David Rittgers does not fit the stereotypical profile for an advocate of drug decriminalization. He served in the United States Army, and is now a legal policy analyst for the Cato Institute, a public policy think tank. So when he came to speak at the Barristers Hall at the BU School of Law about drug policy on Tuesday, his stance might have been surprising.
“Conservatives, if they were true to their principles, would be actually opposed to the war on drugs,” Rittgers said to the crowd of two dozen people. They were gathered for “The War on Drugs,” a talk on held by the Boston University Chapter of the Federalist Society.
He spoke on the subject within the context of the recent debate on health care reform. In an article Rittgers published this past November, Rittgers outlined the apparent contradictions between supporting a war on drugs while opposing “Obamacare.”
In 2001, Portugal changed its drug policies and began to put addicts into treatment instead of jail. According to some studies, the program was successful from a health perspective. Rittgers used this as en example that the US could possibly follow.
“In absolute terms, drug use went down. And, in fact, it went down in the category we worried most about,” he said. “The eighth grade demographic. People who start using drugs at that stage, who will use drugs throughout their lives.”
He cited the violence in Afghanistan’s Helmand province as another problem. Since the United States began to take a more aggressive stance on the area’s opium trade, the number of casualties has risen dramatically. From the years 2001 to 2005, there were five US casualties in the province. In 2006, after American intervention became more assertive, that number rose to 31.
Closer to home, Rittigers said, Mexico’s cartels have become larger and more dangerous than ever, and are only made stronger by the aggressive war on drugs. The cartels cost the US billions of dollars, and thousands of lives are lost in drug-relating fighting every year.
In his talk, Rittgers conceded that it would be difficult to convince conservatives of the necessity of drug reform, largely because drug use is not consistent with what are commonly perceived as traditional conservative values. But, he said, in many cases, keeping drug-users out of jail will unite the family. And even though a softer strategy in the war on drugs might not seem socially conservative, it would end the current hypocritical policymaking.
“Limited government lawmakers want to be taken seriously,” he said. “But if they really mean what they say, federal drug policies have to be put on the chopping block.”
