Judge: case closed - legalise now!

Book: Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs
Author: James P. Gray (judge)
Reviewer: Hemsley Rajala

Judge James P. Gray performs heroics in the title alone of his compelling book, Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What we Can do About It.

Just to make sure readers are left in doubt about the subject matter, he adds the sub-title, A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001).

‘’Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed’’ is more than just a refreshing voice of reason arguing for drug law-reform – it is a call to people in similarly high office to end the dreadful fiasco that is prohibition. The message is transcendent, the source unimpeachable, and the voice, a judisprudential mix of somber here, angry there.

It is echoed by high-profile public officials including other judges, lawyers, politicians and senior law enforcement officers, most, if not all of whom, have ventured down the same road to Damascus as the ''progressive conservative'' author.

Unfortunately, for reasons he alone knows, Judge Gray couldn’t bring himself to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and this solitary but substantial failing remains moot.

Appointed to the superior court in Orange County, Southern California, in 1983, the 60-year-old has fought for reform to drug policy on more than 100 radio and television programs, as well as numerous drug forums across America.

He wastes no time by declaring a truism: ‘’. . . when . . . people realise the huge and unnecessary costs, both human and financial, that we are paying because of our failed drug prohibitionist policy, they will demand its repeal’’ (page 4). He cites first-hand experience, wide-ranging resource material, and comprehensive newspaper archives on which to base his formidable case.

Optimism shines through from the outset, and he likens a post-drug war future to the way we now look back on slavery '’. . . or the days when women were prohibited from voting – and we will wish fervently that we had not waited so long to abandon these failed and destructive policies.’' (p.5).

Like the outstanding US-based LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition [www.leap.cc]), and Judges Against the Drug War (www.judgesagainstthedrugwar.org) Grey presents a courageous and unique perspective, straight from the front line – as a servant of the state and one expected to be as merciless behind the bench with gavel in hand, as the operatives in the field hauling in miscreants.

'’Drug Laws’' is a sweeping four-part 106,000-word panoply of drug-war related issues, covering everything from the appalling environmental and ecosystem destruction in Third World countries, to the ultimately futile savagery (reviewer's words) of zero-tolerance policing. Treatment and maintenance programs for drug addicts are shown to be proven and effective, and Gray advocates matter-of-factly for regulated distribution, as well as ‘'deprofitisation’' of the illicit drug trade.

One of the principle tenets of his tome is that he has seen with his own eyes, too much entrenched corruption and incompetence for the status quo to prevail.

If prohibition ended tomorrow, there would be a minimum (my emphasis) drop in crime of 35 per cent (p.246).

Above all, Gray keeps an open mind and one of his clearest messages is that we should experiment with reform options – but not with drugs, because the good judge “hates’’ them and is probably teetotal, to rub salt into the wounds.

‘‘These drugs are dangerous and can be very harmful,’’ he counsels, suggesting that he hasn’t had any eccies for a while. (p.11)*

But he acknowledges the havoc wrought by alcohol on society, points out the hypocrisy of those who use alcohol while condemning illicit drug users, and rightly exposes Regan and Bush snr as the barstidoes (sic) who ratcheted up the war on drugs.

Gray traces the history of opium- and morphine-dependence back to the American Civil War, during which “hospitals in the south mostly used whiskey because they were not as well financed as those in the North. However, due to the wide availability of and ignorance about these drugs in the North, many war veterans who began using narcotics for legitimate medical reasons often became addicted (and addiction) was often called the ‘soldier's disease’ ". (p.21)

Included is an appendix of reports, commissions, investigations, inquiries and laws (passed) since 1894.

Highly laudable though Gray's stand is, it is his own blissful ignorance and predictions for the future that turn his polemic in on itself. One of his recurrent themes is that over time, drug laws will be changed – ie, the war on drugs will end. Yet he bases this hugely admirable optimism on the naïve premise that the system he so commendably tears to shreds, will allow this to happen.

