Drug Watch International

Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives
House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy, and Human Resources

The Drug Decriminalization Movement in America

June 13, 1999
Testimony of Sandra S. Bennett
Director, Northwest Center for Health & Safety,
President, Drug Watch International

Good morning, Chairman Mica, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to provide testimony on this critical issue, one that is so important to the welfare and strength of our nation and particularly important for the quality of the future we want for our children.

              The organization I represent, Drug Watch International, together with its advisory division, the International Drug Strategy Institute, is an ALL volunteer organization composed of a worldwide group of recognized medical, legal, educational, and drug prevention activists and researchers.  The members of Drug Watch  are dedicated to providing accurate information on psychoactive and addictive drugs. As a part of this international drug research and policy network, I’ve had access to an extraordinary knowledge base relating to illicit drugs, and for this I’m extremely grateful. 

              First and foremost, I’m a mother who, because of illicit drugs, has been subjected to every parent’s worst nightmare and ultimate horror, the death of their child.  And it’s from that perspective that I’m going to address you today.

              Though it would seem that much of the public is still in the dark, the harmful effects of drugs on the body, the mind, and on society itself, are well-documented in scientific research and history.  However, here we are again, for the umpteenth time over the past 20 years, being forced to debate this inanity.

              It’s been said that those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. With this caveat in mind, I fervently pray that you’ll do everything in your power to prevent this country from returning to the permissive drug policy of the 1970's, which embraced "responsible use" of dangerous drugs.

              It was in this permissive environment that drug use flourished, and decriminalization of marijuana became the mantra of the pot smokers. Drug use, particularly among students, ran rampant, and the U.S. raced far ahead of the rest of the world in consumption of illicit drugs.

              Police Chief Reuben Greenberg of Charleston, South Carolina, wrote, “With few exceptions other than the drug traffickers themselves, faculties and administrations of  our nation’s colleges and universities are the most hostile elements to the enforcement of our nation’s drug laws.”  It was this permissive campus drug environment that led to the death of our son Garrett.

              My testimony today is for Garrett and all those young men and women whose lives have been irreparably damaged by drugs, or who did not survive their encounter with marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and LSD, and a other psychoactive and addictive drugs.  And it’s for the parents of those children who must face the rest of their life knowing their child’s death or disability was a completely preventable tragedy.  A tragedy that likely would not have happened had sanctions against drug use been enforced.

              So, what is “decriminalization?”              “Decriminalization,” as embraced by the drug culture is simply the notion that  those who use illicit drugs are blameless and that all criminal legal sanctions against use should be removed.  As a bereaved parent, I can tell you that I would rather my son be shaken to his senses with a little jail time, than to have him lose his life, or lead a useless debilitated one.

              Decriminalization is actually part of a back door effort to ease society into accepting legalization of all psychoactive and addictive drugs.

              “Harm Reduction,” a cover-all term coined by the legalizers, is a euphemism encompassing legalization and liberalized drug policy, and can best be defined as "A variety of strategies for making illicit drug use safer and cheaper for drug users, at the expense of the rest of society, regardless of the cost" 

              Included in those strategies are decriminalization,  medicalization of marijuana, “industrial” marijuana hemp, distribution of free needles to injecting drug users, free drugs to addicts, and a host of other tactics designed to enable and protect drug users. The media and our educational institutions are rife with harm reduction propaganda.

               Speaking for the hundreds of thousands of parents who’ve lost children to drugs, I cannot understand how this country can listen, for even one moment, to those who advocate making illicit drugs easier to come by, particularly when most of the leaders of this effort are admitted drug users. 

               Unfortunately, credibility is given to these disingenuous  scofflaws when they are invited to the podium, paraded on TV, glorified on PBS, and asked to serve as consultants to Government agencies and the media, who then parrot this misleading, deceitful, and dangerous propaganda.

               The pro-drug advocates are allowed to operate out of our universities with impunity, and their deceptive and dangerous rhetoric fills the Internet, where it is readily available, even to our primary school children.

