In order to answer our question on why the war on drugs was not a prominent aspect of the 2012 Presidential Election, we first must look at the candidates.
Looking at the three presidential debates (held on Oct 3, 13, and 22 of this year) that incumbent President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney participated in, we immediately see that there were no questions pertaining to the war on drugs, or the legalization of certain drugs such as marijuana by any of the moderators.[1],[2],[3] The only instance of the word ‘drug’ appearing in any part of the transcript relates to the prescription of drugs by President Obama on his policy, ObamaCare.
The relative quiet around drug policy in the two campaigns is reflected in the Democratic platform and the Republican platform. There are only a handful of mentions of drugs or drug policy in the Democratic platform — and the word “marijuana” doesn’t appear at all — all of them having to do with either combating international organized crime or touting the Obama administration’s baby steps toward a slightly more progressive drug policy.[4]
With the inability to position both candidate’s position on the war on drugs in their 2012 campaign for President, we must look further on their stance on the war on drugs prior to the election.
In an interview with Mitt Romney earlier this year, Romney was asked how he felt about the legalization of marijuana, and he responded with an attempt to shift the topic to something he considered to be more important, such as the economy. In an effort to answer the question, Romney stated that he opposed the legalization of marijuana and consider it a gateway drug.
If we can take anything from the video below, we can easily conclude that Romney felt uncomfortable with the mention of the legalization of marijuana. However, the question still stands: If he opposes the legalization of marijuana, why does he not have a plan to rectify the current drug problem in our country? This will be answered in greater detail in our ‘Cost of War’ section, but to speculate on a possibility, Romney does not feel that the war on drugs is a prominent issue in our country with the current economic status that we are in.
Similarly, Obama shares similar views with Romney on the current war on drugs, and also agrees that the drugs should not be legalized. Obama considers the war on drugs as a public health problem and relates it to smoking and drunk driving, and in order to beat the war on drugs, we must first change people’s attitudes towards drugs. The Obama administration is attempting to decrease the demand on drugs in the United States by attempting to educate the people on the harmful effects and public health issues that are associated with drugs through prevention. This can be seen in the 2012 National Drug Control Budget shown below. From 2010 to 2012, the portion of the National Control Drug Budget allocated to prevention has increased by 7.9 percent. This increase to the naked eye seems like Obama is sticking by his word on attempting to educate the people on the bad connotation of drug use, and to attempt to prevent the initial drug use. Yet, when we account for the inflation rate between 2010 and 2012, the total inflation rate is approximately 6.8 percent.[5] Compared to the 7.9 percent increase in the budget allocated to the prevention of drug use, we can conclude that in reality the amount of money allocated to the prevention of drug use and abuse has not increased by much over the last 2 years, since the last National Drug Control Budget. If Obama truly believes that the war on drugs is a problem of public health, the only reasonable way to combat the war on drugs is to increase the budget allocated towards the prevention of drug use even further than it currently is.
In the debate created by HuffPost College and the International Debate Education Association, we can see that President Obama and Governor Romney both have very different approaches to the war on drugs[6].
On one hand, the Obama administration along with the RAND Corporation, believes that drug policies prioritizing treatments over punishment is more effective, thus the Obama administration is attempting to shift the war on drugs towards that direction in conjunction with scaling back the war on drugs[6].
Governor Romney is taking a different approach and stated that he will not scale back on the war on drugs and believes that the way to curb the war on drugs is through imprisonment. Romney believes that those who break current laws, drug laws included, should be punished and therefore proposes for-profit prisons to keep up with the incarceration of drug use offenders. Romney believes that if larger prisons are necessary to combat the war on drugs, they are a necessary cost. He believes that in order for the war on drugs to be successful, it is necessary to make an example of drug users and dealers by demonstrating the seriousness of the crime[6].
Gary Jonson, Libertarian Candidate for 2012 Presidential Election
It is interesting to look at another candidate for the 2012 presidential election. Former Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson, received over one million votes and over one percent of the total popular votes. Even though Gary Johnson, as a Libertarian, could not have won the 2012 presidential election, it is important to look at where he stands on the war on drugs as well while we are evaluating the presidential candidates for the 2012 election.
On Johnson’s website, he clearly states his stance on the current drug policy and his plans for reform. Unlike President Obama and Governor Romney, Johnson strongly believes that there should be a federal legalization of marijuana. He quotes on his website a Gallup poll revealing that 46 percent of Americans, at the time of polling, agree that marijuana should be legalized. Johnson strongly believes that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and believes that the current policies that we have towards marijuana and the incarceration of marijuana users is extreme. Johnson also makes it clear that he knows that America will never be a drug-free society, but his reform policies are aiming at minimizing the harm and negative effects that drugs have on the society by making sure that drug abusers have access to effective treatment options, jail time not being one of them[7].
In the presidential candidate debate on October 13, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia between Libertarian candidate, Johnson, and Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, the mention of ‘drug’ occurred nine times, and ‘marijuana’ appeared four times[8]. This shows that the war on drugs was not completely absent in the 2012 presidential election; it was only absent in the campaigns of incumbent President Obama and Governor Romney. One speculation on the reason for this is Obama and Romney did not want to publicly announce their stance on the war on drugs during the presidential campaign to prevent the possibility of swaying unsure voters one way or another; in essence, both candidates acted very conservatively on the matter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdpcggfIt0U
References
[1]http://2012election.procon.org/sourcefiles/Oct_3_2011_obama_romney_debate.pdf
[2]http://2012election.procon.org/sourcefiles/Presidential_Debate_Oct_16_2012.pdf
[3]http://2012election.procon.org/sourcefiles/Presidential_Debate_Oct_22_2012.pdf
[4]http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2012/sep/12/drug_policy_2012_elections_ii_pa
[5]http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/
[6]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/war-on-drugs-debate-idea_n_1853794.html
[7]http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/issues/drug-policy-reform
[8]http://2012election.procon.org/sourcefiles/Third-Party-Debate-CNN.pdf