logo

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: War on Drugs "A Failure"

image
Created: 11 July, 2012
Updated: 21 November, 2022
3 min read

Touting a new mandatory treatment program for non-violent drug offenders in the state of New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie is the latest high-ranking US government official to condemn the decades-long War on Drugs. In a speech Monday at the Washington, DC-based Brookings Institution, Christie called the War on Drugs a well-intentioned public policy failure:

"The War on Drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure, and that we're warehousing addicted people every day in state prisons in New Jersey, giving them no treatment, sending them back out on the street after their term of incarceration, and wondering why recidivism rates go up, and why they don't get better, why the commit crimes again. Well they commit crimes to support their addiction."

In the criminal justice world, recidivism refers to repeated criminal activity that occurs even after incarceration, creating a cycle of crime and incarceration in which the recidivistic criminal spends life in and out of jail without ever being rehabilitated. Gov. Christie's solution is mandatory drug treatment for non-violent drug offenders:

"You can certainly make the argument that no one should try drugs in the first place, and I certainly am in that camp, but tens of millions of people in our society do every year. And for some people they can try it and walk away from it, but for others, the first time they try it, they become an addict. And they're sick. And they need treatment. So I say what we need to do, is for all first time, non-violent drug offenders, we need to make drug treatment mandatory."

Christie's remarks are just the latest of many indications that the American public is warming to an open, fact-based, cost-benefit discussion of drug policy in the United States, but civil libertarians and opponents of prohibition might not care for Christie's approach to the issue. Not only did he tie his position in with his views on abortion in a curious non sequitur, he dressed it in the paternalistic language of religious stewardship over other human lives and justified it as part of a divinely-sanctioned imperative to put every person that New Jersey technocrats deem as "drug dependent" in a mandatory year-long treatment program:

"Because if you're pro-life, as I am, you can't be pro-life just in the womb. Every life is precious and every one of God's creatures can be redeemed, but they won't be if we ignore them, and I believe that this program, which was passed overwhelmingly by the legislature this year, and will be phased in over the next five years, will allow every person who comes into the criminal justice system in New Jersey with a drug addiction, to get a year of mandatory drug treatment in house. And I believe that the results will show after this is fully implemented will be startling."

Indeed, the new mandatory treatment program, passed in June, does nothing to repeal failed drug policies, or counter federal ones on a state level by way of decriminalization. Instead, it gives the state more power to make personal decisions for its residents about their bodies. Instead of offering treatment, the new bill mandates it for anyone a court with its attendant technocracy of medical professionals deems "drug dependent." Is treating a citizen as in need of mandatory medical treatment for possessing an illicit drug any less presumptuous than treating him or her as a criminal? Will the program be any less riddled with unintended consequences? This wouldn't be the first time Chris Christie rubbed libertarians the wrong way.

The first governor in the United States to publicly condemn the War on Drugs was New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, currently the Libertarian Party's 2012 presidential candidate. In 1999, Johnson-- then a Republican-- called the War on Drugs an "expensive bust," and at that time was the highest-ranking government official in the United States to call for the legalization of marijuana since the beginning of the decades-long War on Drugs during the Nixon Administration. Other governors to condemn US drug policy in recent years include Hawaii's Gov. Benjamin J. Cayetano, a Democrat, and Minnesota's Gov. Jesse Ventura, a member of the Reform Party.

Latest articles

votes
Wyoming Purges Nearly 30% of Its Voters from Registration Rolls
It is not uncommon for a state to clean out its voter rolls every couple of years -- especially to r...
27 March, 2024
-
1 min read
ballot box
The Next Big Win in Better Election Reform Could Come Where Voters Least Expect
Idaho isn't a state that gets much attention when people talk about politics in the US. However, this could change in 2024 if Idahoans for Open Primaries and their allies are successful with their proposed initiative....
21 March, 2024
-
3 min read
Courts
Why Do We Accept Partisanship in Judicial Elections?
The AP headline reads, "Ohio primary: Open seat on state supreme court could flip partisan control." This immediately should raise a red flag for voters, and not because of who may benefit but over a question too often ignored....
19 March, 2024
-
9 min read
Nick Troiano
Virtual Discussion: The Primary Solution with Unite America's Nick Troiano
In the latest virtual discussion from Open Primaries, the group's president, John Opdycke, sat down ...
19 March, 2024
-
1 min read
Sinema
Sinema's Exit Could Be Bad News for Democrats -- Here's Why
To many, the 2024 presidential primary has been like the movie Titanic - overly long and ending in a disaster we all saw coming from the start. After months of campaigning and five televised primary debates, Americans are now faced with a rematch between two candidates polling shows a majority of them didn’t want....
19 March, 2024
-
7 min read