               The media, which could be part of the solution, are, instead, a tremendous part of the problem. They play a significant role in the way people think, whether it is about political, business, health, or community issues.  Many journalists and commentators have bought into the notion that using psychoactive and dangerous drugs is a personal right.

               Although adolescent drug use is half what it was in the late 70s, the media echoes the claims of the legalizers that despite having spent billions of dollars fighting the war on drugs it has failed and should be abandoned in favor of permissive drug policies.

               Complaints about spending too much money on the war on drugs have no basis in fact.  It’s simply pro-legalization rhetoric as espoused at a Drug Policy Foundation media workshop in 1992 where attendees were coached to “Use Economics . . . Paint ridiculous extremes, then go for logical moderate alternatives.” 

               If spending billions to reduce drug use is such a “waste,” where is their outcry against the War on Poverty? Declared in 1964 the War on Poverty has already this country over $5 trillion?  Yet, more than 20% of American children between the ages of six and 11 STILL live in poverty…a condition worsened by the impact of illicit drugs.  And, according to the Children’s Law Center, 80% of child abuse cases are a result of drug using parents.

                              How does all this relate to my son’s death?

               In 1980, President Carter’s Blue Ribbon panel on drugs, the Drug Abuse Council, issued a report stating that America really did not have a drug problem, that it was mostly hysteria, and it called for decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana.  The report went on to lament that "By adhering to an unrealistic goal of total abstinence from use of illicit drugs, opportunities to encourage responsible drug-using behavior are missed."  Responsible use of an Illegal Drug?  Is this akin to driving “responsibly” while drunk, or “wearing boxing gloves to assault your spouse? One does not act responsibly under the influence of a mind-altering drug!

               That same year, 1980, Lester Grinspoon, M.D., associate professor at Harvard, an outspoken proponent of drug legalization, wrote in the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, "Used no more than two or three times a week, cocaine creates NO SERIOUS PROBLEMS,"  Respected medical researchers believe this article fueled the rise of cocaine use in this country.  Nevertheless, Grinspoon continues to repeat this nonsense.

               To my family and me Grinspoon’s statement is nothing short of criminal. Our son, Garrett, died of cardiac arrest, and though the only abnormality found on autopsy was a "trace of cocaine in his urine, we learned later than even a small amount of cocaine is known to trigger this sort of fatal cardiac event.

               Lester Grinspoon is but one of many individuals and organizations that want to see drugs decriminalized as a first step toward full legalization. People like Grinspoon, Ethan Nadelmann, Rick Doblin, Eric Sterling, John Morgan, Kevin Zeese, Keith Stroup, Andrew Weil, Tony Serra, all of whom have publicly attested to their personal use of illicit drugs, are at the forefront of the drug legalization/decriminalization movement in America… 

               And let’s not forget Mark Kleiman. Kleiman was a consultant to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.  He not only advocates legalization of marijuana, but also indicated publicly that he agrees with Canadian psychiatrist John Beresford that “Everyone has the right to use LSD.”

               Eric Sterling, the admitted pot-smoking head of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, talking to a pro-legalization audience about how to legalize marijuana under the guise of medicalization, said "Packaging is important, and messages get packaged.  

               In an article about the marijuana hemp, Sterling was quoted  as saying  “It’s the leaky bucket strategy.  Legalize it in one area, and sooner or later it will trickle down into the others.”

               This notion was taken up by International Entrepreneur George Soros who offered to fund the legalizers if they would “target a few winnable issues, like medical marijuana and the repeal of mandatory minimums.”  Consequently, the pro-drug lobby has cut up its agenda into a dozen smaller packages and is busy trying to dupe the public into accepting the whole pie, one bite at a time.

               Perception of consequences or danger is key.  When drug users suffer no consequences, the behavior appears safe and acceptable, and spreads, unchecked, from friend to friend, sibling to sibling, parent to child.

               Decriminalize drugs. Not on your life – and, please,  not on the lives of our children!

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