In the Economist, they have a piece in "honor" of the 100th year anniversary of the first attempts to render drugs illegal. After looking at the evidence, they take a dim view of the drug war's effectiveness:
A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission--just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert its right to peddle the stuff. Many other bans of mood-altering drugs have followed. In 1998 the UN General Assembly committed member countries to achieving a "drug-free world" and to "eliminating or significantly reducing" the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.
That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled.
Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.
"Least bad" does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring (different) risks to consumer countries. As we outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.
Read the whole thing.
I agree with the line they are taking. Drug legalization isn't a great option. It would almost certainly result in an increase in drug addiction. And I know enough about what drugs do to the brain to recommend to patients and others against their continued use.
But we don't live in a perfect universe. Conditional legalization is the best of bad options. The money that we spend now attempting to overthrow Third world and criminalizing a behavior that the majority of Americans -- including the current President -- have tried would be much better spent on treatment and education.
There is an article in a similar vein over at Reason magazine. Brian Doherty makes this interesting observation:
The violence associated with the drug war in Mexico, almost all of it attributable to the fact that drugs are illegal, is reaching absurd levels, including endemic kidnappings, beheadings, and the use of military weapons like rocket-propelled grenades in public battles. Nearly 6,300 murders in Mexico can be laid at the feet of the drug trade for 2008; and so far 2009 has already seen over 1,000.
Politicians might not see it, but just about anyone else with a moment's thought will acknowledge that we don't usually see that sort of rampant bloody murder associated with the trade in legal items--however good or bad for you they might be.
He's right. One rarely hears stories about the people at Apple wandering over to Microsoft to increase market share by beheading the competition with machetes. That is because operating systems and iPods are legal.
- Log in to post comments
Let's put those numbers for Mexico in perspective:
Mexico's population is about one-third of the United States', so 6300 drug-war murders per year would be the equivalent of almost 19000 north of the border.
For comparison's sake, the death toll from the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 was less than 3000, and is still held as a huge national tragedy. Mexico suffers more than six times that, year in and year out thanks to the drug war.
... the 100th year anniversary of the first attempts to render drugs illegal.
I don't have time to look it up, but it's hard to believe that alcohol prohibition wasn't being promoted for more than 10 years before it became part of the US Constitution in 1919.
Criminalizing a behavior that our last 3 presidents have engaged in.
Imagine, for a moment, an absurd series of potential scenarios in 'alternate universes', perhaps...in which human beings attempt the same sort of protection of their societies-at-large by making things that could have potential to harm people unlawful. But rather than recreational drugs, instead, in one 'alt-world', cars and motor vehicles are banned, with exception for the very few trillionaires who can buy their ways out of anything. In another, the 'leaders' who capitalize on the eternal fear of parents for 'The Children, the CHILDREN!!!' pass laws making competitive sports illegal...no more broken bones and bashing skulls against concrete by wipeouts while skateboarding, no more kids tossing academics away in favour of a slim chance at a scholarship given for being able to throw a ball into a net basket better than his classmates, no more depraved boobie-bouncing cheerleaders, sports are not a part of teen life except for in the "sports counterculture"...where adherents may start with relatively safe tennis matches and end up with the gateway effect leading them to softball, football, then the deadly "extreme" sports which kill and maim over and over again. Still another alt-world, even sillier with its protectivism, forbids the practice of COOKING FOOD! You can get splashed, oil burning the face and scarring it permanently, while over time the body grows old before its time as too much oil, artificial no-stick sprays, and sharp utinsels that can make one bleed to death or lose a limb if too hungry for that tempting cooked food to pay close enough attention...All this will drag the cooking habit-formed unfortunates deeper into the burnt doom no one really thought of until it was too late...
These are ludicrous scenarios, are they not?
And yet, is prohibition of a drug that has never caused death by ingestion of it, which could even help prevent cancer...any LESS ludicrous?
Pierce,
the anniversary is the 1909 UN agreement against opium, not alcohol prohibition movement in the US. economist is hq in london and has more focus on international policy and economics than purely american. the article is most likely aimed to convince policy makers mainly in UK/europe and the world in general, though true i believe it applies greatly to america.
dg - Quite so: we are in agreement as to the facts here.
I was merely objecting to the parochialism involved in asserting the 1909 anti-opium conference was "the first attempt(s) to render drugs illegal." That description both obscures the earlier efforts of other prohibitionists and promotes the absurd hypocrisy that alcohol is not a drug.
The implicit attempt to legalize banned drugs in Europe raises some interesting legal questions, in that such bans are also part of treaties with non-European nations. Anti-legalization advocates point out that, even if the US were to lift all laws against various substances now forbidden, we'd still be obligated to investigate and prosecute drug possession by binding international agreements - presumably that works both ways.
Either treaties are going to have to be abrogated, or the whole world will have to move toward legalization together (or the sorry mess of present policies will continue forever).
I'm not sure there would be much of an increase in addiction.
Legalized the prices go down and people could indulge more deeply. But drug users, not known for their self control, already tend to limit their doses and use to limit the worse of the side effects. Like drinkers they may go on benders where they throw caution to the wind and sometimes end up dead but usually there is some control.
I doubt that many more people would take up drug use. Simple fact is that most communities are saturated. Anyone who wants drugs can easily get them. Often as easily, and for about the same price, as getting a meal from a drive through burger joint.
The relevant question is not how much use and addiction is the 'war on drugs' preventing. The question is: 'Is the 'war on drugs' having any positive effect at all. My conclusion is that it is not.
If you were told of a new prescription drug that was very expensive, caused many dangerous complications and side effects but produces no positive effect you would avoid it and ridicule anyone who suggested its use.
Why is this a difficult decision when it is a legal policy.