NCJ Number
127485
Journal
Human Rights Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1990) Pages: 18-23,53
Date Published
1990
Length
8 pages
Annotation
The article presents an interview with Samuel Dash, the founder of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and head of the Institute of Criminal Law and Procedure at Georgetown University. The interview's topic is the improbability of winning the drug war and possible solutions to the problem.
Abstract
Samuel Dash feels that the way the "war on drugs" is being currently waged is a losing battle because the drug problem is too endemic in the United States to be curtailed by conventional methods. The criminal justice system is just too overloaded. Mr. Dash feels that prevention, treatment, and education should be emphasized instead because use of various substances from tobacco to alcohol to sleeping pills will always be around. Another aspect inhibiting the war is the large amount of money to be made in the drug trade, the idea that a successful life means having lots of money, and the attractiveness of quick money to people in the inner cities. Drug legalization is Mr. Dash's solution to the problem based on the experience of alcohol legalization and related crime reduction. Mr. Dash is also concerned about the overloaded criminal justice system and believes that most people who go into the criminal justice system never get their case fully tried on the merits. He is also concerned about the giving up of privacy rights upon submission to searches and drug tests.