Important new book: 'Children of the Drug War' (free pdf download)

'Children of the Drug War' is a unique collection of original essays that investigates the impacts of the war on drugs on children, young people and their families. With contributions from around the world, providing different perspectives and utilizing a wide range of styles and approaches including ethnographic studies, personal accounts and interviews, the book asks fundamental questions of national and international drug control systems:

• What have been the costs to children and young people of the war on drugs?
• Is the protection of children from drugs a solid justification for current policies?
• What kinds of public fears and preconceptions exist in relation to drugs and the drug trade?
• How can children and young people be placed at the forefront of drug policies?

Four thematic sections address:

• Production and trade
• Race, class and law enforcement
• Families and drug policy
• Drug use and dependence
  
  

The book is published by the International Debate Education Association (iDebate Press). It is available for purchase in hard copy from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and other outlets.

The book has a dedicated webpage here which includes a downloadable pdf of the full book, and pdfs of each of its four sections. It can also be read online.

Steve Rolles, Transform's senior policy analyst, has written a chapter for the book titled 'After the War on Drugs: How Legal Regulation of Production and Trade Would Better Protect Children'.

The book also forms part of the new Count the Costs initiative - the introductory chapter, by the book's editor Damon Barrett, titled 'Counting the Costs of the Children’s Drug War'.

Please help  publicise this brilliant new resource by linking the site, publicising it on your social networks, and drawing attention of key policy makers, professionals and media to the book.  

Our Drugs War : Channel 4 documentary series

On Monday 2 August at 8:00pm the first of a three-part series on Channel 4 'Our Drugs War' will be broadcast.

updated:

Unashamedly anti-prohibitionist in tone, the excellent first part (1 hour) can now be viewed online here.

Here's a link to the article by Angus MacQueen, the series producer in the Observer - 'Why do we so wilfully cover up the failure of the war on drugs?'

This is coverage from the Scottish SUN: 'We will NEVER win the war on drugs'

Great new ICSDP video explaining the costs of the drug war

A video for anyone who wants to better understand the failures of prohibition and learn more about alternatives that have proven to be more cost-effective, safe, and humane.

Brought to you by the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy -- where science, not ideology, drives illicit drug policy.

'War on drugs' behind endless misery

The commentary reproduced below by Evan Wood  of the recently established International Centre for Science in Drug Policy was originally  published today on CNN.org.

'War on drugs' behind endless misery

The news of intense drug-related violence out of Jamaica is shocking and dreadful but entirely predictable. Wherever the war on drugs touches down, death and destruction result. A recent target is Kingston, Jamaica. 

When law enforcement attempted to smoke out Christopher "Dudus" Coke, wanted in the U.S. for conspiracy to distribute marijuana and cocaine and to traffic in firearms, scores of people died in the urban warfare. The death toll reached 73 civilians as Jamaicans were caught in the crossfire between police, soldiers and armed thugs.

Rival drug gangs used the confusion to eliminate their enemies and further ratchet up the violence. Coke has since agreed to surrender to officials in New York, because he "feels it is in his best interest to be taken to the U.S. rather than to a Jamaican jail," sources told the Jamaican Observer, but not before scores of people died.

Given that the scenes of violence between rival drug gangs are so common, people often fail to consider the factors that fuel this violence. The reality is that Jamaicans are just the latest victims in a misguided and expensive war that has taken countless thousands of lives, from the streets of New York to the slums and shantytowns of Colombia, Mexico and other third-world nations.  When law enforcement attempted to smoke out Christopher "Dudus" Coke ... scores of people died in the urban warfare.

In more than four decades since former U.S. President Nixon first declared America's "war on drugs," the battles against spreading disease, increasing violence and the ongoing destruction of families and neighborhoods have been lost.

Mexico, a country all too familiar with violence as a way of life, is today a stark example of how crackdowns on drug cartels by American and local law enforcement agencies have utterly failed.

The horrible drug-related violence in Mexico was intensified by President Felipe Calderón, with strong U.S. support. This crackdown has resulted in about 23,000 drug-related deaths across the country since 2006. The bloodiest war has been fought in Juárez, a besieged city of 1.3 million on the U.S. border, where 5,100 people have been killed since 2008.

The global drug war has created a massive illicit market with an estimated annual value of $320 billion. In April, the newly created International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, of which I am founder, released a review of every English-language study to examine the link between drug law enforcement and violence.

