Pubdate: Nov 9, 1998 Source: Le Temps (Switzerland) Section: Le Fait Du Jour Page: http://www.archive/1998/11/09/fait_1.htm Contact: Website: http://www.letemps.ch/ Copyright: Le Temps 1998 Authors: Ed.Staff, Sylvie Arsever, and Sylvain Besson Translation: Peter Webster (from French) [Lead lines]: A half-century of drug prohibition has not impeded the exponential growth of the black market and has enriched the increasingly-efficient criminal elements who trade in drugs. According to the promoters of the DROLEG initiative, to be voted on at the end of the month, it is time to change course and initiate a regulated market for the now-prohibited drugs. Is this the correct course of action to take? What dangers will it present? Can Switzerland undertake such a project alone? Here is a response to such questions: [title] ET SI L'ETAT PRENAIT EN CHARGE LE MARCHE DES DROGUES? AND WHAT IF THE STATE SHOULD TAKE CHARGE OF THE MARKET IN PROHIBITED DRUGS? Illegal drugs are not more dangerous than legal ones. The attempt to make them unavailable through repression has proved both impossible and ruinous in terms of public health. A legalised market for drugs would not be more attractive of business than the existing underground supermarket where anyone can find what he wants without difficulty. Young people, most notably, would be better protected by a differentiated regulation than a generalized prohibition. In brief: Switzerland should, starting today, demonstrate common sense by creating, independently, a regulated market for drugs. Such are the arguments, in brief, of those who support the DROLEG initiative, which will be put to a vote on the 29th of November. In opposition to such ideas we find: those who a year ago supported the initiative Jeunesse Sans Drogue [Youth without Drugs], the Conseil Federal and the defenders of the movement called the "Quatre Piliers" [the Four Foundations] prevention, treatment, repression and life assistance {trans}. The former strongly object to the principle of DROLEG itself, for the latter it seems more a matter of convenience. But perhaps the principles of the supporters of the initiative are in effect part of a third Swiss outlook, whose characteristic is to reunite radically different approaches around common values: concern for public health, pragmatism, willingness to compromise, solidarity? The prescription of heroin, for example, departs from the principle that a drug which is not adulterated and which is consumed in hygienic conditions causes less harm than the marginality and exclusion which accompanies the use of an illegal drug. And so far, practice seems to confirm this hypothesis, often misunderstood or inaccurately perceived. We shall elaborate on this hypothesis below, and then return to the arguments of those in opposition. "Pour reglementer il faut commencer par autoriser" "In Order to Regulate One Must Start by Authorising" {permitting} by Sylvie Arsever DROLEG consists of two principles. The use of drugs should no longer be a crime. And the state must take the responsibility for supply and distribution. The aim is to create a controlled market in drugs. As long as a black market controls supply, as the Geneva Professor of Law Christian-Nils Robert insists, such a market by definition escapes all possible regulation. With a black market there is no quality control, no relevant information for consumers, no guarantee on the competence or morality of those who sell the products, no possibility to exclude from use certain categories such as minors as we find, for example, for prescription medicines (which include several psychoactive drugs), or for alcohol. The consequences for health in such a situation are crushing: specifically, risks of overdose or poisoning from toxic adulterants, and of infection from contaminated syringes. And we must add to that further drawbacks: people are less informed about the products on offer, the user more easily falls into risky practices: for example, having a taste of heroin because a dealer has run out of hashish that day, or mixing drugs. The user has greater difficulty in moderating his use. The moderate consumer of alcohol spaces his drinks, chooses wine or beer rather than distilled liquor. The consumer of a black-market drug tends to take what is available, in the most concentrated (and thus harmful) form possible. With the black market the consumer is subject to yet further risks: violence, arrest, loss of employment, with the endpoint, if things go badly, of becoming enmeshed in criminal activity to finance further drug use. If the consequences of illegality are not seen as an result of prohibition, it is because they appear as perverse side-effects of an otherwise justified policy: total war on products deemed too dangerous for general circulation or even use under simple controls. Such certainty of purpose, supporters of the initiative insist, has today been seriously discredited. As early as 1994 the Comite Consultatif Francais D'ethique Pour Les Sciences De La Vie Et De La Sante [French Advisory Committee on Ethics in Life Sciences and Health] had stated: "The knowledge gained in the past few years in the fields of neurobiology and pharmacology does not permit justifying any real distinction between licit and illicit drugs." Cannabis, which practically everyone agrees presents at the very worst a danger comparable to that of alcohol or tobacco, and without doubt even less, is only one example of the incoherence of the