tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post1631968083292190416..comments2023-09-20T11:15:28.673+01:00Comments on Transform Drug Policy Foundation Blog: How to make cocainejanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15263261726046054614noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-53204606611886376772008-10-23T10:00:00.000+01:002008-10-23T10:00:00.000+01:00anon - apologies, you are correct, regards the off...anon - apologies, you are correct, regards the official 'drugs budget' covered by the strategy. <BR/><BR/>Re Afghanistan - the mission is more than purely anti-drug, but that remains a key element of the strategy both for UK and US. NATO have only last week been talking up eradication again. US spend 100 million a day on the Afghan military campaign - with drug eradication one of their key stated objectives. <BR/><BR/>I think it is reasonable to say, viewed globally, anti-drugs resources are dramatically skewed towards enforcement and not public health.Steve Rolleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11487781869462634203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-49114426227682577622008-10-22T10:08:00.000+01:002008-10-22T10:08:00.000+01:00It´s not true that 'only about a third of the drug...It´s not true that 'only about a third of the drugs budget is spent on education and treatment'. It´s closer to two thirds with only one third spent on enforcement.<BR/><BR/>However, that is just the drugs budget and it is true that the wider CJS costs dwarf the drugs budget. See the Home Office online report 16-06 which estimates that CJS costs of enforcing drugs laws related to Class A drug use alone were over 4 billion pounds in 2003-04.<BR/><BR/>You assume that the expenditure in Afghanistan is drug related rather than 'national security' related.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-8257705846945596552008-10-21T22:53:00.000+01:002008-10-21T22:53:00.000+01:00anon BTW - Ive updated 'counsel'. I think I must h...anon BTW - Ive updated 'counsel'. I think I must have had the ACMD in the back of my mind.Steve Rolleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11487781869462634203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-91824749840344787262008-10-21T10:03:00.000+01:002008-10-21T10:03:00.000+01:00Only about a third of the 'drugs budget is spent o...Only about a third of the 'drugs budget is spent on education and treatment (and a sizable amount of the treatment budget is administered through the criminal justice system). include the wider costs to the CJS of drug enforcement (albeit mostly domestic) and its fall out in terms of crime creation and the equation is stretched far further. We do not, i agree, spend a great deal in Colombia (although the US spends many billions - the plan colombia, the Andean initiative etc) but we do spend a fortune in Afghanistan on utterly futile counter drug initiatives - with substantial human as well as financial costs. <BR/><BR/>yes - prohibition inflates the cost of illegal drugs (although as the markets become more efficient this effect has steadily declined) - but this has had predominantly negative effects - attractying violent gangsters to the trade and pushing dependent users into huge volumes of aquisitive property crime. <BR/><BR/>Obviously state control of markets would allow interventions on price controls/tax. This means a difficult balance has to be struck between discouraging illicit markets (price to high) and promoting use (price too low) rather like we have with tobacco, but at least in a regulated market this possibility exists - currently we have no possibility to intervene at all.Steve Rolleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11487781869462634203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-62577358596469644262008-10-20T23:22:00.000+01:002008-10-20T23:22:00.000+01:00Firstly the lion´s share of the drugs budget is no...Firstly the lion´s share of the drugs budget is not spent on enforcement. The lion´s share is spent on treatment. I´m not sure how much the UK spends on enforcement in columbia, but it ain´t much.<BR/><BR/>Secondly enforcement does work. It massively pushes up the price of cocaine as you said. Without enforcement, the 1kg of cocaine costing 200 pounds could be sent by DHL to London for about 50 pounds, maybe a bit more if it was guaranteed. However, this is not to say that this is a good thing or to disagree that enforcement is working less well over time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-62734828348653289622008-10-20T12:27:00.000+01:002008-10-20T12:27:00.000+01:00"Today, whether in Colombia, Afghanistan or anywhe..."Today, whether in Colombia, Afghanistan or anywhere else, these military policing efforts are part of a vast and complex array of interconnected political agendas, military interests and geopolitical strategies, for which the drug war is merely a convenient front."<BR/><BR/>Bravo! More please!<BR/><BR/>It's as if people really think Ollie North was some kind of maverick going it alone, and the whole thing was an isolated case. Planes used in CIA "rendition" flights have been coming down all over the world full of cocaine even this year!<BR/><BR/>I read Venezuela grabbed an (ahem) 'ex' CIA plane with 5 tons on board, next up Bush was threatening to withdraw "drug interdiction funding" because they were not producing results in the "War On Drugs" , i.e. threatening to withdraw millions of $$ in aid because they caught the wrong bad guys? <BR/><BR/>The WOD stinks, no drug baron could spend the profit from one years business in a lifetime! Follow the money all the way back to Wall Street, find the real criminals, the real profiteers from the WOD.<BR/><BR/>/rantAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28543539.post-59171577414122721222008-10-17T20:48:00.000+01:002008-10-17T20:48:00.000+01:00SteveIt's 'counsel' not 'council'... otherwise som...Steve<BR/><BR/>It's 'counsel' not 'council'... otherwise some 'interesting' points... yawnAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com