The review clearly demonstrates that the astronomical profits created by drug prohibition drive organized crime and its related violence. Several studies included in the report suggested that law enforcement's removal of key players from the drug trade, such as Christopher Coke, only creates power vacuums that lead to violent and deadly competition. Many victims are not involved in the drug trade, as today's civilian deaths in Mexico, the U.S. and Kingston's slums illustrate.

The global drug war has created a massive illicit market with an estimated annual value of $320 billion.

The war on drugs has generated a lucrative, cash-rich industry that has -- not surprisingly -- lured poverty-stricken participants from throughout the impoverished third world. In West Africa, entire countries, such as Guinea-Bissau, are at risk of becoming "narco-states" as Colombian cocaine traffickers employ West African trade routes to distribute cocaine into destination markets in Europe, Russia and the Middle East.

Estimates now suggest that 27 percent of all cocaine destined for Europe is transited through West Africa and is worth more than $1.8 billion annually wholesale -- and as much as 10 times that amount at the retail level. Illicit drugs are big business, with the influence and global reach that goes along the ability to create widespread wealth.

Another conclusion of the review was the clear evidence that drug law enforcement has failed to reduce the availability of illegal drugs.

From a scientific perspective, we must accept that law enforcement will never meaningfully reduce the flow of drugs. Economists know that the drug seizures we see over and over again as part of police photo ops have the perverse effect of making it that much more profitable for someone else to sell drugs. The laws of supply and demand have simply overwhelmed police efforts. With young people reporting that obtaining illicit drugs is easier than getting alcohol or tobacco, the situation could not get much worse.

Strong scientific evidence points to the effectiveness of alternative regulatory models established in Portugal, the Netherlands and Switzerland to counter the disastrous consequences of illicit drug use and drug policies.

The Cato Institute, a respected U.S. think tank, has released a report on alternative drug policies. Several years ago, Portugal parted ways with the U.S. and decriminalized all drugs so that resources could focus on prevention and treatment of drug use. The report shows Portugal's policies have dramatically reduced HIV rates as drug addiction has been viewed as a health, rather than criminal justice, problem. In addition, Portugal now has the lowest rates of marijuana use in the European Union, with experts suggesting that the health focus has taken some of the glamour out of illegal drugs.

Similarly, the de facto regulation of marijuana in the Netherlands and distribution through licensed coffee shops generates tax revenue for the country rather than profits for organized crime. Interestingly, rates of marijuana use in the Netherlands remain far lower than those in the U.S. Consider this against the backdrop of the mayhem in Mexico, much of which is driven by fighting to control the marijuana export industry.

The American "get tough" approach, although politically popular in certain circles, has failed to achieve its intended objectives: The supply of illicit drugs has increased, the costs of illicit drugs have dropped, and drug purity has risen. The mounting bloodshed in Mexico and the recent mayhem in Jamaica clearly demonstrate that the U.S. is exporting violence, breaking up families and increasing the taxpayer burden to help fight these fruitless battles.

Americans themselves are suffering deeply from these misguided policies. It's time to just say no to the war on drugs and to implement science-based alternative policy models that are proving effective in other parts of the world.




Evan Wood is the founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy; the director of the Urban Health Program at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and associate professor in the Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Evan Wood.

ONDCP on the defensive as drug war exposed to mainstream media critique

After the publication of a blistering critique of the drug war from Martha Mendoza of Associated Press was published widely across the US, the US Drug Czar’s office - the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has responded on its blog*, highlighting what they felt was left out of the piece. The Mendoza piece, titled 'US drug war has met none of its goals', did not mince its words:

After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

The failure is then laid out in stark economic terms:

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

• $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.

• $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

• $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

• $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

• $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" — cost the United States $215 billion a year. Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides. "Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."

The Drug Czar's Office is clearly feeling the heat from all sides - and is on the defensive. Earlier this month the progressive Dennis Kucinich , chair of the Committee of Oversight for ONDCP, called Ethan Nadelmann (director of Drug Policy Alliance),to the Committee. You can read his testimony here, summarising many of the growing public concerns.

The ONDCP response to the AP broadside is worthy of some close scrutiny so I have copied the blog post in full below and annotated it with my thoughts (in bold), with a few graphs thrown in to illustrate the points.

‘ONDCP Agrees: A Balanced Approach is Needed, But Mischaracterizing Our Progress Helps No One’

Last week, the Associated Press ran a story by reporter Martha Mendoza, whose headline read, "US War On Drugs Has Failed to Meet Any of Its Goals." Mendoza's article was prominently labeled as an "AP Impact" story, a designation that Terry Hunt, APs chief Washington correspondent said is meant to signify "something that we think has a 'wow' factor."

