by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo columnist
In 1999, about 130,000 people in New Mexico said they had used drugs within the preceding month, according to the New Mexico Drug Policy Foundation. In the following year, over 5,000 people were arrested for drug law violations. If we're waging a war on drugs, guess who's winning.
Though the state's efforts don't seem to be making much of a scratch in drug trade, they are making a sizeable dent in the budget. Estimates of New Mexico's annual costs in the drug war range from $43.6 million, according to a UNM Institute for Social Research study, to $110 million, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Even by conservative estimates, we're fighting a costly war with no end in sight.
Those costs have a more than abstract impact. You already know how much our illustrious soon-to-be-ex-governor loves cutting education funding. Our tuition has a funny way of increasing every year, while faculty compensation remains so paltry I feel compelled to thank the great teachers who stay here anyway.
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Studies by the Justice Policy Institute, a D.C.-based research organization, show a correlation between criminal justice and higher education spending nationwide. From World War II until the 1980s, public spending for higher education was on the rise, while spending on corrections remained relatively stable. But according to the institute's findings, between 1985 and 2000 state spending on higher education increased by only 24 percent nationwide, while corrections had an increase of 166 percent.
The change isn't coincidental. It reflects a shift in attitudes and policies on both education and crime.
The period following World War II witnessed a big push for higher education. Part of this push sprang from the need to provide access to education for returning veterans. In addition to scholarships through the military itself, new state campuses sprang up to accommodate the exploding numbers of college students. Many of these campuses offered college tuition free. At the same time, the civil rights movement brought about a proliferation of programs to improve access for people of color, women, ethnic minorities, and low-income people to higher education.
During the 1970s and 1980s, a shift began towards the current trend of cutting back on education funding. The prevalence of Reaganomics certainly played its role, with states rolling back funding and shifting the burden onto students through tuition, and the federal government shifting the balance of funding from grants to loans. But there was another factor to complicate this mess: the war on drugs.
It was during the 1970s and 1980s that the federal government and many state legislatures passed mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug-related offenses. No longer was the discretion with the judge to determine a fitting sentence; the minimum required sentence - based on the quantity of drugs - must be upheld.
The increased emphasis on arresting and passing harsh sentences on drug offenders has played a key role in the expansion of the prison system. After all, if we're giving all these people these long sentences, we've got to have somewhere to put them. So new prisons are built and once the costs of building them are paid, there are the perpetual remaining costs of operating them. This, on top of the costs of finding, arresting and prosecuting drug users.
The money has to come from somewhere. But let's just call it coincidence that social programs like education have borne the brunt of funding cuts.
The Justice Policy Institute study I referenced earlier stopped short of the current economic downturn. The costs of sending people to prison and keeping them there will remain whether we want to pay them or not, whether the crime warrants it or not, as long as the law requires it. It's ever so much easier for legislatures to handle a budget shortfall by cutting education than by reforming superfluous policies, isn't it?
Whatever moral stance you hold towards drugs, drug possession is a consensual, victimless crime. You have to ask yourself, is legislating morality worth the cost?
For more information about the war on drugs, check out the teach-in this Friday, Nov. 1 in the cactus garden between the Zimmerman library and the Duck Pond and in Mitchell Hall, Room 122, or e-mail Sari Krosinsky at michal_kro@hotmail.com.