outlook which for example applies radically different statutes for morphine and heroin, which is nothing but a more concentrated derivative of the drug. The distinction between legal and illegal substances illustrates yet a further contradiction: drugs with a tradition of use in the North are permitted, those with Southern traditions are forbidden. And much to the detriment of the South, the thrust of the War on Drugs, under American leadership and with methods such as use of defoliants on illicit crops, undermines the sovereignty of the countries concerned. In any case, the War on Drugs has proved itself totally impotent to achieve its primary goal, to reduce the supply of drugs on the streets of the North. If the War has scored a few points (such as the eradication of Turkish drug crops in the 1970s and more recently the very expensive decapitation of the Medellin and Cali cartels), these victories are hardly permanent. New producers replace the old with little delay and the world black market in drugs enjoys an exponential growth. Opium, coca, and cannabis can be cultivated far from their native territories and the appearance of entirely synthetic drugs, easy to manufacture in rudimentary laboratories, makes a complete mockery of the idea of eradication of drugs in their zones of production. The development of the global world market in illicit drugs has benefited the international criminal networks and made them ever more efficient, and today they have the wherewithal to bribe magistrates, police, and sometimes even high government officials. Finally, as noted by the economist Dominik Egli, member of the subcommittee on drugs of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics [Commission Federale des Stupefiants], Prohibition today does not limit the access to drugs, it facilitates it. In the black market, all clients are welcome. Younger clients may enjoy special prices with a view to their continued fidelity. The replacement of the black supermarket in drugs with a regulated distribution won't solve the drug problem overnight. But it will permit the reduction of the present dimension of harm caused by drugs. Some persons will always have a psychological problem with products such as alcohol, opiates, cocaine, etc., while others can effectively control their use. La Cohorte Bigarree Des Partisans De L'initiative Droleg [The colorful diversity of the supporters of DROLEG] PEOPLE OF WIDELY DIFFERING ATTITUDE HAVE UNITED BEHIND THE INITIATIVE by Sylvain Besson, Berne The Droleg campaign, "c'est lui." Francois Reusser, 41 years old, has been working 6 years for the Initiative since its beginnings in 1992. A former vice-president of the Socialist Party of Zurich, Mr. Reusser has with a very modest budget of about 250,000 francs attempted to attain at least an honorable showing for the initiative on the 29th of November vote. At his side a diverse collection of persons of greatly differing backgrounds has joined in the effort. An offspring of "alternative culture," his political education was forged from the happenings in Zurich of the 1980s. Pale in appearance, Mr. Reusser works in a store which sells articles based on the cannabis or hemp plant, and he has spent a good part of his life in the promotion of cannabis. Among the most active DRLOLEG supporters he is not the only person so concerned. Another such participant is Bernard Rappaz, an agriculturalist from Valais who has been a pioneer in the culture of hemp in Switzerland. Another is Sylvain Goujon, an imposing figure with full bushy beard, who has participated in the efforts of the radical left in Lausanne and the militia in the effort to legalise cannabis since the 1980s. The former inspiration of the Worker's Populist Party, Anne-Catherine Menetrey from Vaud, is less concerned by hemp than by "the suffering of the drug addicts in the streets, caused more by the conditions of clandestine consumption than the drugs themselves." As for the ecologists, she observes with detachment the hesitation of the Vaud's socialist and papist {Catholic?} parties which have avoided recommending any voting position at all for their militants. "The Greens are more libertarian. And that undoubtedly explains the difference of concern between us and them." "Libertarian culture" has also attracted to the reform movement persons of a more bourgeois attitude. Reto Tscholl, chief physician at the Hospital of the Canton of Aarau, brings such an attitude to the Initiative's committee. He discovered the DROLEG by reading la Neue Zurcher Zeitung (Zurich Times). Member of the Radical Party, he joined the reformers because repressive politics on drugs "wastes every year 500 million francs, financed by the taxpayer," and he rebels against state intrusion into the private lives of drug users. Christian-Nils Robert, Professeur of Law at the University of Geneva, holds a similar view: a "former socialist" who has become a "liberal in the Anglo-Saxon meaning of the word," he defends the Initiative through "attachment to the principles of penal law," which should punish only those who harm others. The supporters of DROLEG are convinced that, in every segment of society, their ideas are shared by many who dare not express them. Among the professionals who treat drug users in particular, the mobilization should be stronger. One such social worker, Gerald Progins, explains that a great majority of his co-workers preach decriminalisation but fear the risks of the establishment