Drugs - Drug Arrests Do Not Deter Use

In 2000, an estimated 24.5 million people used illegal drugs in the year just past. These data are based on the National Survey on Drug Abuse conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The survey questionnaire is quite extensive and determines the most recent use, but summaries published by SAMHSA report use of a drug, by type, within the last year and also within the respondent's lifetime. This survey is our best gauge of the prevalence of drug consumption in our society.

Since 1979, when 31.5 million people were regularly using drugs, drug use has declined some 22%. Since 1991, however, it has been rising again (8.5% from 1991 to 2000) despite a much more sharply rising wave of drug arrests (up 56.4% between 1991 and 2000). People who have "ever used" drugs has been climbing steadily, without a falter, despite heroic law enforcement efforts against drugs.

Law enforcement activity is not, seemingly putting much of a dent in the use of drugs. With 24.5 million users (technically lawbreakers), and 1.58 million arrests in 2000, only 6.4% of users are arrested. Law enforcement is thus not really affecting use. Indeed, law enforcement efforts are much more directed at trafficking, rather than at use — although some of those caught with drugs also end up as felons.

A look at 1998 data, from a special study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, gives some insight into the nature of the drug war — and why the high number of arrests do not appear to affect drug consumption much. Take a look at the table on the next page.

Drug Sentences and Arrests in 1998

	Felons Sentenced					Arrests
	Total	State	Federal	Total	Sentenced as % of Arrested
Drugs	335,493	314,628	20,867	1,559,100	21.5
Possession	120,893	119,443	1,450	1,228,600	9.8
Trafficking	214,600	195,183	19,417	330,500	64.9
Percentiles
Drugs	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Possession	36.0	38.0	6.9	78.8
Trafficking	64.0	62.0	93.1	21.2

The table shows us that, in 1998, 335,493 people were sentenced of 1.56 million arrested, or 21.5%. The vast majority of those arrested were arrested for possession (78.8%). Of those, just shy of 10% were actually sentenced. Meanwhile, of those arrested for trafficking (over a fifth of those arrested), somewhat over two-thirds (64.9%) were sentenced. Thus the war on drugs is clearly aimed at trafficking, not at possession. The assumption clearly is that if the supplies are dried up, people will stop wanting the stuff. Is that reasonable?

State-level activity dominates the war on drugs. A small number of people are sentenced at the Federal level (6.2%). But of those, nearly all (93.1%) are sentenced for trafficking.

Viewed in this manner, it is clear that law enforcement activity is heavily skewed towards arresting people who are in the possession of drugs, but the legal and correctional machineries principally deal with traffickers. The users largely get away with it.

Using 1998 data, here is how things stack up. Of an estimated 23,115,000 users breaking the law (100%), 1,228,600 were arrested (5.3%), and 120,893 (0.5%) were sentenced. In 1998, the drug-using population was equal to 8.5% of the population or 11.5% of those 18 years and over — and an even higher proportion if we use young adults as the base for calculation. Drug use clearly represents a massive social phenomenon, a form of mass disobedience. This graphically illustrates the dilemma inherent in our policy to stamp out drug use and produces not-so-faint echoes of the Prohibition. We shall compare the damage done by drugs to the damage assignable to alcohol in a later panel in this series.

Sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA, Office of Applied Studies, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 1998-2000 and earlier years. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States, annual, Uniform Crime Reports, downloaded from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/enforce.htm and Felony Sentences in State Courts, 1998, Bureau of Justice Statistics.