RECONSIDERING U.S. NARCOTICS LAWS

The History Channel recently presented a documentary on the history of
narcotics titled, "Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way." The
documentary described the reasons why hardcore narcotics such as heroin
and cocaine ended up as solely black market items.

The documentary also delved into the first national drug law, the 1914
Harrison Act, which regulated and taxed the trade of opium and coca
leaves, the plants from which heroin and cocaine are derived.

Unfortunately, the Harrison Act had some unforeseen consequences - so
many in fact, that, according to "Hooked," had Congress known what the
act would become, they would've never passed it.

This raises a very interesting question. More than 90 years after the
Harrison Act, are America's drug laws still worth keeping on the books?

The classic way to look at this issue is by weighing the pros and
cons. On the positive side, modern American narcotics legislation
serves to prevent the kind of addiction epidemics seen in the early
20th century.

Before the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which required the ingredient
labels now seen on all food packaging, many people took unlabeled
patent medicines, which often contained opium extracts and cocaine.

Opium and cocaine addictions spread like wildfire across the country,
according to "Hooked."

Since the Pure Food and Drug Act effectively ended the sale of patent
medicines, and the Controlled Substances Act officially banned heroin
and cocaine, the availability of these highly addictive narcotics has
been greatly reduced, and addiction on such a scale hasn't occurred
since.

However, the negatives of the drug laws far outweighed the pros. Most
of the crimes associated with narcotics occur not because of the
physical effects of drugs, but because of their illegal status. The
prohibition of illicit narcotics has spawned a slew of crimes,
including cartel-related murder, kidnapping, money laundering and
widespread theft.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug
trade is one of the main factors in the total U.S. homicide rate, and
narcotics-related murder is the fourth most documented out of 24 categories.

Furthermore, the threat of kidnapping and narco-terrorism in Colombia
is so great that the U.S. State Department has an ongoing travel
warning advising American citizens to be very careful in the country's
rural areas and in the city of Cali, where much of the violence is
related to the illicit drug trade.

In Mexican border cities such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez,
drug-related violence - including murder and kidnapping - has been on
the increase, according to the State Department.

But the biggest offspring of illicit drugs is money laundering, which
is practically an enterprise in and of itself. Money laundering is so
closely linked with the narcotics trade that investigations of one
almost always lead to the other, according to the Internal Revenue
Service.

America's current drug laws were passed with the best of intentions.
Unfortunately, they've caused more problems than they've fixed.
Without the ban on illicit drugs, the Cali, Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana
cartels wouldn't exist, and neither would their contribution to the
crime rate.

It's true the United States isn't ready for the effects of legalizing
hardcore narcotics. Our society would be unable to change its drug
policies for fear of widespread narcotic use.

If only the 1914 Congress could witness the drug war today, then maybe
these acts wouldn't exist, and America wouldn't have to suffer the
societal ills caused by trafficking.

Veronica Rollin is a political science junior and a staff columnist
for The Daily Aztec.