19 sulfonamides, and very rapidly. 20 In 1941, penicillin became known as the 21 wonder drug of the 40's. Why was it considered a 22 wonder drug? It seems to me there are three 23 reasons. One, it was remarkably nontoxic. You 24 could give large doses and no harm would result. 25 Two, once it was produced on an economy of scales, DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 28 1 DRUG HEARING 2 it was remarkably inexpensive and three, it was 3 very versatile. It would a challenged positive to 4 have coccus and various pneumonias and even 5 syphilis. It proved to be vulnerable to this 6 antibiotic. It was truly a wonder drug. 7 Now, if you consider those three 8 criteria, I would make the case that cannabis is a 9 wonder drug which we have been foolishly 10 overlooking for some time. The first criteria, 11 toxicity, well, cannabis is remarkably nontoxic. 12 When you think that this drug has been used for 13 thousands of years by countless millions of people 14 and that there has not been a single recorded death 15 from cannabis alone, that states that considering 16 the most toxic effect of all, death, it makes it 17 the least toxic substance in the armamentarium and 18 that is to say, once cannabis -- and I can go into 19 this in more detail in a question -- but once 20 cannabis resumes or regains its place in the United 21 States pharmacopeia, a place lost in 1941 paramount 22 to the Man Wantague (sic.) Act in 1941, once it 23 regains that place, it will be among the least 24 toxic substances in that pharmacopeia -- no, two, 25 like penicillin, cannabis will be when it's made DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 29 1 DRUG HEARING 2 remarkably inexpensive. 3 It now costs about 200 to $600 an ounce 4 on the street, but if it were available as a 5 medicine, it will cost something on the order of 6 $10 an ounce, maybe $20 an ounce. When you 7 consider post scaling costs a marijuana cigarette 8 weighs about .4 tenths of a gram, so there are 9 about 70 marijuana cigarettes in an ounce, so 10 therefore, one marijuana cigarettes will cost 11 something in the order of 26 cents. 12 So, consider its use in the treatment 13 of nausea and vomiting of a cancer chemotherapy 14 patient. Nowadays, many patients will get relief 15 from the conventional anti-nausea drugs, like one 16 of the newer ones, Dancpon (sic.) or Zofran (sic.) 17 as it's called. This drug, however, costs $20 for 18 an eighth of a milligram pill and then the patient 19 usually ends up paying about $40 for that pill. 20 That pill will give most people relief from that 21 nausea and vomiting, but the 26 cent marijuana 22 cigarette will generally give better relief with 23 fewer side effects and for people who can not get 24 relief from the any of the conventional anti-nausea 25 medicines, marijuana is the substance that will do DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 30 1 DRUG HEARING 2 it for them. 3 For example, there was an investigator 4 by the name of Vince Scura (sic.), who found 48 5 patients who couldn't get relief from the nausea 6 and vomiting of cancer chemotherapy with 7 conventional medicines. These people -- mind you, 8 this nausea is so powerful you feel it right down 9 to your fingernails and many of these people 10 protest that they won't go on with the therapy 11 because it's just so uncomfortable -- and in 48 of 12 these people who could get relief from these 13 medicines, he found that 78 percent got complete 14 relief by smoking marijuana and it will eventually 15 be an exceedingly effective medicine, relative to 16 the medicines whose place it will displace. 17 The third criteria for a wonder drug is 18 versatility. Now, marijuana has a growing list of 19 symptoms and syndromes from which it's useful and 20 for many people, it is the most peaceful substance 21 just to give you a partial list. I forgot to know 22 what time I started, but -- 23 MS. PIEL: You've been speaking for 24 about seven minutes. 25 THE WITNESS: Thank you. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 31 1 DRUG HEARING 2 -- as I mentioned one of the greatest 3 advancements in cancer treatment is the development 4 of these cancer therapeutics, but nausea and 5 vomiting is very discouraging to people. Marijuana 6 is a boom for millions of people. There is a 7 question of glaucoma. There are two kinds of 8 glaucoma. The most common one is called side-angle 9 or open-angle glaucoma. There are conventional 10 medicines since -- this is a decreased intraocular 11 pressure inside the eye which will eventually 12 destroy eyesight if pressure is not brought down. 13 The conventional medicines are difficult to take. 14 They often cause blurring of vision and people 15 don't like them. On the other hand, many people 16 have found that one, not just that they are able to 17 preserve their eyesight because these conventional 18 medicines don't work, but that marijuana will, and 19 they preserve their eyesight. But, for many other 20 people who could use conventional medicines, it's 21 just so much more comfortable and allows them to go 22 about their work so much more efficiently, that 23 eventually they prefer to use cannabis in the 24 treatment of their glaucoma pain. 25 When marijuana first reemerged in DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 32 1 DRUG HEARING 2 western literature in the mid-19th century, one of 3 the most important uses was as an analgesic. It's 4 knots as powerful as the opiates and it takes a 5 little longer for the effect to come on, but for 6 people, particularly dealing with chronic pain, 7 it's much more important then morphine because the 8 opiates are not necessary for that kind of pain and 9 there is no risk of addition with cannabis. And 10 then you take some specialized kind of pain, for 11 example, migraine. As late has his last textbook 12 on medicines, 1914, Sir William Osler (sic.) said 13 the single best drug for the treatment of migraine 14 is cannabis. And given the fact that about 20 to 15 25 percent of people with migraine fail to get 16 relief from the orgotamines (sic.), calcium channel 17 blockers and so forth, cannabis is still very 18 important in the treatment of migraines and then 19 there is multiple sclerosis, and in this disorder 20 people suffer muscle spasms and this is a rather 21 severe kind of pain. Anyone whose had a cramp 22 while swimming knows what a muscle spasm is like 23 and these people get supplemental relief from the 24 muscle spasm with cannabis and furthermore, another 25 often socially debilitating symptom of multiple DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 33 1 DRUG HEARING 2 sclerosis is that people lose bladder control and 3 cannabis very often will restore that control. 4 Similarly, the muscle spasm of 5 paraplegics and quadriplegics are relieved by 6 cannabis. In fact, if you go into some of the 7 paraplegic wards in Virginia hospitals you can 8 smell cannabis. The doctors know that the patients 9 have discovered that cannabis is much better than 10 the conventional medicines for muscle spasms which 11 is doctors' -- called Bactroban and Dantrolene has 12 very significant levels of toxicity and the third 13 one is Valium, but you have to take it in a dose of 14 about 40 milligrams a day, which means you are just 15 about zonked out. So, these doctors pretend that 16 it doesn't happen, that these veterans are smoking 17 cannabis. And furthermore, a number of them have 18 discovered that cannabis restores their ability to 19 get and maintain an erection and they can then go 20 on to have a sexual life. 21 The list is very long, but perhaps 22 given the time, I should just mention one more 23 disease I think which is really pushing -- just as 24 World War II pushed the development finally of 25 penicillin, I think AIDS is the disease which is DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 34 1 DRUG HEARING 2 really pushing cannabis as a medicine at this 3 point. AIDS patients find cannabis useful in a 4 number of ways. First of all, they suffer from 5 nausea, not just from the disease itself, but as 6 well from side effects of AZT and some of the other 7 drugs that we see, and it's very helpful with 8 that. Many others get muscle spasms and it's 9 helpful with that, but the thing that it is most 10 important for is critical in some of these patients 11 has to do with the weight loss syndrome. Many 12 people lose weight. They lose large amounts of 13 weight. Conventional medicine has not been 14 successful in retarding this weight loss. People 15 with AIDS smoke marijuana and they not only -- they 16 can either slow down the level at which they are 17 losing weight or -- and many of them, they turn it 18 around and they begin to gain weight. And, for 19 example, I have one patient who, as a matter of 20 fact, is a graduate of Harvard Medical School who 21 went on to later on get AIDS and once he learned 22 about this, he was so concerned about being 23 apprehended by the law that he moved to Amsterdam 24 and he wrote to me that for the first time in his 25 life with AIDS, he felt he was living with AIDS DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 35 1 DRUG HEARING 2 rather then dying with it. Then he called two 3 months later, "what will I do? I've run out of 4 money. I've got to come back to the United States. 5 What can I do about this?" 6 Now, there are a number of other 7 disorders and as time goes on, we are discovering 8 more and more of these and yet we are unable to 9 find the way to make this substance available to 10 patients. There is a subterranean way known as the 11 Bias Clubs. These are clubs -- the largest one 12 being in San Francisco -- where in defiance of the 13 law, people -- originally just AIDS people but now 14 people with other disorders -- come into the Bias 15 Club and if they have a note from their doctor 16 saying that marijuana would be useful to them in 17 the treatment of the AIDS reduction syndrome and 18 what have you, they are given seven grams of 19 marijuana, which is enough for two marijuana 20 cigarettes per day for a week. 21 The number of these clubs are growing, 22 but the efforts to get the government to even move 23 it from Schedule I to Schedule II and I first 24 testified on this in 1972, and it has made no -- it 25 wasn't until 1986 that the DEA finally agreed to DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 36 1 DRUG HEARING 2 have hearings. The administrative law judge who 3 heard these hearings, thousands of pages of 4 testimony of many patients and doctors, he 5 concluded that indeed, it should be moved to 6 Schedule II, but it was among one of the safest -- 7 in his words, the safest therapeutic substances 8 known to man, but yet they did choose to ignore the 9 advice of their own administrative law judge. 10 MS. PIEL: Dr. Grinspoon, the time is 11 up, but we're ready for questions and I would ask 12 the panel first? Kathy Rocklen, did you have 13 questions? 14 QUESTION BY MS. ROCKLEN: Thank you. 15 Could we just talk for a moment about 16 the deleterious effect of marijuana, diminished 17 capacity, diminished productivity, the high 18 associated with it. 19 RESPONSE BY DR. GRINSPOON: Well, when 20 you talk about diminished productivity and 21 diminished capacity, I really don't know what 22 you're talking about. 23 QUESTION BY MS. ROCKLEN: You think 24 those are myths. 25 RESPONSE BY DR. GRINSPOON: Yes. I DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 37 1 DRUG HEARING 2 started my work in marijuana in 1967. I started 3 because I had a little extra time. I had finished 4 my part of a three author book and was waiting for 5 the others and idea struck me to look into 6 marijuana a bit because I was concerned that so 7 many young people were using this terribly 8 dangerous drug and if I could present a 9 scientifically sound statement on this, maybe they 10 would pay attention. They weren't paying attention 11 to what the government was saying. 12 I soon learned several things. One, 13 that while marijuana wasn't addicting, studying it 14 was, I found. I spent three years full-time 15 working on this and the reason I call this 16 "Marijuana, Reconsider,", which was the first of 17 the books I published on this, was because I had to 18 record -- because I realized I had been brainwashed 19 by just about any other sentiment. In this country 20 it is not to say it's harmless. There is no such 21 thing as harmless psychoactive drugs, but the 22 United States government has spent tons of millions 23 of dollars trying to prove its toxicity which would 24 provide some basis for this prohibition and it's 25 failed miserably. And when it takes its place in DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 38 1 DRUG HEARING 2 the pharmacopeia, it will be in the top 10 drugs of 3 limitation of toxicity. The only area that I have 4 real doubts about aside from the fact that I don't 5 want children using it, young people, the only 6 areas I have real concerns about, are the pulmonary 7 effects. Marijuana smoke contains as much and up 8 to some reports, four times as much matter as the 9 cigarette smoke and the lungs were not constructed 10 to take any kind of burned plant matter. 11 However, even there, you have to 12 consider several things. First of all, people 13 don't smoke the equivalent of a pack of marijuana 14 cigarettes a day. That would be outrageous for a 15 whole bunch of reasons. It doesn't happen. For 16 one thing, you don't get anything out of it if you 17 do. Two, the government says marijuana is more 18 dangerous now because it is more potent, which is 19 the opposite of truth. The fact of the matter is, 20 the more potent marijuana is, the more safer it is 21 at -- a person stated when marijuana just as 22 marijuana -- they will only take as much as it is 23 required to get the high and there is indeed, a 24 study which demonstrates they should give people 25 marijuana cigarettes with very little potentate and DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 39 1 DRUG HEARING 2 they will do an awful lot of puffing of it. If 3 they receive a more potent cigarette they will and 4 just take a few puffs of the more potent one. And 5 the third thing is, that there are ways of 6 separating the cannabinoids from the particular 7 matter. For example, the water pipe. The lowly 8 water pipe does some of this, but of course, the 9 governments in its wisdom -- many states have ruled 10 out paraphernalia. So people can't do that, but I 11 am assured that the technology exists now when we 12 talk about cannabis for patients in the future we 13 won't be talking about smoking. We'll be talking 14 about vaporizing cannabinoids. 15 MS. ROCKLEN: Thank you very much. 16 MS. PIEL: Do we have another 17 question? 18 MR. FISCHER: I have a couple. 19 QUESTION BY MR. FISCHER: My first 20 question is really more an observation of a list of 21 uses. I'm aware of antidotal evidence of its being 22 used for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which I think 23 fits into some of the other kind of symptoms, also 24 as an insect repellant, and I'd like to follow up 25 on Kathy's questions, though I think perhaps what DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 40 1 DRUG HEARING 2 she was suggesting was that the marijuana high 3 itself is disabling and during the period of the 4 marijuana high, that a person really shouldn't be 5 driving. I don't think he should be writing 6 contracts for clients and there are a lot of 7 things. It's a very psychoactive drug. 8 So, my question is, to what extent on a 9 comparable basis, are there other substitute drugs 10 that don't have temporary psychological disabling 11 effect. 12 RESPONSE FROM DR. GRINSPOON: Well, 13 first of all, I would agree with you that people 14 should not drive automobiles when they are high on 15 marijuana, but they shouldn't drive automobiles 16 when they are on Valium or any of the tricyclic 17 antidepressants and so forth and so on. Marijuana 18 as medicine will not be different from these other 19 substances. Secondly, there is, you know, just as 20 there is clearly some work which shouldn't be done 21 with marijuana, there are people who claim that 22 some kinds of work are facilitated to marijuana. I 23 am limiting myself to the medicinal aspect of that 24 because it is the most urgent part of it, but, in 25 fact, marijuana has some other utilities besides DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 41 1 DRUG HEARING 2 medicinal which we needn't go into those today. In 3 fact, the last three people that I present in my 4 book, "Marijuana, The Forbidden Medicine" are two 5 scientists and a musician who believe this 6 substance has been useful in their work. But like 7 as I say, Valium or any other benzodiazepine, 8 people have to learn that there are circumstances 9 in which these drugs can be used and other 10 circumstances in which they cannot be used. 11 QUESTION FROM MR. AFFLER: I'd like you 12 to briefly address the feasibility or efficacy or 13 if there's an alternative of separating the active 14 ingredient in cannabis or the medically beneficial 15 ingredient particularly in light of the three 16 criteria you used at the beginning. 17 RESPONSE FROM DR. GRINSPOON: Well, in 18 fact, that's already been done with respect to one 19 of the cannabis. First, let me say that whole, 20 smoked marijuana there are at least 60 -- probably, 21 we think, about 61 cannabinoids. Of these 61 of 22 these chemicals that have slight variations, the 23 most active is one called Delta-9 or Delta-1 24 tetrahydrocannabinol. In 1985 the government in 25 response to a growing pressure to make this drug DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 42 1 DRUG HEARING 2 available as a medicine, allowed the production of 3 what is called Dronabinol or the propriety name is 4 Marinol and Marinol is pure THC. It's a useful 5 drug. However, the fact is that the more we learn 6 about cannabis, the more we know that the 7 therapeutic utilities of cannabis do not lie solely 8 in tetrahydrocannabinol in the delta of 9 tetrahydrocannabinol. And again, if one looks 10 through our book, "Marijuana, The Forbidden 11 Medicine," almost invariably the patient who has 12 had the opportunity to use both smoked cannabis and 13 Marinol, almost to every person the whole smoked 14 cannabis itself is more effective then Marinol. 15 And then, there is the particular problem that if 16 you take it by ingestion -- first of all, people 17 who suffer from a lot of nausea have trouble 18 ingesting anything and questions of viability 19 arise. If I take a 10 milligram tablet today, four 20 milligrams are absorbed tomorrow, there may be six 21 and there is that kind of variation within 22 individuals and between individuals. And thirdly, 23 there is no way of titrating it, whereas with 24 smoking, one can get the effect right away. 25 Now, one could imagine that we could go DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 43 1 DRUG HEARING 2 through the whole spectrum of cannabinoids and I 3 think that the particular facts of cannabis, whole 4 smoked cannabis, why it's better then THC is 5 because some of these cannabinoids act 6 synergistically. It's not just THC. But, now, 7 it's theoretically possible we could isolate each 8 and every one of them. That would cost a fortune. 9 Then we could try different combinations of these 10 things so we could get the best combination for the 11 treatment of glaucoma and that would cost another 12 fortune. And then, you know, I mention the fortune 13 because, you see, the problem here, and one of the 14 problems of making this available as a drug in our 15 country -- the way these drugs come about, here's 16 chemical "X. " Let's say Merck Company buys 17 chemical "X" or buys the patent to it and then it 18 puts the money into all of the steps that it takes 19 to get it on the shelf as a medicine. The Phase 1 20 study, the Phase 2 study and so forth. It costs -- 21 for the average drug it cost 231 million dollars to 22 do that. The drug companies are willing to do that 23 because the patent allows them to charge whatever 24 they want for 17 years, soon to be expanded to 20 25 years. There is no patent on the planet -- no drug DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 44 1 DRUG HEARING 2 company is going to do the work that I just 3 mentioned -- is going to isolate these cannabinoids 4 and put them together and so forth and so on. 5 The only source of this kind of 6 resource to do this would be the United States 7 government and of course, the United States 8 government is doing everything it can to prevent 9 the development of this substance as a medicine. 10 Right now, the best way to use cannabis as a 11 medicine is to smoke it. 12 MS. PIEL: Mr. Knapp? 13 MR. KNAPP: One quick question. In a 14 recent document produced by the United States 15 Department of Justice Drug Enforcement 16 Administration entitled "Speaking Out Against Drug 17 Legalization," referring to the American Medical 18 Association, the American Glaucoma Society, 19 American Academy of Opthamology, the International 20 Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Society and the 21 American Cancer Society, they say that not one 22 American health association accepts marijuana as 23 medicines. Statements issued by these 24 organizations express concerns over the harmful 25 effects of the drugs and over the lack of solid DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 45 1 DRUG HEARING 2 research demonstrating that they might do more good 3 then harm. 4 I'd ask you in light of your testimony 5 today and the research you've conducted, if you 6 could comment on first of all, the status of 7 marijuana as medicine within all these 8 organizations and two, you've just started to 9 allude to it, since it's a Schedule I drug, the 10 United States government's role in allowing it to 11 be used for the creation of solid research one way 12 or the other. 13 RESPONSE BY DR. GRINSPOON: Well, now, 14 that is absolutely true. These various medical 15 organizations are not supportive of medical 16 marijuana yet, but this is going to change. I 17 think the harbinger of this was the decision of the 18 Journal of the American Medical Association to 19 publish, I think they call it a commentary, that 20 Mr. Becklyer (sic.) and I wrote this past June, in 21 which we made the point that these physicians 22 really should reconsider their position on this 23 drug. That more and more of them are coming to 24 understand that marijuana has an important role in 25 this and the position should no longer be the DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 46 1 DRUG HEARING 2 reason why the government won't support this. One 3 is always hearing no, we can't. But look at the 4 American Cancer Society. It says no, it's not 5 useful and so forth. But, on the other hand, there 6 was recently, a couple of years ago, a survey of 7 oncologists by Mr. Gobler (sic) and Mr. Kleinman 8 that demonstrated that oncologists are better 9 educated about this then most physicians because 10 they see a lot of patients who have to go through 11 cancer chemotherapy and 44 percent of them said 12 that and that was a few years ago. I'd wager it's 13 much higher now that they would recommend cannabis 14 to a patient. 15 Now, you see, why are the physicians 16 lagging behind here? Physicians get their drug 17 education in three ways. One, they read journals. 18 There are no journal articles about marijuana as a 19 medicine and two, they listen to the detail men and 20 women. These are the drug salespeople that come 21 into the doctor's office and ply them with samples 22 and gifts and listen to their spiel about drugs and 23 third, there are various promotional devices and 24 advertisements from the drug companies, but there 25 is none. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 47 1 DRUG HEARING 2 Physicians are learning about 3 cannabis. How are they learning? A most unusual 4 way to learn about drugs for physicians. They're 5 learning from their patients. There is a patient in 6 San Francisco who comes to his physician who knows 7 he's losing weight very rapidly and he has not seen 8 him in three weeks and he comes in and he says 9 "doctor, I want to get on your scale and show you 10 something. " He gets on the scale and lo and 11 behold, not only has he not been losing weight over 12 the last three weeks, but he gained some and he 13 goes on to tell the doctor he goes to the Buyers 14 Club in San Francisco and getting cannabis and 15 smoking it. This doctor is astonished. He's 16 beginning to pay some attention to this. This is 17 happening very rapidly today and that list that you 18 read, I would be willing to wager that's going to 19 change very shortly. As I said, I think the fact 20 that Gammer (sic.) published that article suggests 21 that something is going on in terms of what 22 physicians are coming to understand about the 23 usefulness of this substance as medicine. 24 MS. PIEL: Unfortunately, we are again 25 out of time, but we thank you very much, Dr. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 48 1 DRUG HEARING 2 Grinspoon, for your knowledge. 3 MS. PIEL: Our next performer is Robert 4 Gangi, whom I believe is here from the smile that I 5 saw and exchanged with him. He is the executive 6 director of the Correctional Association of New 7 York where he has -- thank you, doctor. You can 8 have your tray back. Glad to have had you with us 9 -- 10 DR. GRINSPOON: My pleasure. 11 MS. PIEL: Back to Robert Gangi. He's 12 held the post there for 13 years. It's an 13 organization that advises and analyzes problems in 14 the criminal justice system in New York with 15 special attention to the conditions of the prisons, 16 and Mr. Gangi is a critic of the Rockefeller Drug 17 Laws and he is going to tell us a little bit about 18 them and what the position of the association is 19 and what his opinion is and what some of the facts 20 are concerning the Rockefeller Drug Laws today. 21 TESTIMONY BY ROBERT GANGI, DIRECTOR OF THE 22 CORRECTIONAL ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK: 23 Thanks alot. I have some literature, a 24 position paper, that I'll be following along with 25 some fact sheets that are relevant to the question DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 49 1 DRUG HEARING 2 of imprisonment in New York State and the 3 Rockefeller Drug Laws. 4 Like the good doctor before me, I began 5 studying marijuana in the late 60's also, and came 6 to a very similar conclusion that he has about the 7 basic benign quality of the drug, although without 8 all the scientific research that he obviously 9 engaged in. 10 As I said, following along the position 11 paper that the Correctional Association has 12 prepared on the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the laws 13 were passed in 1973 with the active support of 14 Governor Rockefeller. The common wisdom about the 15 passage of the laws -- it was right around the time 16 that Rockefeller had decided that in order to 17 advance his political career effectively, he could 18 no longer be perceived as a kind of Javits liberal 19 within the republican party and he had to adopt a 20 more conservative political posture, and he did a 21 number of things in order to advance that agenda. 22 One of the things was the way he 23 handled the prison uprising in Attica and another 24 thing that he did was push through some very harsh 25 mandatory sentencing laws in 1973, the most well DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 50 1 DRUG HEARING 2 known of which are the New York Drug Laws, which 3 have become known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws. 4 Talking about marijuana, the law was 5 amended in 1979, mainly to reduce the penalties for 6 offenses involving marijuana. The punishments 7 required by this law, though at this time for the 8 possession or sale of heroin, cocaine and other 9 hard drugs, are still amongst the most severe in 10 the nation. For example, this statute mandates 11 that a judge impose a prison term of no less than 12 15 years to life for anyone convicted of selling 13 two ounces or possessing four ounces of a narcotic 14 substance. The penalties apply without regard to 15 the circumstances of the offense or the 16 individual's character or background. Whether the 17 person is a first time or repeat offender, for 18 example, is irrelevant. 19 I'd like to sort of quickly run through 20 what we see as the principal problems created by 21 the implementation of this law. The first is 22 simply the expense of it. As of December 31st, at 23 the end of last year there were 8,433 drug 24 offenders locked up in New York State prisons under 25 the Rockefeller Drug Laws. It cost nearly 850 DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 51 1 DRUG HEARING 2 million dollars for the state to construct prisons 3 to house these people and the operating expenses 4 for confining them on an annual basis comes to 5 about 253 million dollars. 6 Another problem helped created by these 7 laws is prison overcrowding. To accommodate the 8 tremendous growth in the inmate population caused 9 in part by the application of the Rockefeller Drug 10 Laws, New York State has spent extraordinary sums 11 each year on building new prisons. Since 1981 the 12 state has added nearly 40,000 beds to its prison 13 system at an average construction cost of $100,000, 14 not counting debt service. So, the total cost of 15 this prison expansion program simply for the 16 construction, comes to nearly four billion 17 dollars. 