Pubdate: Mon, 27 Aug 2001
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2001 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Fred McMahon
Note: Fred McMahon is director of the Social Affairs Centre at The Fraser 
Institute.

LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE TO FAILED DRUG WAR

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.

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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom