I looked for the disclaimer, the line that would reveal, “For entertainment purposes only.” But there were no signs of parody, no punch lines, no early April’s Fools jokes.
Then Professor Walter Block followed up his Jan. 19 missive with a second straight-faced column advocating the legalization of drugs in New Orleans. He didn’t merely propose a defensible step toward moderation like decriminalizing marijuana, but a full, immediate repeal of all drugs laws. In Block’s vision, “Red Rum Heroin” and “80 Proof Andean Cocaine” would occupy pharmacy shelves somewhere between Advil and Red Bull. He’s even wearing a respectable jacket and tie in his “On The Record” photoI.
If this is a serious proposal by a distinguished scholar, I thought, perhaps I should weigh in with a reasoned rebuttal based on my 20 years as a journalist on the criminal justice beat.
What carefully nuanced point should I begin with? How about: First, legalization of drugs in New Orleans is easily the worst idea at the worst possible time in the worst possible place in the history of modern jurisprudence. What the flood didn’t destroy would surely be washed away under Block’s tidal wave of “legalized” narcotics.
Block argues that legalization of drugs here would somehow curb the city’s staggering murder rate. This suggestion is naive on too many levels to address in a short column. But let’s point out some of the obvious problems.
1. Block doesn’t believe the population of drug abusers would increase. Well, unless you’re planning to pack New Orleans into a large rocket and reestablish the city on the moon, the city would become an overnight haven for untold thousands of drug desperadoes from wherever drugs are illegal, namely, most of the world. At a time when the city urgently needs to repopulate – and reverse the brain drain of doctors, engineers, academics and business people – Block wants to send out an open invitation to the most unstable, unhealthy and criminally inclined segment of the population.
2. Drugs cost money, whether they’re purchased from Smoky Joe on the corner or White-Coat Wally the Walgreen’s pharmacist. A first-year criminology student can tell you that most burglars and robbers are stealing to feed a drug habit. Does anybody think the bad guys are taking loot to maximize their Roth IRA? In Block’s legal drug nightmare, he would effectively declare open season on all law-abiding citizens and their possessions at a time when the overwhelmed New Orleans police department can’t keep up with stray shoplifters.
3. Block, in his own words, buys into the police public relations fiction that an “inordinate amount” of killings involve “drug dealers shooting each other in turf wars.” I take that back. Not even the cops peddle that myth; they use the phrase “drug-related” to oversimplify the cause of murders and calm the jittery nerves of the law-abiding majority. While many victims and perpetrators can be linked to drugs through an old rap sheet or even a crack-rock in their pocket, look into the true circumstances behind most slayings and you’ll see a very different picture than made-for-TV gang wars. Killings are usually hot-headed reactions to beefs about money, women, insults, revenge, domestic issues, who ate the last slice of pizza and, yes, who bogarted the stash. Add newly legalized narcotics to that equation, and murder – not to mention aggravated battery and sexual assault – won’t go down, it will skyrocket.
4. Isn’t the post-Katrina psyche of New Orleans fragile enough as it is? Among the few boom industries in this wounded metropolis are the liquor industry and psychological counseling. With so many people on edge, why ignite a core meltdown by offering a dangerous new mental escape with wide-open narcotics? And with our health care system already reeling, where are the newly minted addicts going to turn? What emergency room is going to handle the overflow of overdoses among newbie cocaine and heroin users?
5. I will sidestep the glaring reality that the chances of city, state and federal officials legalizing drugs in New Orleans are zero to nil. Since we’re in fantasyland here, let’s go ahead and ask, “What if?” At a time when this struggling city needs massive infusions of capital, are legal narcotics going to be the catalyst for heavy hitters to invest in housing and new business? Truth is, money and money people would leave New Orleans in droves. Conventions? Cruise ships? Family tourism? Cancel those elements of the city’s recovery. Professor Block uses Las Vegas as a comparison for his new New Orleans, but how many major sports franchises does Vegas have? Zero, and that’s because of a legal vice: sports betting. Legalize drugs in New Orleans and be prepared to cheer for the San Antonio Saints and the Who-Knows-Where Hornets.
I strongly agree with Block on one point. This country’s so-called “war on drugs” is an abysmal failure. Treating addiction as a health problem instead of criminal behavior would save lives and lower crime. Gradual decriminalization of soft drugs like marijuana would put the U.S. in line with more progressive Western European democracies. So let’s not stifle a legitimate debate with the cockamamie idea of blanket drug legalization in an impoverished city with dismal schools and a built-in criminal class, a disaster zone where guns are as common as cell phones and Katrina turned miles and miles of once-stable homes into vacant, ready-made drug dens.
Mike Perlstein is a visiting assistant professor in the School of Mass Communication.