This is what we in the UK call a ‘sly dig’; the inference is that the story has been ‘sexed up’.

Immediately after the story ran, a representative from ONDCP's Office of Public Affairs responded to Ms. Menoza regarding the article. In part, we wrote to AP that we were let down by a focus that was so singular – especially since we believe there is good basis to describe President Obama's new national strategy as new and balanced.

The use of the term 'Immediately' demonstrates just how threatening they find this sort of mainstream media critique, and how urgently they felt a response was required. Ethan Nadelmann writing on the Huffington Post has a rather different analysis of the suggestion the new strategy is 'new and balanced'.

The budget piece is fair to focus on, but we told AP that we objected to the article's mischaracterization of current policy. A fairer and more nuanced observation would have been: This does look/sound a lot different, but the budget scenario hasn't changed overnight (it never does, in any realm of government) and it will take some time to test the Administration's commitment to the new approach.

That is an interesting comment. We should certainly test the rhetoric in terms of significant resource reallocation. We genuinely look forward to that, but how long before it happens? We can only judge on actions, not aspirations.

We also mentioned to AP that there were significant things left out of the article which should have been discussed, namely that:

• The emergence of prescription drug abuse has upended many traditional assumptions about drug abuse.

Has it? In what way? Because is doesn't fit neatly in the punitive drug war paradigm?

• The article did not address whether legalizing/decriminalizing drugs, posited in the story as a responsible alternative – works, or why, if it does, more countries haven't taken this approach.

It is ironic for ONDCP to be calling for evidence of whether alternatives ‘work’, when they have systematically failed to comprehensively assess the efficacy of their own enforcement led policy.

See for example ‘What we don’t know keeps hurting us?’ a report produced by the National Academy of Science in 2001 that highlighted precisely this failing, in withering terms:

"It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether, and to what extent, it is having the desired result. Our committee strongly recommends that a substantial, new, and robust research effort be undertaken to examine the various aspects of drug control, so that decision-making on these issues can be better supported by more factual and realistic evidence."

Now, I’m well aware that this is ONDCP rhetoric but let’s, for a moment, treat it as if ONDCP is asking a genuine question. First, what is the evidence that decriminalisation works? Well, there’s plenty of evidence from the many countries/states that have decriminalised cannabis (including 13 US states), as well as many more that have decriminalised possession of all drugs, such as Portugal. Its imperfect data but not insubstantial. Have the ONDCP reviewed or published anything on it? No.

What about legalisation and regulation? Well, we have the legalisation and regulation of alcohol at the end of US alcohol Prohibition 1920-1933 as a useful touchstone here - the 75th anniversary of which was the subject of Congressional celebrations in 2008.

We have extensive experience with quasi-legal cannabis supply in the Netherlands, and indeed in the form of medical supply, in the US (full legalisation and regulation of cannabis being the subject of a Californian ballot this coming November).

We have decades of experience with prescription models for opiates and stimulants (including heroin and amphetamines) for dependent/problematic users. And in the wider public sphere, extensive experience in regulating and controlling a range of potentially risky products and activities. Its what Governments do, its one of their primary responsibilities, and they can be quite effective at it.

But Transform believes we still need more evidence to help the policy making process - we are moving into new territory after all - and that we should conduct Impact Assessments at all levels (local, national and international) to compare and contrast the various policy options; a full scale Drug War, Kerlikowski's re-branded drug war-lite, the various options for decriminalisation, and options for regulated markets. We call on ONDCP and its committee of oversight to conduct just such an exercise in order to assess which is the most effective way forward.

• Legalizing, taxing and regulating tobacco, alcohol, or prescription drugs has been unsuccessful in curbing the public health consequences of the increased use of those drugs.

The inference here is that decrim/legalisation would increase use and create a public health disaster. To really respond to this throw-away line requires a much more detailed analysis (there is some more discussion in Transform's 'Tools for the Debate' p.47) but there are few points to highlight here. Firstly, it is fair to turn it around and ask whether prohibition has been effective at reducing use or creating its goal of a 'drug free world'. The past five decades would suggest unambiguously not. Has the drug war improved public health?

