A global commission, consisting of some very big names, admits the war on drugs has been a complete failure. We can hope this is the beginning of the end.
“War on Drugs: Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy”
“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”
It seems almost everyone I talk to knows that the war on drugs is an utter failure. This misguided public policy response to a serious problem has managed to corrupt entire police forces and even, arguably, whole countries. Because prices take into account risk factors in supplying goods it has, as the James Bond movie “License to Kill” so graphically showed, enabled really bad people to become obscenely wealthy. The fallout has resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent people caught in the cross-fire between gangs of thugs, while doing nothing to reduce the demand for and supply of illicit drugs.
I have long opposed the war on drugs on principal: it’s a clear violation of property rights. After all, you own your own body and as an adult you have an inalienable right to ingest whatever you choose, whether lobster or Ajax, aspirin or cocaine. To paraphrase Libertarian-Republican John Dennis, who ran against Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in 2010, “Of course I’m for decriminalization of drugs. It’s a property rights issue.”
Becoming aware that addicts cause incomprehensible damage to society did not change my views on decriminalization. After all, we already tried prohibition with the main drug of choice among addicts, alcohol, and we saw how well that worked. However, I realized we might change the verbiage and perhaps sway some who, despite all the evidence, continue to believe in the failed war. We could narrow the scope of the war on drugs and instead, wherever possible, coerce abstinence in those who cause problems for others. Only via such focused prohibition can we improve the odds of long-term sobriety which, if we want to improve behaviors, is really the ultimate goal.
Other commentators have adopted a similar idea, which they call “harm reduction.” Rather than spending vast sums on criminalization directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of drugs, which are instantly negated by the emergence of other sources and traffickers and result in increased levels of AIDS and fatal overdoses, funds would be spent much more effectively on education, prevention and intervention.
The ideas presented in the Report entitled “War on Drugs: Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy” are not new. What is new is the people responsible for the Report, which include former Presidents of Columbia, Mexico and Brazil Cesar Gaviria, Ernesto Zedillo and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, the current prime minister of Greece George Papandreou, former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz and, my personal favorite, Peruvian libertarian intellectual and writer Mario Vargas Llosa. The idea that the war on drugs has failed is finally going mainstream. Perhaps even more remarkable is the uncompromising statement in the Executive Summary: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” The Report stops short of recommending private and public measures that would go far in discouraging drug use by those who shouldn’t use drugs, such as allowing widespread random testing of recovering addicts by employers in a bid to decrease the odds of relapse, as well as testing people on public assistance as a condition of receiving such assistance. It hedges on the issue of how best to deal with organized crime and drug traffickers. However it emphasizes the failure of the war on drugs and the need to change policies now. The Report is one heck of a start in expanding the dialogue and calling for open debate and reform.