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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
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The global war on drugs can't be won
    #7510846 - 10/11/07 09:10 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

The global war on drugs can't be won
By Ethan Nadelmann
October 11, 2007 - canada.com

The global war on drugs can't be won. A "drug-free world," which the United Nations describes as a realistic goal, is no more attainable than an "alcohol-free world" -- and no one has talked about that with a straight face since the repeal of Prohibition in the United States in 1933. Yet futile rhetoric about winning a "war on drugs" persists. When the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs convened in 1998, it committed to "eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy by the year 2008." But today, global production and consumption of those drugs are roughly the same as they were a decade ago; meanwhile, many producers have become more efficient, and cocaine and heroin have become purer and cheaper.

It's always dangerous when rhetoric drives policy -- and especially so when "war on drugs" rhetoric leads the public to accept collateral casualties that would never be permissible in civilian law enforcement, much less public health. Politicians still talk of eliminating drugs from the Earth as though their use is a plague on humanity. But drug control is not like disease control, for the simple reason that there's no popular demand for smallpox or polio. Cannabis and opium have been grown throughout much of the world for millennia. The same is true for coca in Latin America. Methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs can be produced anywhere. Demand for particular illicit drugs waxes and wanes, depending not just on availability but also fads, fashion, culture and competition from alternative means of stimulation and distraction. The relative harshness of drug laws and the intensity of enforcement matter surprisingly little, except in totalitarian states. After all, rates of illegal drug use in the United States are the same as, or higher than, Europe and Canada, despite America's much more punitive policies.

But if the "war on drugs" isn't working, some ask, can we at least reduce the demand for drugs?

To which I say: Good luck. Reducing the demand for illegal drugs seems to make sense. But the desire to alter one's state of consciousness, and to use psychoactive drugs to do so, is nearly universal -- and mostly not a problem. There's virtually never been a drug-free society, and more drugs are discovered and devised every year. Demand-reduction efforts that rely on honest education and positive alternatives to drug use are helpful, but not when they devolve into unrealistic, "zero tolerance" policies.

As with sex, abstinence from drugs is the best way to avoid trouble, but one always needs a fallback strategy for those who can't or won't refrain. "Zero tolerance" policies deter some people, but they also dramatically increase the harms and costs for those who don't resist. Drugs become more potent, drug use becomes more hazardous and people who use drugs are marginalized in ways that serve no one.

The better approach is not demand reduction but "harm reduction." Reducing drug use is fine, but it's not nearly as important as reducing the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drug misuse and failed prohibitionist policies. With respect to legal drugs, such as alcohol and cigarettes, harm reduction means promoting responsible drinking and designated drivers, or persuading people to switch to nicotine patches, chewing gums and smokeless tobacco. With respect to illegal drugs, it means reducing the transmission of infectious disease through syringe-exchange programs, reducing overdose fatalities by making antidotes readily available and allowing people addicted to heroin and other illegal opiates to obtain methadone from doctors and even pharmaceutical heroin from clinics.

Canada and some European countries have already embraced this last option. There's no longer any question that these strategies decrease drug-related harms without increasing drug use. What blocks expansion of such programs is not cost; they typically save taxpayers' money that would otherwise go to criminal justice and health care. No, the roadblocks are abstinence-only ideologues and a cruel indifference to the lives and well-being of people who use drugs.

The global markets in cannabis, coca and opium products operate essentially the same way that other global commodity markets do: If one source is compromised due to bad weather, rising production costs or political difficulties, another emerges. That's why we should be dubious of those who seek to curb opium production in, say, Afghanistan.

It's easy to believe that eliminating record-high opium production in Afghanistan -- which today accounts for roughly 90% of global supply, up from 50% 10 years ago -- would solve everything from heroin abuse in Europe and Asia to the resurgence of the Taliban. But assume for a moment that the United States, NATO and Hamid Karzai's government were somehow able to cut opium production in Afghanistan. Who would benefit? Only the Taliban, warlords and other black-market entrepreneurs whose stockpiles of opium would skyrocket in value. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan peasants would flock to cities, ill-prepared to find work. And many Afghans would return to their farms the following year to plant another illegal harvest, utilizing guerrilla farming methods to escape intensified eradication efforts. Except now, they'd soon be competing with poor farmers elsewhere in Central Asia, Latin America or even Africa. This is, after all, a global commodities market.