The evidence for a deterrent effect associated with punitive sanctions on drug users is marginal at best (explored in more detail in Transform's 2009 CBA report). If anything, the evidence suggests that the punitive dimension of drug policy is largely irrelevant, and that levels of use and misuse are primarily determined by a complex interplay of social, cultural and economic variables. You can't legislate away drug use, much as Tsars through the decades might wish to.

Public health improves when public health is prioritised in the policy making process. With regard to the US lack of regulation of alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs, public health has long taken a back seat to unprincipled profit seeking behaviour of Big Pharma/Tobacco/Alcohol - that naturally aims to maximise consumption. Were the priorities to shift, we might begin to see significant reductions in legal drug related public health problems. Witness the achievements of improved tobacco regulation (combined with effective public health education) over the past three decades in the UK - smoking rates have halved, no-one has been criminalised.

• Congressional efforts to reduce the sentencing disparity between crack/powder cocaine – the first concerted effort to reduce any mandatory minimum sentencing provision – have been supported by this Administration, and we are close to a breakthrough.

Yes, credit where due, but this has happened only after years of NGO campaigning (including through previous Democrat administrations) and only following horrific consequences and racial injustice, that can never be undone. It doesn't deserve a medal.

• Not every dollar tagged "law enforcement" is spent on jailing nonviolent drug offenders. The majority of people in drug treatment programs today are there because of a law enforcement intervention, and there are more than 100,000 successful graduates of drug courts – for which there are $56.4 million requested in this Administration's FY2011 budget request.

Not every dollar no, but most of every dollar. And why use the courts to administer ‘treatment’? Is that not a job for doctors? Where is the acknowledgement of prohibition's role in creating the vast illicit trade, and inflated prices, that leads to most of the offending that then results in drug users ending up in court in the first place. Quite a few people ended up in prison too by the way.

• Finally, this Administration's historic passage of health care reform will aid efforts to deal with the disease of addiction, as well as rules that will require insurance companies offering drug treatment coverage to provide parity with coverage for other medical conditions.

It’s a medical condition that appears to affect far more US and UK citizens compared to those from other nation states – See Richard Wilkinson's ‘The Spirit Level - why more equal societies almost always do better’ for a possible explanation of why this might be. Also relevant is Bruce Alexander's ‘Rat Park’ experiment and his epic ‘Globalisation of Addiction - a study in poverty of the spirit’.

Additionally, the article failed to mention that:

• Prevention and treatment have been successful over the past 30 years, and new advancements in both of those areas have reduced drug use among teens and adults by more than one-third since 1979

And the evidence for this is…? I hope this isn't cherry picking historic high and low points on one graph from which spurious generalised conclusions have been drawn, whilst ignoring inconvenient details (like, for example, the crack and meth epidemics).

• We have said time and time again that demand reduction – and supply reduction – strategies can work together in a coordinated fashion to reduce drug use and its consequences.

Saying it doesn't make it so. Even saying it repeatedly. Your own evidence for demand reduction is incredibly poor, and even the UNODC now acknowledge the disastrous unintended consequences of supply side enforcement - which, even according to their own data hasn't prevented drugs from becoming progressively cheaper and more available.

Global advancements in research, led primarily by our National Institute on Drug Abuse, has led to breakthrough addiction treatments and advancements in our understanding of how drugs affect the brain.

NIDA has done some useful work, but the lion's share of its budget has been dedicated to demonstrating how dangerous drug are - in doing so reinforcing the simplistic 'drugs bad, therefore ban them' prohibitionist narrative. Almost no research has been spent on evaluating the efficacy of supply side interventions, and none has been spent on evaluating alternative approaches. A biased research agenda can be just as dangerous and unscientific as biased research.

• The greater use of today's high potency marijuana has probably been a critical factor in the unprecedented surge among those seeking treatment for marijuana and ER mentions.

Firstly the surge in treatment is almost entirely due to criminal justice referrals. Secondly the rise in potency is a result of an unregulated, profit-driven illegal market dynamic - the direct consequence of prohibition. ONDCP is using a failure of prohibition to justify its continuation, which is flat out ridiculous.

• While most people in jail and prisons for drug offenses are not simple possession offenders, ONDCP is leading the criminal justice field by promoting collaborative, evidence-based interventions involving testing and moderate sanctions (e.g. Hawaii's HOPE model) and drug courts.

No, most people are in jail for offending to support an expensive illegal drug habit. How many are in jail for offending to buy alcohol or tobacco?

• This Administration is trailblazing a commitment to strengthened international partnerships - witness the unprecedented global support for US goals at the recent UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna, Austria.