18 Despite these enormous expenditures, 19 New York City prison expansion has not kept pace 20 with the increase in the number of inmates. The 21 state's correctional system is hobbled by crisis 22 conditions. The prisons are overcrowded. There are 23 not enough programs to productively occupy 24 prisoners and idleness and tension levels are 25 high. The system has been forced to double-bunk or DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 52 1 DRUG HEARING 2 double-cell about 9,000 inmates and especially has 3 to this arrangement, given the presence of 4 tuberculosis and its potential to spread among 5 inmates and staff. The state has also been forced 6 to rush a large number of prisoners out the back 7 door of the system to work-release and day 8 reporting programs and have not been able to 9 provide participants with adequate support or 10 supervision. 11 The third problem, and this is 12 probably, I think, the most significant, and that's 13 the skewed effect on law enforcement. These 14 statutes result too often in the arrest, 15 prosecution and long-term imprisonment of minor 16 dealers or persons only marginally involved in the 17 drug trade. Major traffickers usually escape 18 sanctions. 19 The problem -- and this is a key point 20 -- the problem is the Rockefeller Drug Laws place 21 the main criteria for culpability on the weight of 22 the drugs and the person's possession when he or 23 she is apprehended, not on the actual role that he 24 or she plays in the drug transaction. Aware of the 25 law's emphasis, drug kingpins will rarely, if ever, DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 53 1 DRUG HEARING 2 be foolish or reckless enough to be caught carrying 3 narcotics. Whereas, a teenage mother employed as a 4 drug courier by the same kingpin, may very well be 5 picked up on the street and charged with a serious 6 felony for having in her possession a small amount 7 of drugs. 8 Another criticism of the law that's 9 relevant is that major dealers often take advantage 10 of one of its provisions permitting lifetime 11 probation sentences in exchange for cooperation in 12 turning other drug offenders over to the 13 authorities. Less culpable persons generally do 14 not possess information that would be useful to 15 prosecutors. These people often decline to 16 plea-bargain and insist on a trial instead. If 17 these persons are found guilty, they frequently 18 must be sentenced to the mandatory minimum term of 19 15 years to life in prison. 20 Our overriding point here is that this 21 statue as a principal weapon of and as implemented 22 in the so-called "War Against Drugs," results 23 directly in the following misguided practices: 24 Law enforcement agencies focus their 25 efforts on the minor actors in the trade who are DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 54 1 DRUG HEARING 2 the most easily arrested, prosecuted and penalized, 3 rather then on the middle and high-level criminals 4 who are drug dealings' true masterminds and 5 profiteers. 6 The injustices is another problem 7 caused by this statute. The Rockefeller Drug Laws 8 result in many individual cases of injustice where 9 people with no histories of violent or predatory 10 behavior, who function barely on the margins of 11 outlaw drug markets, are slammed with the harshest 12 punishments our criminal justice system can 13 dispense. 14 For example, the Correctional 15 Association's research shows that in New York that 16 95 percent of the women charged with drug couriers 17 in our sample, had no previous criminal 18 involvement. In New York, murderers, arsonists and 19 kidnappers face the same penalty as drug mules. 20 Rape, the sexual abuse of a child and armed robbery 21 carry lesser punishments. 22 Our research showed also that many drug 23 mules are often poor and uneducated women who are 24 coerced by threats of violence or tricked into 25 transporting drugs, and are therefore, highly DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 55 1 DRUG HEARING 2 culpable of the charges against them. However, 3 many of them facing 15 years to life in prison, 4 plead guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for a 5 much shorter term of incarceration. Some who are 6 mothers and primary caretakers of children say they 7 are afraid to risk long-term separation from their 8 families by presenting their cases at trial. In 9 effect and in a mockery of the justice system, the 10 Rockefeller Drug Laws are being used to bludgeon 11 guilty pleas from people who are facing long prison 12 sentences and do not have the resources or savvy to 13 defend themselves. 14 The reform that we propose is, 15 basically, to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws so 16 the prison terms would no longer be mandated for 17 drug offenders convicted of less serious crimes. 18 Flexibility in sentencing would allow judges to 19 utilize less costly and more productive punishments 20 for many of the minor drug offenders who are taking 21 up increasing amounts of valuable prison space 22 because of the impact of the Rockefeller Drug 23 Laws. 24 It is important to note that many 25 persons sentenced under the statue are locked up DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 56 1 DRUG HEARING 2 merely for possession of narcotics. At the end of 3 last year, about 3,000 people were incarcerated in 4 New York for drug possession under these laws. It 5 costs the state about 90 million dollars a year 6 simply to keep these people confined. 7 The alternative punishment that we 8 propose, that we think would be the most effective 9 as an alternative to this law, would be intensive 10 supervised probation that includes such features as 11 day reporting, community service, job training and 12 mandatory participation in drug treatment 13 programs. Implemented properly, this program can 14 closely monitor the offenders' behaviors while 15 simultaneously providing them with support services 16 and making sure, where appropriate, that they repay 17 the community and/or the victim for the property 18 stolen or the damage done. The added value of a 19 well-run alternative punishment is that it gives 20 selected offenders a critical opportunity to become 21 more abiding members of society. Under current 22 practices, too many people are unnecessarily 23 relegated to the grim and crimogenic world of state 24 prison. 25 I'd like to make a couple of other DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 57 1 DRUG HEARING 2 points that are not included in the position 3 paper. One is to refer you to the fact sheet that, 4 basically, reflects the trends in New York State 5 prison commitments just to show the extraordinary 6 shift there's been in law enforcement practices in 7 New York State. 8 In 1980, for example, 57 percent of the 9 people sent to New York State prisons were sent for 10 violent offenses. In 1994 it was only 33 percent. 