VOICES THE REV. CECIL L. MURRAY : ‘We Cannot Make Poison the Norm’

Rev. Murray is the pastor of First AME Church in Los Angeles. This was excerpted from an interview with Times Staff Writer Darrell Dawsey.

Drugs are literally killing our people, black people. We need to realize, of course, that 76% of drug users are white, but that the 24% who are black touch the majority of blacks because we face a depressed economy and often live in a depressed society. At our local church, our substance-abuse committee treats an average of five new families a week. Spinoffs of the drug culture include larceny, murder, family dissolution, school dropouts, children having children, youth gangs and the destruction of lasting values of morality.

The greatest victims of this $110- billion-a-year (drug) economy are black victims. That we do not get the major profit from this lucrative business proves that blacks are not the perpetrators of this crime--but the victims.

On the supply side, the black community must continue to insist on interdiction and enforcement at the termination point. On the demand side, the black church must be militant and diligent in offering better options and alternatives and programming to give people greater spiritual depth.

Regarding the question of legalization of drugs: no. Some things belong in the closet; this is one of them. Some things exist better behind God’s back; this is one of them. This is a foul breach of everything we hold sacred. To legalize it, to condone it, to market it--that is to put a healthy brand on strychnine. Some people will always take poison, but we cannot make poison the norm.

Similarly, when it comes to legalization, we are not ideal people. But we must be people of ideals.

(Decriminalization) has an element of truth. The greater truth, of course, is the blanket of morality and opinion (which) is the only protection we have against the insidious spinoffs of drugs. Many people would compare the drug market to the Prohibition (alcohol) market and the early days of hard liquor. I think, of course, this is to compare apples and oranges. It’s a matter of degree, and drugs to the “nth” degree are demonic.

An alcoholic may primarily hurt himself. A drug addict hurts not only self but the support group--his immediate family--and beyond that neighbors, businesses, anything to supply the habit. With females, there is greater bargaining power by virtue of sex, so they can negotiate with bodies. Males have to obtain their money through crime.

(The major effects of drug abuse on the church) are funerals, the death of meaning and belief--which is even more dastardly . . . than the death. When you take away meaning, that implies that anything goes, everything goes. A young man came to the church in need of $500. We said, “We will do anything to help you but we cannot supply rent.” He responded, as if by matter of course, and said, “Well, I guess I have to get a gun and drugs and get (money) the other way.” Twenty years ago, that would not have been an option. Today, the selling of drugs is an option. If we take away the stigmatism and legitimize the option, then the persons on the borderline may become involved.

If they can’t do anything with (drugs) now to take the profit out of it, how are they going to take the profits out later (after legalization)? If you are a street dealer, you simply undersell Dow. You simply undersell the market.

I am not as sophisticated on the argument as I should be, but I know people are still bootlegging liquor. By the time you add taxes, the price (of drugs) would be high enough that you could undersell it.

We would do better to cut off the supply and alter the demand. We need to stop seeking quick fixes. There are no quick fixes. To legalize it seems like a quick fix. But it’s going to take us a half-century to make an appreciable dent in the drug epidemic. It’s like wars. We are still paying for World War I. We haven’t reached a peak curve for World War II. We need to set ourselves that the struggle against drugs is the new frontier for America and start looking for cures. We need to create people with no need for dependency on drugs.

I know that’s Utopian, but maybe people will start to be on it. We are going to be forced by the drug economy and drug culture to get our act together. If we can’t take the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines and stop some banana republic from destroying this country, how are we going to do it by legalizing drugs?

Drugs used to be considered a black problem. White people are now realizing that it’s a vapor that is affecting all of us.

We can’t win until we realize how serious it is, how much it affects all of us. I doubt seriously that we have concentrated our best minds on the drug issue. One President, for example, gave us a slogan: “Just Say No.”

Now, how are we supposed to stop a $110-billion-a-year economy with a slogan?