of a controlled market in drugs. "How can we explain to young people that drugs are dangerous if we do not prohibit them?" "Est-ce bien raisonable?" [Unrealistic gamble or calculated move? ] Some tools to help evaluate the arguments. Illegal drugs are no more dangerous than other drugs. This is probably the strongest plank in the Reformer's argument. Only a minority of pharmacologists and doctors still insist that the prohibited drugs pose some special danger which sets them apart from legal drugs. If, for example, heroin causes dependence much more rapidly than alcohol, its long term effects on the organism are much more benign. The majority of those who have researched the subject believe that it is not the drug itself but its abuse which causes a health problem. All mood altering drugs, heroin included, may be used reasonably as well as abused. Some studies even seem to indicate that there are some individuals who are predisposed to abuse every psychotropic substance they come into contact with. Prohibition is a failure. In itself, failure to respect the law is not in itself sufficient to bring the law into disrepute. The opposite is the case in nature where failure to respect the law inevitably entails harmful consequences. The failure to check the spread of mind altering drugs is particularly striking. One need do no more than read UNO's annual report to be convinced. We would not see an explosive increase in demand with regulated distribution. Failing the necessary preliminary evidence, however, one is reduced to suppositions. Economic theory tells us that demand increases when prices fall. The whole concept of regulation rests on the presupposition that it is possible to put the black market out of business simply by offering competition. From this point of view, the state will offer drugs to a wide range of consumers at prices lower than those of the black market. One might reasonably suppose that this strategy would lead to an increase in the number of consumers. But to what extent? Here predictions are difficult. The collapse of Swiss black market prices over recent years has not led to an explosion in consumption rates, which is rather reassuring. Where access to certain drugs has been facilitated, contradictory results have been observed. When doctors in England were permitted for some years to prescribe drugs freely, this did not lead to great differences in the drug market. The same practice in Sweden brought about a steep rise in the number of consumers. Reformers generally are prepared to admit a probable rise in consumption but say that this increase will be largely compensated, in terms of public health costs, by the elimination of the perverse effects of prohibition. The young will be better protected by a regulated market. The black market in drugs, without a doubt, is especially attractive of a young clientele. For adolescents, what is forbidden attracts their interest more than what is merely warned about. In addition, the black market functions in a particularly efficient way. The first dealer a young person comes into contact with is often a friend whose advice is especially difficult to resist. But this does not automatically mean that it will be easy to organize the controlled distribution of drugs excluding use by minors without at the same time creating a black market that functions only for them. The question of use by minors implies also the questioning of the preventive effect of prohibition of drugs. The way of resolving it is mostly a matter of convictions. For some, removing prohibition would amount to incitement in a way impossible to estimate. For others, it would permit, on the contrary, the putting in place of the only dissuasion that would be really effective: that which leads to differentiated and well-informed discourse among those groups with the most influence on the young, their parents, their friends, teachers, and physicians. Switzerland should proceed with reforms alone. This is the weakest link of the DROLEG argument. The central hypothesis of anti-prohibitionists is that the large profits realized by the black market is the proof that prohibition is not dissuasive. Conversely, if the profits disappeared, so would the black market. Crime syndicates, weakened, would be forced to turn to other sources of revenue. Such an analysis, simplistic as it seems in view of the ease with which the crime mafias arising around the various black markets in the former Soviet empire grew and prospered with the coming of liberalism, is only valid at most in a general way. Applied to an individual isolated country, it has obvious faults. In practice, the sale of drugs by the non-licensed would remain forbidden. It would seem very difficult from a legal standpoint to continue to apply the same punishments for drug dealing as are applied in other countries which surround us. Switzerland would therefore become very attractive for drug-traffickers. The only way to counter this tendency would be to establish a regulated distribution free enough to attract all potential customers of a black market. But this imperative would conflict with the primary intent of regulated distribution which is justifiably to provide a true regulation of the market on the basis of price and to exclude, for example, the young or the "tourists" which would no doubt come in droves to our country. The plan to go it alone in this matter of reform would be devilishly difficult. - --- Checked-by: Richard Lake