Pubdate: Thu, 19 Sep 2002
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Mo Mowlam
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?203 (Terrorism)
Note: Mo Mowlam was in Tony Blair's cabinet from 1997-2001 and was
responsible for the government's drugs policy from 1999-2001. Her memoirs,
Momentum, were published in May.

FIGHT TERROR: LEGALISE THE DRUGS TRADE

Prohibition Only Fuels Criminality, Corruption And Violence

While the United States and Britain continue to assert that toppling Saddam
Hussein's regime in Iraq is the best next step in the war against terrorism,
I would like to suggest a more productive course of action. The problem with
terrorism, as has been recognised from the beginning of this campaign, is
that it does not occupy a particular territory nor own clearly identifiable
assets that can be attacked and destroyed. Many terrorists live in the
United States and Europe; their assets are the funds they keep in
conventional investments, and the only means of detection is through good
intelligence.

Certainly it was true that there were some al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan,
but the massive conventional attack on that country has not destroyed the
terrorist network. Rather, it has become even more widely distributed around
the world and harder to infiltrate. The attack on Iraq, if it happens, will
have even less effect in hitting at anti-western terrorists.

Meanwhile, military action against states, whether they be "rogue" or
"failed", is having other damaging consequences, as the American government
has publicly recognised. For example, Rand Beers, of the US state
department, said to a subcommittee of the US Senate in March this year: "In
the past, state sponsors provided funding for terrorists ... Lately,
however, as state sponsorship of terrorism has come under increased scrutiny
and greater international condemnation, terrorist groups have looked
increasingly at drug trafficking as a source of revenue."

He goes on to describe the relationship between drug traffickers and
terrorists as symbiotic, as they are often organised in the same way, use
money laundering techniques to protect their funds, protection and
transportation. Indeed he links many terrorist groups around the world with
drug traffickers, such as the Shining Path in Peru, Farc in Colombia and Eta
in Spain, as well as al-Qaida.

Even President Bush has made the connection: "It is important for Americans
to know that the traffic in drugs finances the work of terror, sustaining
terrorists, that terrorists use drug profits to fund their cells to commit
acts of murder."

May I suggest that rather than bombing civilians in various Muslim
countries, the United States and Britain begin to take a more intelligent
approach to the international drugs trade: namely, to legalise it. For by
doing this, not only will we help solve one of the major problems facing the
world today, the unregulated growth of drugs trafficking, but it would also
further isolate the terrorists.

It is hard to assess the size of the international drugs trade, but in 1999
the UN Human Development report estimated it to be around $400bn a year,
equivalent to the GDP of a country the size of Spain and representing, at
that time, about 8% of world trade. This makes it second only as an industry
to the arms trade at $800bn a year, and ahead of oil and gas, and chemicals
and pharmaceuticals.

Not only does this point to the existence of widespread criminal activity,
it also indicates that a large amount of corrupt money is being fed into the
world economy on an annual basis. There is a corrosive effect where money
derived from crime is introduced into the legal economy - who is to say that
large-scale financial decisions are being made not for the most efficient
use of such funds, but because they will facilitate their most efficient
laundering.

But it is not just corruption that is the issue. The harmful effects of
drugs are multiplied around the world, as traffickers pay "mules" and others
involved with heroin and cocaine, spreading both addiction and HIV. It has
been estimated that there are 190 million addicts worldwide.

It is clear that the present approach to drugs is not working, and if the
war against drugs fails then we can be sure that the war against terrorism
will also be unsuccessful.

From my experience of being responsible for drugs policy in the previous
government, I came to the conclusion that legalisation and regulation of all
drugs was the only way to reduce the harmful effects of this unstoppable
activity. There are many reasons why I reached this conclusion, which are
too extensive to go into here.

One of those reasons, though, is that we need to detach the international
drugs business from criminality - not least because it would further isolate
international terrorism by removing the finance and other resources, such as
places for training, and money laundering facilities. It would be a big step
forward in reducing criminality in the world's financial system.

Drugs and terrorism are linked and are set to become more so. Legalisation
of drugs would stop this connection: it would begin to solve problems caused
by drugs today and would isolate the terrorists.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk