War and Policy

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported what urban Michiganders have long been aware of: Our State is home to many of the most violent cities in America per capita.

It is a hallmark of growing up in suburban Detroit that the City-proper is seen as “just violent.” Unfortunately, the lack of fluidity between suburbanites and those living in the City leads to radically different perceptions of this “violence.”

In the suburbs, the violence is largely perceived through the same media that reports on foreign wars so, quite naturally, it just does not feel that much closer to home. But this does not change the plain fact that an actual War is occurring less than 10-miles from where most Metro-Detroiters live.

It is not called a War. We do not even tally the dead, though a combination of the Free Press records and BJS stats pegs Detroit as having seen more than 21,000 murders since 1969- a count that adds up to greater than 2.9% of the City’s population according to the 2010 Census. And it’s not called a War because the powers that can make such a moniker stick have no intention of dealing with it as such.

Take President Obama, who very publicly declared an end to the “Drug War”. Had he in fact ended the War that is fueled by drugs, Detroit would be a far safer place today because the sale of illegal drugs is undeniably the primarily financial resource of violent criminals in this City. But unfortunately the President ended only a trademark.

So why doesn’t Obama, or Governor Snyder for that matter, propose a method of cutting off the drug trade, which fuels the violence in Michigan cities? Because the laws they are currently tasked with enforcing are simply unenforceable. So long as blanket prohibitions on widely available “Schedule 1” drugs like Marijuana remain the law of the land, their hands are tied. Values of cheaply produced, easily distributable drugs will remain high, and the violence business will remain more economical than the non-violence business in many of Michigan’s cities.

Calling this violence what it is- a War- would only make these leaders look ineffectual. So, instead of our leaders dealing with this problem, it has been left to the people of Michigan to change the laws. And, thanks to the hard work of Tim Beck and the supporters of the Coalition for a Safer Detroit, one City is going to have a chance to make a major change to longstanding policy. In August, Detroiters will have the chance to legalize the possession of up to one ounce of Marijuana for people over the age of 21 on private property in the City-proper.

Polls show that the majority of Detroit City residents want to see the possession of small amounts of Marijuana on private property legalized. Or, to put it differently, they do not want Police to focus their extremely limited resources on minor, non-violent possession any longer.

Will changing this law have a major impact on the violence Detroit sees? No one can truly say. But what can be said is that Detroit has been experiencing an active War for more than 40-years, financed by the drug trade. State and Federal leaders have proven unable to craft and enforce policies that make any significant impact and they show no signs of doing so.

It’s time that the people of Detroit take responsibility for the conduct of the war their Police force bears the brunt of waging. It is time that people feel a personal stake in the laws that shape their environment. And as they do, by this initiative or the next one, Michigan will begin to see the safer Detroit that everyone so desires, emerge again.