The US has been running the show at CND since it began. New, marginally more pragmatic instructions and a less heavy handed approach means that they will have lost fewer friends than under Bush, but this is nothing to be particularly proud of.

Obviously, no one story can cover everything, but we should engage in a new discussion on why drug abuse policy is so important and what evidence-based strategies are at our disposal (there are a lot of them) to reduce its deadly toll.

‘Drug abuse policy’ – there’s a new phrase. According to UNODC, 95% of users are non-problematic, so a ‘drug abuse policy’ should only relate to the 5% with problems. That is not the case. Prohibition criminalises all users, regardless of whether they are users or problematic users. This narrative is intended to characterise all ‘drug’ use as dangerous and abusive. It sits in stark contrast to the public discourse on alcohol, that recognises that most use sensibly with a small minority developing problems.

Overall this is a very defensive response from an agency that is clearly feeling beleaguered. It is finally being called to account for the drug war, from a drug policy reform community growing in size and influence, from Dennis Kucinich's Committee of oversight, and from an increasingly critical mainstream media. This new dynamic provides a huge new opportunity to bring previously excluded narratives into the old story line. As Joseph McNamara, Former Police Chief, Kansas City and San Jose; Fellow, Hoover Institution put it:

“The Drug War cannot stand the light of day. It will collapse as quickly as the Vietnam War, as soon as people find out what’s really going on.”

Thanks to Steve Rolles

See Drug War Rant for the US reformer's view


*not really a blog at all - comments are not welcome.

How to End the War on Drugs: Building Peace in Latin America

How to End the War on Drugs:
Building Peace in Latin America

With Danny Kushlick, Head of External Affairs, Transform Drug Policy Foundation

An interactive event with the founder of the UK’s leading drug policy think tank Transform. Danny will describe how the drug war has become an orthodoxy, through securitising cocaine. He will show how applying an evidence-based approach built upon humanity, effectiveness and justice, would lead to a system such as that outlined in Transform’s groundbreaking new book: ‘After the War on Drugs – Blueprint for Regulation’.

Wed 9 June 2010, 7:30pm
(This event is free and no booking is necessary)

Bolivar Hall
54 Grafton Way
London W1T 5DL Tel: 0207 388 5788

www.tdpf.org.uk

Targeted Killing of Drug Lords: illegal under international law

Last August there was a fair amount of international coverage of a new US policy involving targeted assassinations of Afghan drug lords thought to be funding the Taliban.  A good example was in the Guardian; US puts Afghan drug lords on hitlist to disrupt Taliban finances (August 10).

What was striking to me about this, and indeed all of the coverage I could find at the time, was that no mention was made of the legality, or indeed ethics, of extra judicial killings. Assassinations of non-combatants in foreign countries are unambiguously illegal under international law (for obvious and good reasons), and (even if we can overlook nuisance issues like due process and the impact of 'collateral' damage) it is also fair to say that killing people more generally has also been historically frowned upon.

I wrote a very short letter to the Guardian highlighting my concern that was published the following day. The question received almost zero attention otherwise, such that Prof Paul Rogers, writing about the policy a few days later on Open Democracy, noted that 'there has been almost no comment on [the policy of targeted killings] legality', and that my letter was 'a rare exception'. Unfortunately I didn't have the time to pursue the issue, so was pleased to see a new paper by Patrick Gallahue published last week for the International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy (from the newly established ICHRDP) called 'Targeted Killing of Drug Lords: Traffickers as Members of Armed Opposition Groups and/or Direct Participants in Hostilities’

The paper, the abstract and conclusion of which are copied below (the full text is available in pdf), explores the legal issues in considerable detail, demonstrating how 'targeting people for death is not an appropriate or legal means for holding those involved in criminal activities accountable for their actions'.

One additional issue not touched upon by the paper, the media coverage, or the US analysis, is oneof  efficacy. Even if it were legal, it seems highly unlikely that killing drug lords would be anymore effective at curtailing production and supply than arresting them has been historically. Whilst the environment remains conducive and the profit opportuinity exists, criminal profiteers will always seek to exploit it. 'Taking out' the boss, or even 50 bosses, will only lead to players lower down the hierachy assuming the senior roles in the business. It seems remarkable that the pragmatic analysis around the futility of eradication, as expressed by Richard Holbrook in the original Guardian article ("wasteful and ineffective") is not extended to the equally pointless targeted killings policy.

