6. Lies, Damn Lies, and Congressman Mica: Funny Numbers on Drug
Deaths and Murder
drcnet.org
Republican Congressman John Mica, representing Florida's 7th
District, is an inveterate drug war zealot. Nearly every week,
he strides to the House podium to deliver another broadside in
his prohibitionist crusade, attacking Panama or Mexico, sounding
the tocsin about "club drugs," or vowing eternal war against
reformers. No matter that he often speaks to an empty chamber;
his words are preserved for posterity by House cameras, the
Congressional Record, and on his House web site
(http://www.house.gov/mica/drugspeeches.htm).
Now, Mica has made a shocking claim calculated to gain public and
media attention and is broadcasting it onto the Internet via the
web site of of the committee he chairs, the House Committee for
Government Reform's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy, and Human Resources (http://www.house.gov/reform/cj/).
"Nations [sic] Drug Deaths Now Exceed Murders," blares the link
that takes the reader to Mica's September 22nd press release,
which goes on to quote Mica as saying:
"Recent figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention show that drug induced deaths soared to a record
16,926 people in 1998. The murder rate, as reported by the FBI,
is 16,914. Considering the fact that nearly half the murders are
drug related, we have a national catastrophe that is being
ignored."
The congressman is mistaken. Doug McVay, a research analyst with
Common Sense for Drug Policy (http://www.csdp.org) was first to
spot Mica's jimmying of the numbers, and he did so by going right
to the source, the Centers for Disease Control's National Vital
Statistics Reports, Vol. 48, No. 11, published July 24, 2000.
(The report is available online at
cdc.gov -- once
at that page, click on "view/download PDF").
On page 5, Table B, the report lists the top 15 causes of death
in the US for 1998. Homicide is listed as number 13. Drug-
induced deaths are not listed in the top 15.
The report lists 18,272 deaths from homicide and legal
intervention (p. 53, Table 10) and 16,926 deaths from drug-
induced causes (Table 20).
As the report notes, "The category 'drug-induced causes' includes
not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of drugs
(legal and illegal use), but also poisoning from medically
prescribed and other drugs. It excludes accidents, homicides,
and other causes indirectly related to drug use. Also excluded
are newborn deaths due to mother's drug use."
As McVay noted in his critique, posted on a reform movement
listserv, some perspective may be added by noting that the number
of alcohol-induced deaths in 1998 was 19,515. This number has
the same exclusions as the drug death category. By way of
comparison, the 1998 Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) figures on
drug deaths provide a figure of 10,123. The DAWN data,
consisting of reports from medical examiners in 144 metropolitan
areas is admittedly incomplete, but it is safe to assume the
majority of drug deaths are reported there. Those figures
include deaths not only from illicit drugs, but also prescription
and non-prescription drugs.
Clearly, Mica is wrong about drug-induced deaths exceeding
murders. But he also claimed that "nearly half the murders are
drug related." Oops, wrong again.
Citing the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for 1998, the year for
which Mica claimed there were 16,914 murders, McVay notes that
murders committed by persons involved in drug law violations or
"brawls due to the influence of narcotics" totaled 795. The
largest categories for murder causes were "other arguments" and
"unknown."
Or perhaps Mica meant to say nearly half the murders are alcohol
related. That would have been closer to the truth. McVay lets
the US Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics make
the point: "Convicted murderers in State prisons reported that
alcohol was a factor in about half the murders they committed."
It seems there isn't too much left of Rep. Mica's argument. |
