Pubdate: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 Source: Nelson Daily News (CN BC) Copyright: 2001 Nelson Daily News Contact: http://www.nelsondailynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/288 Page: 4 Author: Fred McMahon ( Fred McMahon is Director of the Social Affairs Centre at The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based economic research organization. Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) THE WAR ON DRUGS IS LOST The war on drugs is lost. We should run up the white flag and make accommodation with the enemy. Anything other than a defeatist attitude flies in the face of reality. The war on drugs is the longest war fought by either Canada or the United States. There have been no successful advances. If anything, the front line has been retreating over the decades of this prolonged battle -- for every step forward, two steps back. No new technologies or ideas are available to turn the battle around. For the United States, if not for Canada, this may be the most expensive war in history. It's typically been a low-level war. Costs in any year would be well below those for a real war, but added up over the decades, the sum would be astronomical. The cost in lives, again more in the United States than Canada, has been horrendous. I know of no one who has totalled the numbers of deaths from the war on drugs: fatal overdoses, HIV, other health problems, street fights, criminal turf battles and murdered police and civilians. This total might well be comparable to the number of American deaths in the Second World War. Proponents of a dramatic change in drug policy usually focus on pathological results in Canada and the United States. But there are larger reasons for ethical policy-makers to change course. The devastation wreaked in poor nations in Latin America and, to a lesser extent, Asia and the Middle East, is the greatest tragedy of the war on drugs. The poorest peasants of these nations get it every which way. One day, it might be government herbicide-spraying or a government military operation, both perhaps sponsored by the United States. Another day, it may a raid by the Marxist guerrillas who want to control drug money to fight for the revolution, or maybe a raid by the right-wing militias, who want drug money to fight against the revolution. And all these groups have been corrupted by the war on drugs. Riches from drugs have transformed Marxist revolutionaries and right-wing militias into criminal gangs willing to victimize anyone or adopt any convenient ideology to keep the drug money coming. The same riches can transform governments into criminal organizations. Police and military, or at least units of both, too often become little more than independent drug gangs. The police and justice systems can become protection rackets that extend right up to the top level of government. Agriculture -- the key industry in many developing nations -- becomes yet another casualty of the drug war. So what would surrender in the drug war look like? It won't be unconditional. There will remain restrictions on drug use, and some drugs may remain banned altogether. The options are wide, from harm-reduction to medicalization to decriminalization to legalization. Very simply, harm-reduction would change the focus from policing to mitigating the negative effects of drug use through policies that, for example, focus on addiction treatment. Medicalization would allow addicts to get drugs with a prescription from a doctor. Decriminalization would remove possession of drugs, but not necessarily trafficking, from the Criminal Code. Possession might be subject to fines, however. Legalization is what its name implies, though heavy taxes, restrictions and regulations might be applied to drugs as they are now to alcohol. These are some of the options explored in a series of essays on the drug war recently issued by the Fraser Institute and available for free on the website, http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/publications/books/drug_papers/. Any change of domestic drug policy should be married to supply policies to undercut criminal gangs in drug-growing and trans-shipment nations. Perhaps the United States and Canada could develop domestic sources of supply or allow legal drug imports. With so many potentially successful alternatives to the failed drug war, it would be criminal for policy-makers not to take notice. The war on drugs is destroying lives in the developed world, and lives and nations in the developing world. - --- MAP posted-by: GD