So to illegal and unethical, we can confidently add stupid and ineffective.

ABSTRACT

In 2009, the United States announced that it had placed fifty Afghan drug traffickers with links to the Taliban on a ‘kill list.’ This controversial proposal essentially weds the counter-narcotics effort with the mission to defeat the Taliban, and challenges a cornerstone of international humanitarian law, the principle of distinction. This article argues that drug traffickers, even those who support the Taliban, are not legitimate targets according to the rules applicable to non-international armed conflict. It explores the notions of membership in armed groups, civilian status and acts that result in the loss of protection, and argues that the US plan violates international humanitarian law.

CONCLUSION

Drug traffickers are clearly not ‘combatants’ or ‘fighters’ in the sense intended by international humanitarian law. They remain civilians, and as such are subject to arrest and prosecution. Organised criminals plague any number of societies around the world, but the vast majority of them should not be in the line of fire of state militaries, even when operating in an armed conflict. As such, the US military’s policy to kill suspected drug traffickers is inconsistent with multiple principles of international humanitarian and human rights law.


There is no argument over the nexus between the drug trade and the Taliban. The insurgency has clearly exploited Afghanistan’s lucrative heroin trade to subsidise its efforts to topple the Karzaigovernment. Yet legitimate targeting hinges on membership in an armed group or direct participation in hostilities. While these topics are notoriously nebulous areas of international law, they have received much-needed clarification from the ICRC. The conditions articulated in that document would plainly not allow for the killing of drug traffickers due to their financial support for the Taliban.

However, even before the ICRC released its interpretive guidance, the killing of financiers was established to be unlawful. There is nothing in the treaties relevant to non-international armed conflict that makes targeting sponsors of an insurgency permissible. Even the Israeli Supreme Court decision supporting the assassination of those who directly participate in hostilities explicitly removed financiers from the list of legitimate targets.

Targeting people for death is not an appropriate or legal means for holding those involved in criminal activities accountable for their actions. If a mode of liability can be established, civilian criminals could be prosecuted domestically or even theoretically be brought before the International Criminal Court. As Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the ICC, once said, ‘Investigation of the financial aspects of the alleged atrocities will be crucial to prevent future crimes and for the prosecution of crimes already committed.’

Bedford Row Chambers: Peace in Our Time symposium to consider an end to the war on drugs, May 13th

Speakers:

• Professor David Nutt, Former Chair of the ACMD,  
• Frederico Silva, Head of Terrorism, Drugs and Corruption Unit Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,  
• HHJ Pearce-Higgins QC, Crown Court Circuit judge, 
• Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst for Tranform.
• Chaired by Paul Mendelle QC  

Venue: Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, 6.30pm May 13th

Please email events@25bedfordrow.com if you are interested in attending.

click image to see full size 

Leaked CIA memo reveals Afghan war PR strategy for Europe

In the introduction of Transform's 2009 publication 'After the War on Drugs, Blueprint for Regulation' (p.7) the nature of the war on drugs is discussed:

"...the presentation of drugs as an existential ‘threat’ has gener­ated a policy response within which unevidenced  and radical measures are justified. Drug policy has evolved within a context of ‘securitization’, characterised by increasing powers and resources for enforcement and state security apparatus. The outcomes of this strategy, framed as a drug ‘war’, include the legitimisation of propaganda, and the suspen­sion of many of the working principles that define more conventional social policy, health or legal interventions. Given that the War on Drugs is predicated on ‘eradication’ of the ‘evil’ drug threat as a way of achieving a ‘drug free world’, it has effectively established a permanent state of war. This has led to a high level policy environment that ignores critical scien­tific thinking, and health and social policy norms. Fighting the threat becomes an end in itself and as such, it creates a largely self-referential and self-justifying rhetoric that makes meaningful evaluation, review and debate difficult, if not impossible.

In this context it was interesting to see a confidential/not for foreign nationals CIA memo appearing on the Wikileaks website last week, titled:  'Afghanistan: Sustaining West European Support for the NATO-led Mission—Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough' . This leaked confidential memo details, as Wikileaks describe it, 'possible PR-strategies to shore up public support in Germany and France for a continued war in Afghanistan', and  a 'recipe for the targeted manipulation of public opinion in two NATO ally countries, written by the CIA.' 
  

