OCTOBER 2005 HOT TOPICS

How Goes the “War on Drugs”?

Some measures show that America’s “war on drugs” might be considered successful; others show it to be generally a failure. Explaining such conflicting evidence and suggesting guidelines for improving policy are the aims of a RAND occasional paper that reviews 15 years of research on national drug problems and policy.

Explicit national policy goals relate primarily to reducing drug use. By this measure, the drug war has had a mixed record. The percentage of the population reporting “past-month use” of some illicit drug declined by half between 1985 and 1992 but has since rebounded by about a third. Meanwhile, “current” use of marijuana by teenagers also increased in the mid- to late 1990s.

But none of these conflicting trends can be uncritically credited (or charged) to the war on drugs, because trends in drug use are not primarily determined by government policy; rather, they represent the national aggregation of a variety of factors. While specific use-reduction targets represent laudable objectives, they may be very easy or very difficult to achieve, depending on factors largely outside the government’s control.

The RAND authors offered four suggestions for a better policy mix and a healthier debate. First, because drugs are here to stay, the drug problem needs to be managed over the long term, with long-term costs and benefits in mind. Second, the mix of policies implemented should be better tailored to the mix of drug problems. Third, the federal government should welcome and learn from variations in state drug control strategies that fall within the broad scope of national policy, rather than resisting such variations. Fourth, the public should demand as much information about the effects and effectiveness of drug policy as they demand about the moral scruples of the discussants.

READ MORE: Assessing U.S. Drug Problems and Policy >

Defending America Against Suicide Terrorism

As we are witnessing in Iraq, suicide bombings have become an increasingly popular tool for terrorists. In fact, more than 350 suicide attacks have occurred in some 24 countries around the globe, including Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Turkey, Italy, Indonesia, Pakistan, Colombia, Argentina, Kenya, Tanzania, Croatia, Morocco, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq. And according to The RAND Chronology of Terrorism, 78 percent of the suicide bombings recorded since 1968 have occurred in the past four years alone.

As the September 11th attacks made clear, the United States is not immune to such suicide attacks. How can the United States prepare for potential future attacks? This report describes the logic behind suicide terrorism, how other countries that have had sustained, intense, and numerous suicide attacks have dealt with it, and the lessons they learned in the process. These lessons offer a strong foundation on which American law enforcement can build.

Some of the lessons that emerge are to educate the public and to alert officers to the unreliability of profiling while providing other ways to identify suicide bombers. Officers must also have appropriate policies and procedures in place for reacting to a potential or actual bombing. For example, they must ensure that victims receive immediate medical attention, but they must also ensure that responders are safe from secondary attacks. Finally, the most-effective way to counter suicide terrorism is not to rely on specialized units but to instill a mindset focused on countering suicide bombers in every police officer on the street.

READ MORE: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism >

RAND Conference on Anti Money Laundering

The USA Patriot Act has explicit provisions to prevent and detect money laundering and funding of terrorist activities, requiring financial institutions to step up their monitoring and scrutiny of such activities. To better understand the costs and effectiveness of this regulatory regime, RAND conducted a workshop in its Arlington, Virginia, office on September 16, 2005, which was attended by about 35 participants from a wide variety of federal and international public-sector agencies, as well by individuals from the private sector interested in anti money laundering (AML) issues.

In wide-ranging discussions, participants focused on a number of major topic areas. In particular, they discussed goals and measures of effectiveness of AML programs, how vulnerable the global AML system is to smaller nations with poorly developed financial systems, how well the currency transaction report (CTR) and suspicious activity reporting (SAR) systems work, and the impact of AML on terrorism financing.

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