11 1n 1980, 11 percent of the people sent to New York 12 State prisons were for drug offenses. By 1994, it 13 had risen to 45 percent. So, there's been an 14 extraordinary shift in the way we apply our law 15 enforcement resources and in part, that's driven by 16 the presence on the books of the Rockefeller Drug 17 Laws. 18 I'd like to make one other important 19 point. There's been a lot of publicity lately 20 about the sort of confluence of race and the 21 criminal justice system. The OJ Simpson trial was 22 one obvious example of this and also, last week an 23 organization based in Washington called the 24 Sentencing Project, published a report that showed 25 that on any given day in the United States about DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 58 1 DRUG HEARING 2 one-third of young African American men are under 3 the custody of the criminal justice system. That's 4 either from jail or prison or on probation or 5 parole. And in large part, that extraordinary 6 disproportion of young black men under the controls 7 of the criminal justice system is due to the way we 8 enforce the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Because again, 9 the people in the inner-city communities in terms 10 of their activities in the drug trade are much more 11 arrestable, since so often the drug trade is done 12 out in the open and in the street. That's where 13 law enforcement concentrates its resources even 14 though all the research shows apparently that more 15 than half the people who use and even sell drugs 16 are white. And the results of that decision by the 17 law enforcement authorities, again backed up by the 18 presence on the books of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, 19 is that the so-called "War Against Drugs" is 20 carried out, if you will, in a discriminatory 21 fashion. 22 So, although again, over half of the 23 people who use drugs and sell drugs are white, in 24 New York State, for example, over 90 percent of the 25 people who are in State Prison on a drug offense, DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 59 1 DRUG HEARING 2 that is the sale or possession of narcotics, are 3 African American or Latino. The exact figure 4 actually, the end of 1994, was 93.8 percent of the 5 people in New York State Prison on a drug offense 6 were African American or Latino. 7 So, those are the major points I wanted 8 to make on the Rockefeller Drug Laws. 9 MS. PIEL: Thank you. Now, this time 10 we're going to have questions from the -- Mr. 11 Kayser has a question and then we'll turn to the 12 audience. 13 QUESTION FROM MR. KAYSER: Mr. Gangi, 14 I'm particularly interested in your testimony in 15 that it does -- what you do is move back towards -- 16 you maintain a criminal system with respect to drug 17 regulations. As I understand it, you simply relax 18 the rules and, therefore, the reasons as I 19 understood it, that people move toward more 20 stringent criminal penalties initially, is the idea 21 that you're going to either -- the idea for the 22 people who moved in that direction initially, was 23 they felt that you needed stricter penalties to 24 stamp out drugs and of course, you know, it didn't 25 occur, but to maintain our criminal system, you DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 60 1 DRUG HEARING 2 still have no consumer protection in terms of 3 labeling or substance of drugs when they're sold. 4 There is no reason to think that relaxing criminal 5 penalties would do anything less to keep drugs from 6 being in society. I don't think you contend that. 7 We still would not have the revenues from adequate 8 treatment for people who have drug problems by 9 relaxing drug laws, per se, even though that's the 10 direction we want to go, but we don't have 11 resources for that under your proposal and we are 12 still subsidizing drug sales by not collecting 13 taxes, because we have a black market still in the 14 sale of drugs. 15 Would you oppose or would you think it 16 would be compared to our current system, support in 17 the sale of drugs legally through licensed outlets, 18 like pharmacies, in which we collect taxes, 19 allocate the tax money for treatment and, 20 basically, remove from the criminal arena the sale 21 and distribution of drugs in that manner, at least 22 as to adults? 23 RESPONSE BY MR. GANGI: A couple of 24 responses to your question and to your point. One, 25 is that our view is and this is the position of the DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 61 1 DRUG HEARING 2 Correctional Association, is that the Rockefeller 3 Drug Laws and other mandatory sentencing laws that 4 result in the wide -- broad-based imprisonment of 5 many low-level drug offenders should be repealed. 6 We think that would result in significant savings 7 of money because it would necessarily result in 8 many fewer people going to prison. It would also 9 result in our refocusing of our law enforcement 10 resources. So much of the time and resources of the 11 police and the courts are spent in apprehending and 12 prosecuting these low-level drug offenders. 13 So, our full proposal would be to take 14 the resources that would be saved and that would 15 result in literally hundreds of millions of dollars 16 a year from the dismantling of the mandatory 17 sentencing laws and put that into drug treatment 18 programs and family support programs and job 19 creation and development programs in the inner 20 cities as a way of addressing the crime problems 21 and the other problems that afflict the inner city, 22 including the use of drugs. 23 So, we think that the overall strategy 24 would begin through education, treatment and 25 prevention to help deal with the drug issue. DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 62 1 DRUG HEARING 2 Now, in terms of your question about 3 the decriminalization of the legal -- 4 MR. KAYSER: The collection of taxes, 5 the millions of dollars of taxes. 6 MR. GANGI: -- the Correctional 7 Association does not have a formal position. My 8 personal position based on looking at this problem 9 from a number of different angles over the years, 10 is that decriminalization and licensing of some 11 sort does make sense, makes eminent sense, but 12 again, it's not the formal position of the 13 Correctional Association. 14 Let me make another point. I think 15 that critical from our standpoint is that sort of a 16 larger question is of how we use the criminal 17 justice system today and what in our judgement 18 what's happened goes beyond the drug or issue of 19 the drugs and as a critical part of this, is that 20 because of the significant changes in our society 21 and our economy, hundreds of thousands, if not 22 millions of people, that we commonly refer to as 23 the underclass have been disenfranchised and 24 marginalized in our society. There is no 25 institutional role in our economy and our societies DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 63 1 DRUG HEARING 2 for these people and the criminal justice system 3 steps in, apprehends them, criminalizes them and 4 locks them up. If we are going to address that 5 problem, not only do we have do things like 6 dismantle the drug laws, if that's all we did or if 7 we legalized drugs and didn't then address the 8 tremendous economic and social problems that 9 afflict those communities, we would not, in my 10 judgment, be making a major step forward in terms 11 of whatever social progress or improvement for the 12 quality of life in our cities. 13 MS. PIEL: Thank you. Now we're going 14 to ask people in the audience if they would like to 15 ask questions and would you come up and take the 16 microphone and bring it back. 17 Any questions? No questions. 