There is only one drug reference (paragraph below from p.4), and whilst its not clear how much can be inferred from this, it does at least indicate the sorts of high level discussions and thinking that take place out of public view:

"Messages that dramatize the consequences of a NATO defeat for specific German interests could counter the widely held perception that Afghanistan is not Germany’s problem. For example, messages that illustrate how a defeat in Afghanistan could heighten Germany’s exposure to terrorism, opium, and refugees might help to make the war more salient to skeptics."

David Bratzer and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Have Fought in the Trenches of the War on Drugs and Want to End It

Great interview with serving Canadian policeman and LEAP member David Bratzer, in this month's Mautime magazine




from the full interview:

"[LEAP] believes that all drugs should be legal and regulated. The argument in favor of regulating these drugs is not that they're harmless, but rather that they're so dangerous they should be controlled by the government. Remember that under prohibition the government has no control. It's the violent drug dealer who decides the price, purity, cutting agents, advertising methods, business location and hours of operation. And these drug dealers certainly are not asking kids for ID, or encouraging their customers to seek addiction treatment. We need to move away from prohibition and begin considering models that give the government control over the market for these drugs.

More information on Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) here

Christmas comes early for gangsters as three more drugs are criminalised

Three drugs were prohibited yesterday; a synthetic cannabinoid often sold as ‘spice’, the synthetic stimulant benzylpiperazine or BZP, and the synthetic sedative gammabutyrolactone or GBL which also happens to be an industrial solvent. All have been brought within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, GBL and BZP becoming class C drugs (subject to penalties of up to 2 years prison for possession or 14 years in prison for supply) whilst ‘Spice’ becomes a Class B (subject to up to 5 years in prison for possession or 14 years for supply).

legal yesterday, up to 5 years in prison for possession today

There’s a lot one could say about this move, but first it should be made clear that these drugs are clearly not without risks and there is no reason to argue with the harm assessments of them presented by the ACMD to the Government that informed the decisions (although the B decision for spice is distorted by the recent cannabis politics more than relative harm rankings). Legal status does not imply safety and never has, the 'legal highs' alcohol and tobacco highlighting this point very clearly.

However, what can be disputed is whether the move will have any positive impacts. In reality there are three likely outcomes – all of which reflect the fact that changes in legislation do not impact on overall demand for the intoxication/experiences these drugs provide:

1. Users of these formerly ‘legal highs’ will revert to the ‘illegal highs‘ that spice etc provided an alternative or substitute for. So we can reasonably expect a rise in cannabis use (instead of spice) as well as stimulants, including ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines (instead of BZP and GBL). Whether this substitution has a positive or negative impact on risks and overall health harms is not clear, but the young people involved will certainly face increased risk both from interacting with an illegal market controlled by criminals, and from the law itself: the real risk of a criminal record or spell in prison. Criminal suppliers will be the obvious beneficiaries.
   
   
2. Some users of these formerly ‘legal highs’, assuming they are preferred to the illegal alternatives, will continue to use them but now obtain them by via illegal sources that will inevitably emerge to meet any remaining demand if the profit opportunity presents itself. It is hard to gauge to what degree this will occur (probably not at all with spice/cannabis but reasonably likely to some extent with BZP/GBL), and it is worth noting that the use of ketamine has increased since 2006 when it was prohibited and its status changed from ‘legal high’ to ‘controlled drug’. Again criminal suppliers are the obvious beneficiaries, not young people, who in this case are indisputably worse off.
   
   
3. A void will be created in the market that will be potentially filled by new drugs brought to market by the same back street chemists and largely unregulated business interests responsible for bringing us GBL, BZP, Spice etc. Of course it is the absence of legal regulated supply of cannabis, ecstasy etc. that created the market opportunity for these (formerly) 'legal highs' to emerge in the first place, and this latest ban will just repeat the dynamic. The inevitable next generation of ‘legal highs’ (including mephedrone for example) may or may not be less risky than their predecessors and we will certainly know even less about their risks - the young people consuming them without any useful risk information eventually providing the risk data for the ACMD to make their next assessment (assuming it is ever quorate again).

The experience with GBL illustrates this last point well, having only emerged following the prohibition of GHB in 2003. GBL and GBH are effectively the same drug (GBL rapidly turning into GBH in the body within minutes of consumption) the difference being that GBL is an industrial solvent (also widely available as a cleaning product) and almost certainly more risky (as well as being widely available - so hard to see how it can practically be restricted, although this is a separate issue).

