Obama appointees offer more of the same on drug interdiction

I was critical during the campaign of Barack Obama's drug policy stances, so even though I'm disappointed at the contents of his administration's new "National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy," released yesterday at a press conference by Obama's drug czar, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano, I'm not surprised to see them proposing more of the same.

This is a tactical document with few if any new strategic elements. They're fiddling around the edges of policies perpetuated by the last four presidents, but nobody appears to be rethinking the fundamental approach.

In a black market, focusing solely on supply-side enforcement ironically enriches the cartels by driving up prices. Because of the volume of cross-border traffic involving legitimate trade and travel, it's literally impossible to interdict most drug shipments, so the the cartels just charge more for the shipments that make it through. To that extent, an enforcement only approach plays right into the hands of the smuggling gangs the policy hopes to undermine.

As the Drug Policy Alliance lamented in a Washington Post story, there's nothing in the plan at all about demand reduction. The problem, to read this document, stems solely from the activities of smugglers, not the predilection of American consumers for their products. To be effective, though, a drug-control strategy must also reduce demand for illegal drugs by reducing consumption through treatment and education. Bottom line: As long as Americans are willing to pay premium prices for illicit narcotics, they're going to come into the United States one way or another. A demand reduction approach might actually reduce drug cartel profits, whereas focusing solely on supply-side interdiction simply maximizes them.

Just as frustrating to me, the policy document mostly ignores official corruption on the US side, barely mentioning the topic from its discussion of investigations and prosecutions. Without prioritizing such investigations, though, the approach is doomed to fail. Cross-border smuggling is incredibly reliant on corrupt, bribable law enforcement and immigration officials; interdiction cannot succeed without reducing that trend. Such investigations are easier than pursuing ghost-like cartel leaders and deliver more bang for the buck in terms of affecting interdiction. But reducing corruption isn't a major focus of the Obama Administration's anti-drug strategy.

Clearly on other issues - healthcare, the environment, Middle East policy - Barack Obama's administration represents a major change from his predecessor. On the drug war, though, as Pete Townsend wrote, it's "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

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