HCR 7 – AS AMENDED BY THE HOUSE
06Apr2005… 0255h
2005 SESSION
01/04
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 7
A RESOLUTION urging the United States Congress to establish a task force to review and revise the current drug policy.
SPONSORS: Rep. Ingbretson, Graf 5
COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs
This house concurrent resolution urges the United States Congress to establish a task force to review and revise the current drug policy.
06Apr2005… 0255h
05-0775
01/04
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Five
A RESOLUTION urging the United States Congress to establish a task force to review and revise the current drug policy.
Whereas, according to our own former federal drug czar, General Barry R. McCaffrey, “We have a failed social policy and it has to be reevaluated. Otherwise we are going to bankrupt ourselves because we can’t incarcerate our way out of this problem;” and
Whereas, after over 30 years of a policy of federal drug prohibition, known as the War on Drugs, and an expenditure of ½ trillion tax dollars, illegal drugs are now cheaper, more potent, and easier to get than ever; and
Whereas, as a direct product of the War on Drugs, 8 percent of the world’s gross product, about the same size as the entire international textile industry and more than the automobile industry, is spent each year to purchase illegal drugs; and
Whereas, enforcing drug prohibitions, as with alcohol, has naturally led to violence, corruption, and crime and has caused more harm than drug abuse itself; and
Whereas, as a direct result of the War on Drugs in the United States, the building of prisons is now our nation’s fastest growing industry, with the number of people being arrested each year equal to 20 percent more than the population of New Hampshire; and
Whereas, with only 4 percent of the world’s population the United States now, as a direct result of the War on Drugs, has 24 percent of the world’s prison population, which is more than Russia and 6 times more than all 12 of the countries that make up the European Union combined even though they have 100,000,000 more citizens; and
Whereas, one of every 150 Americans is now in jail or prison; and
Whereas, the state of California alone has more people incarcerated than do France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the Netherlands combined, even though California has only 1/10th of their combined populations; and
Whereas, nothing in the history of our country has eroded the Bill of Rights more than the War on Drugs, including the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments; and
Whereas, our court system is choked with ever increasing drug prosecutions, depriving our citizens of access to the overtaxed court resources; and
Whereas, justice has become an absurdity as a marijuana possession charge will get you more time than some forms of homicide or espionage; and
Whereas, 85 percent of those currently serving 25-year sentences were for non-violent convictions; and
Whereas, federal law requires even non-violent drug offenders to serve their full sentences with no such law for bank robbers, kidnappers, and other violent offenders; and
Whereas, corruption of law enforcement officials is continually escalating. In a recent 5-year period the number of federal, state, and local law enforcement officials in federal prison increased 500 percent; and
Whereas, ½ of all police corruption, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation’s study, appears to be drug related, including but not limited to:
I. Conducting unconstitutional searches and seizures;
II. Theft of money and/or drugs from drug dealers;
III. Dealing and using drugs;
IV. Protecting drug operations;
V. Providing false testimony;
VI. Submitting false crime reports;
VII. Brutality including indiscriminate beatings of guilty and innocent alike;
VIII. Lying, including felony perjury, in order to justify unlawful searches and arrests and to forestall complaints of abuse, and indiscriminate beating;
IX. Adding to the amounts of drugs found turning users into dealers;
X. Vigilante justice;
XI. Using forfeiture laws for their own emolument leading to a general disrespect for law enforcement and its lawful basis; and
Whereas, the military is now being used domestically to prosecute the drug war; and
Whereas, it costs 6 times more to incarcerate than to treat, the average annual cost of treatment per person is between $1,800 - $6,800 while the average incarceration cost is $23,406, heavily burdening state and federal budgets and, of course, the taxpayer; and
Whereas, the average cost of housing a prisoner after age 55 increases to $69,000 annually due to increased health costs for which the state and the taxpayer are liable; and
Whereas, our prisons are becoming our nation’s largest mental wards; and
Whereas, 85 percent of our prison population is incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses, ½ of which are for marijuana possession alone; and
Whereas, while the number of violent prisoners has doubled since 1980, the number of drug prisoners has increased 7 times; and
Whereas, the prosecution of the drug war has destroyed the future of many of our youth, 95 percent of whom statistically would otherwise end any involvement in drugs within 5 years on their own initiative; and
Whereas, a young person can get over an addiction but not a conviction which destroys, for life, his or her potential for being a responsible and productive citizen; and
