Nothing But Words

On the news channels last week, there was hysteria about Mexico “decriminalizing” the possession of small quantities of drugs. The talking heads expressed their worry about how this would increase the flow of illegal narcotics into the US, and how it would start a new flow of “drug tourism” from the US to Mexico. There’s only one problem with this narrative – it’s wildly inaccurate. Professor Mark Kleiman from UCLA (who researches drug abuse and crime control policy) explained in his blog that he pointed this out in a radio interview, but was studiously ignored:

Under current Mexican law:

1. Only the Federal Judicial Police (the “Federales”) can make drug arrests. (This is intended as an anti-corruption measure.)

2. Possession of a small quantity for personal use carries no criminal penalty; instead, the defendant is required to undergo drug treatment. But “small quantity for personal use” isn’t defined in law. Instead it determined on a case-by-case basis in court. As a result, some corrupt police and judges take bribes from dealers to classify the drugs the dealers were caught with as “personal use” amounts.

Under the new law:

1. All police will have the power to make drug arrests.

2. For each drug, a “personal use” quantity will be defined in law; any amount below that is automatically decriminalized, while any amount above that is defined as a dealer quantity.

If that’s the case, the new law is effectively tighter than the old one. In particular, turning all the local cops in Mexico loose on drug users ought to be expected to greatly increase the number of arrests, although most of those additional arrests won’t lead to jail time. But then, most current arrests of people who possess small amounts probably don’t lead to jail time.

In a second preparatory call with a different producer, and then on the air this morning, I tried to explain all of that. The host seemed to understand. But then — this was the Pynchonesque moment — the conversation went right on about whether “Mexico’s decriminalization” was a good idea or not, regardless of the fact that the new law doesn’t actually seem to decriminalize anything that used to be subject to criminal punishment, but does seem to increase a drug user’s risk of arrest by multiplying the number of police officers with the power to arrest him. We were there to talk about decriminalization, by God, and if decriminalization wasn’t actually happening that was an interesting sidelight on the story but mustn’t be allowed to interfere with the narrative, either for those who wanted to view with alarm or those who wanted to point with pride.

The very next day he was interviewed by an NBC reporter, with a similar outcome:

So I made on camera pretty much the same points I’d made on the radio…The reporter seemed very reluctant to believe any of this…When the reporter failed to call back as promised to let me know when the story would run, I guessed that my viewpoint hadn’t made it into the segment. I was right. The story as it aired… was about as inflammatory as imaginable. The anchor introduced it as an account of “the outrage in this country over a decision by Mexico to make possession of some illegal drugs legal.” The correspondent, Peter Alexander, after a reference to “dangerous narcotics” and the usual grim war-on-drugs footage, reported that “in effect, the law would approve the use, in small amounts, of a dizzying array of illegal drugs.” The law, he said, was “among the most permissive in the world.”

Drug czar John Walters was shown saying that “if we are talking about legalizing drugs, that’s bad for everybody.” (That suggests Walters had doubts that the new law was legalization, but if so he wasn’t shown expressing them.) His predecessor Barry McCaffrey skipped the “if,” and opined lugubriously about the risk of “cross-border drug tourism out of the United States, to include college students.” A drug counselor from San Diego talked of the risk that San Diegans could “go across the border and buy heroin out in the open.” (How people were going to openly buy a drug it would remain a serious crime to sell wasn’t made clear.) Alexander talked of counsellors’ fears of being “swamped by a new audience of addicts.”

…[I] continue to be dismayed by the utter unseriousness with which our politicians and journalists treat my pet issue.

I’ve learned over the years that if there’s a news story I’m interested in, I have to read at least a few different articles from different sources, and find commentary from a couple different experts. That’s the only way I can feel confident that I’m not reading a bunch of nonsense. News these days – particularly television news – is about profits (a long time ago, news shows were expected to lose money, since they were a public service – that perspective died out decades ago). That means it’s about producing shows as quickly as possible (to win the news cycle), as cheaply as possible (to maximize the profit margin – so we get shouting-talking heads and soundbites instead of thoughtful investigation), and as scary or tawdry as possible (to drive up ratings). Accuracy is, at best, a secondary concern.