And outside Afghanistan? Higher heroin prices typically translate into higher crime rates by addicts. They also invite cheaper but more dangerous means of consumption, such as switching from smoking to injecting heroin, which results in higher HIV and hepatitis C rates. All things considered, wiping out opium in Afghanistan would yield far fewer benefits than is commonly assumed.

So what's the solution? Some recommend buying up all the opium in Afghanistan, which would cost a lot less than is now being spent trying to eradicate it. But, given that farmers somewhere will produce opium so long as the demand for heroin persists, maybe the world is better off, all things considered, with 90% of it coming from just one country. And if that heresy becomes the new gospel, it opens up all sorts of possibilities for pursuing a new policy in Afghanistan that reconciles the interests of NATO and millions of Afghan citizens.

Global drug prohibition is clearly a costly disaster. The United Nations has estimated the value of the global market in illicit drugs at $400-billion, or 6% of global trade. The extraordinary profits available to those willing to assume the risks enrich criminals, terrorists, violent political insurgents and corrupt politicians and governments. Many cities, states and even countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia are reminiscent of Chicago under Al Capone -- times 50. By bringing the market for drugs out into the open, legalization would radically change all that for the better.

No one knows how much governments spend collectively on failing drug war policies, but it's probably at least $100-billion a year, with federal, state, and local governments in the United States accounting for almost half the total. Add to that the tens of billions of dollars to be gained annually in tax revenues from the sale of legalized drugs. Now imagine if just a third of that total were committed to reducing drug-related disease and addiction. Virtually everyone, except those who profit or gain politically from the current system, would benefit.

True, wholesale legalization may be a long way off -- but partial legalization is not. If any drug stands a chance of being legalized, it's cannabis. Hundreds of millions of people have used it, the vast majority without suffering any harm or going on to use "harder" drugs. In Switzerland, for example, cannabis legalization was twice approved by one chamber of its parliament, but narrowly rejected by the other.

Elsewhere in Europe, support for the criminalization of cannabis is waning. In the United States, where roughly 40% of the country's 1.8 million annual drug arrests are for cannabis possession, typically of tiny amounts, 40% of Americans say that the drug should be taxed, controlled and regulated like alcohol. Encouraged by Bolivian President Evo Morales, support is also growing in Latin America and Europe for removing coca from international anti-drug conventions, given the absence of any credible health reason for keeping it there. Traditional growers would benefit economically, and there's some possibility that such products might compete favorably with more problematic substances, including alcohol.

The global war on drugs persists in part because so many people fail to distinguish between the harms of drug abuse and the harms of prohibition. Legalization forces that distinction to the forefront. The opium problem in Afghanistan is primarily a prohibition problem, not a drug problem. The same is true of the narcoviolence and corruption that has afflicted Latin America and the Caribbean for almost three decades -- and that now threatens Africa. Governments can arrest and kill drug lord after drug lord, but the ultimate solution is a structural one, not a prosecutorial one. Few people doubt any longer that the war on drugs is lost, but courage and vision are needed to transcend the ignorance, fear and vested interests that sustain it.

Ethan Nadelmann is founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance


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InvisibleEntheogenicPeace
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Registered: 10/04/05
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Re: The global war on drugs can't be won [Re: veggie]
    #7667427 - 11/22/07 04:06 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

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Edited by EntheogenicPeace (02/12/21 05:21 PM)


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InvisibleAnnapurna1
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Registered: 05/21/02
Posts: 5,646
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Re: The global war on drugs can't be won [Re: veggie]
    #7668083 - 11/22/07 08:01 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

to quote michael moore ..the war is not meant to be won...it is meant to be continuous...


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"anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...


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InvisibleEntheogenicPeace
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Re: The global war on drugs can't be won *DELETED* [Re: Annapurna1]
    #7668256 - 11/22/07 09:04 PM (16 years, 2 months ago)

Post deleted by EntheogenicPeace

Reason for deletion: ---


Edited by EntheogenicPeace (02/12/21 05:21 PM)


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OfflineNebula
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Registered: 10/22/07
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Last seen: 15 years, 11 months
Re: The global war on drugs can't be won [Re: EntheogenicPeace]
    #7776684 - 12/19/07 08:06 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Very good article. I agree with everything!


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