‘'Drug Laws’' is a tumultuous work of principle and logic – yet it falls in a heap when pinning its faith, astoundingly, in something like the Food and Drug Authority, saying that under regulated distribution, the FDA would ‘'monitor and ensure the quality of the drugs, just as it now does our foods and prescription medicines’'. (p.223)

It is the second half of that sentence that betrays Gray's ignorance. The judge might not be aware, but the FDA is driven by conflicts of interest and pharmaceutical agendas. It is very much a monstrous machination of Big Brother.**

Yet on song, he bravely foresees change, knowing full well that “we are up against decades of rhetoric’’ and that people have been calling for reform for more than a century:
‘’Every major neutral study in the United States in the past 100 years has recommended that some form of drug decriminalisation be adopted because of the dangers of (illicit) drugs, and because prison is the worst and least effective approach.’’ (p.12)

However, we the citizens can bring about change – by writing letters to the editor and calling talk-back radio (but be sure not to swear or raise your voice - p.237).

Paradoxically, while acknowledging that drug-dependence should be in the arena of health and not crime, Gray recommends drug courts . . . even more infrastructures to bolster and expand already sprawling, dysfunctional criminal justice systems. In his defence, though, are words of caution about such remedies (pp.187/189). Besides, as a veteran of the court system he still has faith in it, the same way a former print journalist still sees good in newspapers.

At least His Honour knows the size of the opposition, because it can’t get much bigger - the United Nations itself. In 1997, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board released a report that advocated criminalising opposition (my emphasis) to the war on drugs. The plan has so far failed to gain legs - but only because other countries have not acted on its recommendations - yet.

Nonetheless, the spirit persists and we are still no closer to initiating global debate (p.147).

Despite all the gloom, the Good American in him proclaims proudly: America is a land of laws, not men. If those laws are broken, ‘‘. . . we . . . run the direct risk of falling into anarchy’’, which is an unfortunate line that is bound to invoke the ire of anarchists. (p.189)

In respect to clangers like that, Gray unwittingly reveals that there is an echo to the embarrassing, ‘‘by 1990, no Australian child shall (be living) in poverty’’ pronouncement by former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. It is in the form of an official US document, and was promulgated barely a year after Hawke’s ridiculous June, 1987, gaff, only the genius who conceived it looked seven years, not three years, into the future.

Coming in straight from Mars in 1988, America’s Public Law Number 100-690 section 5252 stated that: ‘‘It is declared policy of the United States to create a drug-free America by 1995.’’ (p212)
Risibility aside, it is the startling revelation, like section 5252, that gives pause for thought:
• The War on Drugs has resulted in the loss of more civil liberties protections than has any other phenomenon in . . . history; (p.2)
• So toxic are the herbicides being used over forests in Latin America, they kill not only vegetation, but have been blamed for the deaths of “large numbers’’ of whales, dolphins and fish; (p.87)
• The UN’s stated policy is to discredit medical journals that advocate marijuana for medical use; (p.147).
• Attempts to debate medical marijuana are being stifled in Congress, which it demonstrated in 1998 by trying to bar the vote-count on Initiative 59 (p.146).

Gray sums it up: prohibitionists are good at duck-speak rantings. But challenge them to a debate, and they cower and hide.

He closes Chapter three with a quote from 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.’'

More recently, Canada's Ottowa Citizen newspaper began its June 9, 1998, editorial, thus:

‘‘Today in New York City, an act of almost indescribable stupidity will be committed. Eighteen years after Ronald Regan announced he would stamp out drugs, the 'War on Drugs’ will be declared once again.’’ (pp82,83)

This reviewer feels that the best person to round off the great but flawed work of Judge Gray should be a humanitarian colossus – Harry Belafonte. Belafonte, the legendary black singer and human rights activist, was made an honorary member of the Citizens’ Commission on US Drug Policy in 1999:
“Having grown up in Harlem during the great depression, I can say the real roots of drug abuse and addiction (have) more to do with poverty, alienation and despair than crimes of malice. Most of the violence associated with drugs stem from our policies of prohibition - just as the notorious gangsters of my youth derived their wealth through bootlegging alcohol.’' (p.219).

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* Questions on Jim’s red, white and blue website confirm the judge’s “conservative’’ streak.

** see mercola.com, credence.com, and Health Wars - Day, Phillip, Credence Publications, 2001, pp136/57, 206/08

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This book review was originally published in the NAPNT Email Digest Volume 2, issue number 2 on 15th April 2005.