18 Any members of the panel have any 19 questions? Oh, all right, please come up. 20 QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's a 21 friendly question. We often hear estimates of how 22 much drug abuse costs Americans in the "X" number 23 of billions of dollars lost in the workplace, etc. 24 What is the average cost to a family where a family 25 member has been in contact with the criminal DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 64 1 DRUG HEARING 2 justice system? Obviously, if your child is going 3 before a court you have to take off from work, you 4 have to hire a lawyer. Very few cases of drug abuse 5 other than the worst cases would destroy someone's 6 life the way an extended prison term would; is 7 there any quantified estimate of what this is 8 costing on that level? 9 RESPONSE FROM MR. GANGI: No, none that 10 I know of. We have not done that kind of analysis 11 and I'm not aware of anyone who has, but I think 12 that you raise an important point though, which is 13 -- and there are more and more social analysts and 14 academics looking at the issue of the unintended 15 consequences of incarceration, if you will. I 16 didn't refer to this, but I think probably most of 17 us know, there's been an extraordinary increase in 18 the use of imprisonment in the last 20 years. Much 19 of it around or driven by the mandatory sentencing 20 laws that I've discussed today. 21 For example, in New York State we had 22 12,500 people in prison in 1973. Today we have 23 nearly 70,000. In the country over that same 24 period of time, the prison population went from 25 about 250,000 to now, 1,500,000. So there's been DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 65 1 DRUG HEARING 2 an extraordinary explosion. I think that's not too 3 dramatic a term to use in the use of incarceration 4 in the prison population. 5 There's an extraordinary shift in our 6 public policy and I think it has had what are now 7 being referred to as unintended consequences that I 8 think policymakers have not considered, and one way 9 when you look at this, to look at the effect on the 10 family and obviously, there are so many more 11 families now who are impacted by the use of 12 incarceration. So many more families where young 13 men have been taken out and so many more 14 communities where young men are virtually missing 15 in action because they are doing time in upstate 16 prison facilities. 17 So again, there has been, as far as I'm 18 aware of, no quantifiable analysis of what the 19 monetary effect of that is, but there is beginning 20 to be some kind of analysis of what the social and 21 economic effects to those particular communities 22 are. It's primarily, as you might imagine, people 23 are seeing it as -- given that prisons are 24 warehouses and they are often criminogenic, that 25 the effect is deleterious to those communities DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 66 1 DRUG HEARING 2 where so many young men who go through those 3 communities experience the prison system. 4 MS. PIEL: Thank you. Mr. Knapp has a 5 question on our committee. 6 QUESTION FROM MR. KNAPP: I have a 7 question concerning the fact sheet. If you look at 8 1985, the percentage of violent felonies with 9 respect to total commitments is 56 percent. The 10 percentage of drug arrests is 17 percent. 11 RESPONSE FROM MR. GANGI: To correct 12 the record, this is prison commitments, not 13 arrests. 14 QUESTION FROM MR. KNAPP: Excuse me, 15 commitments. I stand corrected. That focuses the 16 question even more then. If you go from 56 and 17 17 in 1985 and three years later in 1988, your 18 statistics indicate that the percent of violent 19 felony commitments has dropped from 56 to 38 and 20 the percent of drug commitments has risen from 17 21 percent to 37 percent, do you have any explanation 22 for the dramatic shift which seems to have occurred 23 during those five years, economic, social, any 24 explanation at all? 25 RESPONSE FROM MR. GANGI: Two primary DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 67 1 DRUG HEARING 2 explanations. One was the more widespread use of 3 crack and the effects that was having on the 4 communities and then, basically, the government's 5 response to that problem. The primary response was 6 a law enforcement response so that in New York City 7 under Mayor Koch and Police Commissioner Ben Ward, 8 we instituted what was referred to as the TNT 9 Squad, Tactical Narcotic Teams. Whose primary job 10 was to target drug-infested communities and do buy 11 and bust operations and drug sweeps and arrest lots 12 more people. There was an extraordinary increase 13 during those years in the number of arrests of 14 people for low-level drug offenses. 15 So, the primary reason for the shift in 16 those numbers, was the change in public policy. 17 Although, it was in response to a real problem, 18 which was the great increase in the use of crack. 19 MS. PIEL: Thank you. Thank you very 20 much, Mr. Gangi. We have one more question and then 21 this will be the last question. 22 QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. 23 Gangi, I have frequently seen in national justice 24 documents and other papers a justification of the 25 prison system as a way of providing treatment for DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 68 1 DRUG HEARING 2 individuals with substance abuse problems and I 3 believe that cuts across the board, not just people 4 who are arrested on narcotics charges, but everyone 5 in prison. 6 I was wondering if you have a comment 7 on the rationale of re-enforcing the prison systems 8 as a means of funneling people into treatment and I 9 am curious if there are any figures on the efficacy 10 of treatment in prison for reducing those numbers. 11 RESPONSE FROM MR. GANGI: I think it is 12 a good question and again, sort of raises a larger 13 issue of how prison systems have in a way become 14 extensions of our welfare and social services 15 system. Because now many people locked up get 16 services, frequently inadequate services, in prison 17 that probably we would have been better off and 18 they would have been better off, if they got them 19 in their community. That's where they get 20 educated. Frequently, that's where they get 21 vocational training, that's where they get 22 healthcare, that's where they get shelter, three 23 meals a day, and that's where they get drug 24 treatment. 25 There has been across the country in DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 69 1 DRUG HEARING 2 some states experiments with different kinds of 3 drug treatment programs, although recently there's 4 been a cutback in the amount of resources set aside 5 for that as sort of a more right-wing philosophy of 6 government that has taken hold in many places. 7 There is some evidence that drug 8 treatment in prisons can work. Frequently, for the 9 first year or two or three somebody is out of 10 prison, but will not work out over the long term at 11 least in terms of recession rates, unless there is 12 some aftercare and some backup in the community. 13 Our view is that drug treatment can be 14 very useful for many people who are addicts and 15 that the criminal justice system has a role to 16 play, but we would prefer to see drug treatment not 17 done in prison. We think it's more difficult in 18 that environment to do effective drug treatment. 