Whereas, in prison our convicted youth, most of whom have hurt no one, are exposed to criminally abusive assault and other hardening criminal influences; and
Whereas, young people convicted of a drug offense including mere possession of marijuana are disqualified from ever receiving federal aid for college, even though no such disqualification exists for robbery, rape, or manslaughter convictions; and
Whereas, women have proven particularly easy targets for prosecution, the number of women incarcerated for drug offenses in the United States increased by 888 percent between 1986 and 1996 compared to an increase of 129 percent for non-drug offenses; and
Whereas, about 70 percent of these non-violent women prisoners are also the single parents of young children; and
Whereas, the expense to the taxpayer in a group home can be as much as $5,000 per month above and beyond the cost of incarcerating the mother. For a mother of 2 children, this means that about $145,000 of taxpayer money is spent to keep this mother separated from her children; and
Whereas, the “War On Drugs” is a highly racially prejudicial war. Whites constitute 72 percent of all drug users in the United States while blacks constitute 15 percent, yet 37 percent of those arrested for drug use are black; over 42 percent of those in federal prisons for drug violations are black; and blacks comprise almost 60 percent of those in state prisons for drug felonies; and
Whereas, illegally gained, uncontrollable drug money comprises the largest single pool of moneys held unaccountable for bribery of public officials, subversion of law enforcement; subversion of the judicial and legislative branches of government; and
Whereas, the profitability of drugs is directly connected to our drug policy; and
Whereas, drug distribution is now the chief source of funding for revolutionary groups, terrorists, and repressive regimes worldwide; and
Whereas, despite our huge overseas investment in policing the production of drug countries such as Columbia, because of the laws of supply and demand, drug countries continue to increase their production; and
Whereas, the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have made a sieve of our borders which will become still more porous with the advent, if passed, of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA); and
Whereas, marijuana is now the largest cash crop in the state of California; and
Whereas, intelligent and effective alternatives exist in both Switzerland and Holland where addicts are treated rather than incarcerated. Among those treated, full-time employment more than doubled, unemployment was cut in half, crime decreased by 60 percent, cocaine use among addicts decreased from 35 percent to 5 percent, homelessness fell from 12 percent to zero, and drug-caused deaths dropped 34 percent between the years 2001 and 2002; and
Whereas, the War on Drugs has made even the beneficent uses of some drugs illegal; and
Whereas, the federal War on Drugs has been, is, and forever will be, a total and abject failure; and
Whereas, simple logic and experience demonstrate that since increasing police intervention leads to diminished drug supplies and diminished supplies lead to higher prices, which increase the amount of profit to the seller, which leads to increased production and sales efforts which lead to increased drug use, there can be no actual victory but only continuous escalation; and
Whereas, as a result, the lowest elements of our society are enjoying obscene profits through the unregulated production and distribution of these dangerous narcotic and psychoactive substances without regard to the well being of our citizens; and
Whereas, as Albert Einstein observed of an analogous situation in our history, “The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws that cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase in crime in this county is closely connected with this;” and
Whereas, as expressed by Abraham Lincoln, “Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded;” now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:
That the general court of New Hampshire hereby urges the United States Congress to establish a task force to review and revise as soon as possible the current drug policy, namely the “War On Drugs,” now over 3 decades old, with the goal of regulating and controlling the distribution of such dangerous substances, such distribution now being dangerously uncontrolled and blatantly harmful to the health of the citizens of our great state of New Hampshire and the nation; and
That such control and regulation be modeled on the de-federalization policy, similar to the way alcohol is now regulated, such as ended the failed prohibition of alcohol; and
That such task force would investigate and analyze the problems arising from the prohibited use and sale of narcotic and psychoactive substances; propose parameters for the legalization and distribution of such substances; determine subjects to be considered in implementation of such distribution and offer a fully considered opinion for legislative action in such matters. The task force would be representative of the legal, medical, pharmaceutical, psychiatric, psychological, professional, law enforcement, executive, legislative, and judicial branch of government and any other public organization or individual deemed to be pertinent to such task force; and
That copies of this resolution be forwarded by the house clerk to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President of the United States Senate, and the New Hampshire congressional delegation.