The Nation - News from Aug. 21, 1989

The government’s $1-billion-a-year effort to halt marijuana trafficking has backfired, according to a Harvard University study. Study author Mark A. R. Kleiman said the strategy to reduce marijuana importation has resulted in a more potent and available supply of the drug domestically because growers in the United States have access to advanced agricultural technology. “The effort to interrupt the supply has failed,” Kleiman said, citing as evidence the availability of marijuana, increased violence associated with its distribution and what he called the staggering waste of law enforcement resources. Kleiman cited National Institute on Drug Abuse statistics showing that 7 in 8 high school seniors say that they could easily buy marijuana. “ . . . We could take half a billion dollars out of the federal law enforcement budget and never miss it,” Kleiman said. The money could instead be used to provide more courtrooms and prison cells and establish house arrest and drug-monitoring programs for some drug-involved offenders, he said.