19 In fact, drug treatment done in the community and 20 perhaps, the criminal justice system held as a 21 hammer over someone's head -- in other words, we 22 have no problem with the person being forced into 23 drug treatment and to stay in drug treatment and if 24 they fail in drug treatment, a possible consequence 25 of that would be them going to jail or prison. And, DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 70 1 DRUG HEARING 2 the evidence seems to show that that type of 3 approach increases the retention rate of the drug 4 treatment programs that people participate in. As 5 you might easily understand, the longer someone 6 stays in a drug treatment program and the higher 7 retention rate the drug treatment program has, the 8 more likely that person is to have a more 9 successful experience with treatment and finally 10 leave the program and be able to stay out of crime, 11 stay away from crime and hold a decent job. 12 MS. PIEL: Thank you very much, Mr. 13 Gangi. 14 MR. GANGI: Thank you. 15 MS. PIEL: We now have Mr. William 16 Buckley. Mr. Buckley is a distinguished television 17 personality. We know him from the Firing Line. We 18 know him as the editor of the National Review and 19 we know him also as an novelist and we understand 20 also he plays the harpsichord, but he isn't going 21 to do that today. He has also written in the New 22 York Post a favorable review of our committee's 23 report and he is here today to give us his views. 24 I'm a strict taskmistress and I will 25 call your time a little after 15 minutes and then DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 71 1 DRUG HEARING 2 we'll have questions. 3 TESTIMONY FROM MR. WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.: 4 Thank you, I've never done this before, 5 so tell me if I have the drill wrong. 6 MS. PIEL: You're going to talk and I 7 know you know how to do that. 8 MR. BUCKLEY: I have a brief 9 statement. I've been given 15 minutes to make a 10 statement on a plague that consumes an estimated 75 11 billion dollars a year of public money. Exact 12 estimates is 70 billion dollars a year from 13 consumers and is responsible for nearly 50 percent 14 of those 1.3 million Americans who are today in 15 jail, and consumes an estimated 50 percent of the 16 trial time of our judiciary, and occupies the time 17 of 400,000 policemen -- a plague for which no cure 18 is at hand, nor in prospect. In 15 minutes, on 19 such a subject, I can only offer you a haiku. 20 Perhaps you will understand if I 21 chronicle my own itinerary on the subject of public 22 policy with respect to those drugs that are 23 illegal. When I ran for mayor of New York, the 24 political race were jocular, but the thought given 25 to municipal problems was entirely serious, and in DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 72 1 DRUG HEARING 2 my papers on drugs and in my post-election book, I 3 advocated their continued embargo on unusual 4 grounds. 5 I had read, and I think the evidence 6 continues to affirm it, that drug taking is a 7 gregarious activity. What this means, I reason, 8 that an addict is in pursuit of social company and, 9 therefore, tends to entice others to share with him 10 his habit. Under the circumstances, I've reasoned, 11 it can reasonably be held that drug taking is a 12 contagious disease and for that reason entitled to 13 the police protection extended to shield the 14 innocent from Typhoid Mary. 15 Some sport was made of my position by 16 the Libertarians, including Professor Milton 17 Friedman, who asked whether the police might 18 legitimately be summoned if it was established that 19 keeping company with me was a contagious activity. 20 I recall this reasoning in search of 21 philosophical perspectives. Back in 1965, I sought 22 to pay due deference to Libertarian presumptions 23 against outlawing any activity potentially harmful 24 only to the person who engages in that activity. I 25 cited John Stewart Mill and, while at it, opined DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 73 1 DRUG HEARING 2 that there was no warrant for requiring 3 motorcyclists to wear a helmet. I was seeking and 4 I found it a reason to override the presumption 5 against inviting the intercession of the state. 6 About 10 years later, I deferred to a 7 different allegiance, this one not opposition to 8 state intervention, which opposition is properly 9 superordinated, not as an absolute, but as a 10 presumption. A Conservative should evaluate the 11 practicality of a legal constriction, as for 12 instance, those states tend to do whose statute 13 books continue to outlaw sodomy, which interdiction 14 is unenforceable, making the law nothing more than 15 print on paper. 16 I came to the conclusion that the 17 so-called "War Against Drugs" was not working, that 18 it would not work absent a change in the structure 19 of the civil rights to which we are accustomed to 20 and for which we cling to as a part of our 21 patrimony. And that if that war was not working, 22 we should correctly explore the casualties 23 resulting in its failure to work. 24 That consideration encouraged me to 25 weigh two occurring principles; the calculus of DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 74 1 DRUG HEARING 2 pain and pleasure introduced by the illegalization 3 of drugs. A year or so ago, I thought to attempt 4 to calculate a ratio, however roughly arrived at, 5 towards an elaboration of which I'd attempt to 6 place a dollar figure on matters that do not lend 7 themselves to quantification. 8 Even so, the law, lacking any other 9 recourse, every day countenances to such 10 quantifications, as when asking a jury, for 11 example, to put a dollar figure on the damage done 12 by the loss of a plaintiff's right arm, amputated 13 by defective machinery in the factory. My 14 enterprise, in fact, became allegorical in 15 character, but the model, I think, proved useful in 16 sharpening perspectives. 17 Professor Steven Duke of the Yale 18 University Law School in his valuable book and 19 scholarly essays, reminds us that it isn't the use 20 of the illegal drugs that we have any right to 21 complain about, but it is the abuse of such drugs. 22 It is acknowledged that tens of million of 23 Americans -- I have seen the figure of 85 million 24 -- at one time or another consumed or in whatever 25 manner exposed themselves to an illegal drug. But, DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY 75 1 DRUG HEARING 2 the estimate authorized by the Federal agencies 3 charged with such explorations is that there are 4 only one million regular cocaine users, defined as 5 those who use the drug at least once in the 6 preceding week. There are again, an informed 7 estimate of five million Americans who regularly 8 use marijuana, and again, an estimated 80 million 9 who once upon a time or even twice upon a time, 10 inhaled marijuana. 11 From the above, we reasonably deduce 12 that the American who abuses the drug, here defined 13 as the American who became addicted to the drug, or 14 even habituated to it, is a very small percentage 15 of those who have experimented with the drug or who 16 have continued to use the drug without any 17 observable distraction in that person's life or 18 career. 19 About such users one might say that 20 they are the equivalent of those Americans who 21 drink liquor, but do not become alcoholics, or 22 those Americans who smoke cigarettes, but do not 23 suffer a shortened life span because of that drug's 24 effects. 25 Curiosity naturally causes us to ask DIAMOND REPORTING -718-624-7200- 16 COURT ST., B'KLYN, NY