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rehabilitation, not merely in punishment, for it is only in rehabilitation that the drug trade will ultimately be squelched. Accountability with compassion (“tough love”) should be the hallmark of a demand-side drug policy.

Critics complain that a demand-side policy will violate people’s civil rights. Yet in the development of all policies of this sort, the benefits of restricting certain types of individual “freedoms” have to be weighed against the immense cost of these behav-iors to the greater society. We allow ran-dom sobriety tests to keep drunk drivers off the road. Is a demand-based narcotics policy really much different?

Christians can play a pivotal role in fa-cilitating a dialogue toward a shift in our current policy. Defining a new approach to drugs in our country may become a move-ment that could unify Christians on the right and the left, for if there is one con-cept Christians of all stripes have generally grasped, it is the concept of personal ac-countability for sins. We understand that real change starts from within, not from placing the blame for our problems on oth-ers. The fundamental principles of most substance-abuse support groups derive from Christian principles. When was any-one at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting encouraged to blame the clerk who sold him the beer?

A demand-based drug policy has both economic and international relations ben-efits. It will not only reduce the demand for illegal drugs, it will also reduce the price of them, creating less incentive for the exis-tence of the drug cartels and drug violence both here and in Latin America. The result will be fewer drug users and lower levels of violence—both in our own communities and in those of our southern neighbors.

Bruce Wydick is profes-sor of economics at the University of San Francisco and a contributing editor to PRISM.

Bruce Wydick M ay I Have a Word?

Toward a Demand- Based US Drug Policy

Not long ago I returned from a research trip to Latin America with the following mes-sage from our southern neighbors: “The US is killing our people.” This wasn’t a leftist chant against the CIA or against US mili-tary funding. It was about narcotics. There is something terribly wrong about the ap-proach of our government toward the “drug war,” a scourge on our nation that should concern Christians of all political stripes.

Drug cartels, drug-based organized crime, and gangs have begun to take over the political and economic systems of many Latin American countries. Why? Because the lure of the highly profitable drug trade is irresistible to many living in poor coun-tries.

Last December, Mexico announced that 30,196 people had been killed in the country’s 4-year-old war against the drug cartels. Reflect for one moment on the im-mensity of that number; it far exceeds the UN definition of a civil war. Some of these were casualties of President Felipe Calde-ron’s war on drug cartels; others were vic-tims of clashes between drug cartels them-selves, fighting over the profits to be made in the lucrative US market.

Ever since the Nixon administration began the “war on drugs” four decades ago, we have been fighting this war with a supply-side approach, a strategy based on interdiction and eliminating foreign and do-mestic drug dealers. Of course such a poli-cy can never work in the long run, because it violates the most fundamental law of economics: People respond to incentives. As we “succeed” in reducing supply, we also succeed in hiking narcotics prices and mak-ing the American drug market more attrac-tive, drawing more dealers into the market.

President Obama has met with Calde-ron to discuss providing millions more in the war against the Mexican drug cartels. This will quickly prove to be a waste of lives and resources, as is obvious from past experi-ence with supply-based narcotics policies.

An alternative proposed by civil lib-ertarians is to simply legalize drugs, but thankfully most Americans do not support this, and neither do most Christians in our

country. The majority perceives narcotics as associated with irresponsible and antiso-cial behavior. A much deeper and broader conviction exists about the prohibition of narcotics than, say, alcohol and tobacco, and legalization remains a political non-starter. Americans refuse to look to Am-sterdam as a model for social progress.

The third alternative is a demand-based drug policy. It is over this alternative that Christians of many different political persuasions may be able to unite and in-fluence Washington policy. How would this work? It would begin by the US taking re-sponsibility for its drug consumption prob-lem and addressing the root of the drug issue rather than putting the blame for our problem on suppliers.

A demand-based policy would reallo-cate resources away from supply interdic-

tion towards monitoring of domestic drug use, stiff fines, and providing low-cost treatment.

Here is one way this could work: Ev-ery US resident over a certain age would receive a notice in the mail to report for a voluntary drug test to a nearby clinic within two weeks. Upon passing the test, the indi-vidual would receive a “clean card.” Without a clean card, a person would not be eligible to receive a welfare check, get a driver’s license, or receive other types of govern-ment benefits. Those who passed would be able to go longer intervals between tests. Those who failed would be admitted to drug counseling and treatment. Failure to report for treatment would bring hefty fines to drug users. Those willing to go get treatment would pay little. In short, drug users would pay through the nose (no pun intended, of course) if they refused to ad-dress their drug use.

The emphasis in such a strategy must lie in a genuine effort toward widespread

“May I Have a Word?” is a regular opinion column. Submit your thoughts

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