Looking at the bigger picture then it is clear that prohibition created the problem with these ‘legal highs’ in the first place, and prohibiting them now is highly unlikely to deliver public health benefits (demand being met through other channels or substitute drugs) but will potentially create increased risks and overall social and health harms. The primary beneficiaries are the criminal suppliers who will see their markets expand as supply shifts from legal to illicit sources, and the Home Secretary and Government who get a few 'get tough' headlines from their 'crackdown'.

It is notable that at no point was legally regulating the market in these or any other drugs rationally explored at Government level. The Impact Assessments that went along with the consultations for GBL and BZP only looked at prohibiting them under the MDA or leaving them in the admittedly unsatisfactory unregulated market niche they occupied until yesterday. Neither is a good option – but the third and obviously sensible choice of strict legal regulation was never even considered. This was for transparently political rather than rational or pragmatic reasons.

This failing is particularly striking in the case of BZP as New Zealand had previously established a legal regulatory model (a ‘Class D’ appended to their A-B-C classification system) for the legally regulated supply of BZP. Transform had alerted the ACMD and Home Office to this system in 2006 when the BZP issue first rose to prominence – and whilst the ACMD apparently held meetings with their New Zealand counterparts no suggestion was made for it to be implemented (although former ACMD chair David Nutt has subsequently suggested a exploration of such a system for legal regulation of cannabis availability would be sensible). We expect politicized drug war myopia from the Home Office, but The ACMD – nominally a non-political and independent scientific entity - have no such excuse and must take some responsibility for the negative policy outcomes of their classification recommendations with these drugs. Good science in harm evaluations becomes largely meaningless when it translates into criminal justice policy and a hierarchy of prison sentences, the impacts of which go entirely un-evaluated.

Transform have proposed clear and detailed models for regulating different types of drugs that we hope will feature in future discussions, as a first step they must be an essential element of Impact Assessments when such decisions are being made.

US takes a long hard look at the war on drugs

Last week a Bill in US Congress made surprisingly smooth progress through the House of Representatives on its way to the Senate. The House bill establishes a Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission which will have two million dollars to investigate and research independently of the political process - "to review and evaluate United States policy regarding illicit drug supply reduction and interdiction".

The following is from the Miami Herald (10 Nov), U.S. may take new look at `war on drugs'

"Billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent over the years to combat the drug trade in Latin America and the Caribbean. In spite of our efforts, the positive results are few and far between," said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, who chairs the House Western Hemisphere subcommittee. ``Clearly, the time has come to take a fresh look at our counternarcotics efforts.''

What's interesting about the planned independent drug policy commission is that the idea didn't come from a pro-legalization advocate, nor any leftist or libertarian crusader. The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), opposes decriminalization of drugs for non-medical use, and is as mainstream as members of Congress come.

But Engel's frustration over the results of the U.S. war on drugs is symptomatic of Washington's growing skepticism about U.S. anti-drug policies these days.

The following is from the news agency Inter Press Service, US: Reconsidering War on Drugs:

The premise of the commission is not, of course, that we’re doing great but that our policies aren’t working and we need a rethink," says John Walsh, who works on drug policy at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). He says actions like this "speak to the level of frustration" over the impotence of past drug policies.

"You need to take it to the level of an independent commission to get it out of the crevices of politics," says Walsh.

WOLA released its own recommendations Tuesday on new directions these policies could take. Their report says past policies that have focused on eradication of coca and opium crops are counter-productive unless they are preceded by rural development. "Proper sequencing is crucial: development must come first," it reads, or else, without alternative livelihoods firmly in place, people will have no choice but to return to growing crops for illicit markets.

Introduced by: Rep. Eliot Engel

Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission Act of 2009 HR 2134


Purpose

The Commission shall review and evaluate United States policy regarding illicit drug supply reduction and interdiction, with particular emphasis on international drug policies and programs directed toward the countries of the Western Hemisphere, along with foreign and domestic demand reduction policies and programs. The Commission shall identify policy and program options to improve existing international and domestic counter-narcotics policy.

This is of particular interest to me because I met with a staffer from Rep Engel’s office when I was in Washington a few weeks ago, following my visit to the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) Conference in Albuquerque. During the meeting, which I attended with Bill Piper from the Drug Policy Alliance, Eliot Engel's staffer suggested that if it went under the radar, it could clear the Committee by December. Amazingly, they managed it.

The DPA kindly arranged a number of meetings with Senators and Congressmen in a power packed schedule over two days. In short but punchy meetings I:

1. Presented After the war on Drugs – Blueprint for Regulation
   
   
2. