Once the medical part of the homicide autopsy was completed, or at least the part that involved the documentation and classification of injuries, the evisceration of the body and macroscopic inspection of the internal organs, the remainder of the procedure for those charged with the investigation of the whys and wherefores of the newly dead was an exercise in paperwork.
And possibly its most tedious component was the submission of evidence to law enforcement: the bullets, the decedent’s clothing and personal effects, the blood standards, all neatly tagged, bagged, signed and sealed and affixed to a Chain of Custody form. The police jurisdiction handling the case would send a detective to pick up the items and review the findings with the pathologist. One morning at the state medical examiner’s office, an example of “multiple multiples”—multiple victims with multiple gunshot wounds—took center stage.
I had spent the morning tracking and documenting entry and exit gunshot wounds, digging copper-jacketed 9 mm bullets out of the bodies and taking photographs to show in court. These were typical victims from a typical scenario: a blighted area known for drug trafficking from some nondescript town; the law and medical examiner called to confer order and explanation to the chaos and body count of young men amidst the scattered shell casings, broken glass and blood spilled onto the sidewalk.
Turning over the evidence to a detective, I asked, so what was that all about? Just drugs, doc, he shrugged. All the violent crime down our way is somehow tied to drugs. People getting crossways with each other over buying, selling or running drugs. Robbing and killing to get money to buy drugs and pay off drug debts.
I believed him.
Twenty-five years ago, I watched drugs destroy the heart of my native Washington D.C., and drugs are killing North Carolina. Where do all the drugs come from? According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, most cocaine is transported in powder form into the state and distributed wholesale by drug cartels from south of the border aided by their white, black and Caribbean national rivals, as well as outlaw motorcycle gangs. The vast majority of powder cocaine is converted to crack and used by predominantly lower-income individuals in both urban and rural settings. The affluent use both powder cocaine and, to a lesser extent, crack.
The vast majority of drug-related federal sentences in this state are for offenses related to cocaine. Marijuana, another prevalent drug in this state, is cultivated from the swamps along the coast to the Appalachian Mountains and its exotic hydroponic strains are grown indoors. There is no end to the supply of drugs, and any illegality provides no serious deterrent to their usage.
The prohibition-interdiction-incarceration model has a sorry history in the U.S. The period of Prohibition following the passage of the Volstead Act and the ratification of the 18th Amendment in 1919 is correctly viewed as one of this country’s most ridiculous and counterproductive eras. Well-intentioned to protect families and society from alcohol abuse, Prohibition had the net effect of engendering a rampant underground importation of alcohol from Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean, accompanied by a burgeoning and violent organized crime network and endemic corruption at the police and government level. Exceptions were made for the medicinal use of alcohol, its use for religious purposes and limited amounts of beer, hard cider and wine as home brews.
Similar to the modern prohibition on recreational drugs, Prohibition enjoyed support from a diverse number of groups, encompassing the radical right (including the Klan), religious groups and contemporary puritanical as well as progressive factions and politicians from both sides of the aisle. An abject failure, Prohibition was repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment in 1933.
July 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s declaration of the War on Drugs, and the view from the trenches is that it, too, has been a colossal and monstrously expensive failure on all social and political fronts. The similarities between the current War on Drugs and the feckless prohibition of Demon Rum are staggering, but the stakes and the miseries are greater today. The War has depleted our financial resources. In his report “The Budgetary Implications of Drug Prohibition,” Harvard economist J.A. Miron estimates $44 billion per year are spent on financing the world’s highest incarceration rates, inept interdiction and lame social programs (DARE, “Just Say No”). The war has facilitated a global expansion of organized crime and created fabulous wealth. Simple economics: Interdiction raises prices and increases profit margins. The drug trade is on its way to destabilizing Mexico as well as Central and South America. Our neighbors to the South beg for help, their countries wracked by skyrocketing violence as criminals vie to supply drugs to the insatiable U.S. market. The answer lies in legalization, taxation and societal help for the substance abuser.
I despise drugs. No responsible individual could ever advocate their usage, and the last thing our society needs is more ways and means to intoxicate itself. But the cat is long since out of the bag and America collectively possesses the most enormous appetite for illicit drugs and the greatest number of substance abusers on the planet. The money spent on failed interdiction would be better spent on studying why that is so, and fixing it.
The tragedy is that our nation and its leadership lack the resolve to make that happen, to end this bloody and unwinnable war.
Dr. Thomas Sporn is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology. His column runs every other Friday.
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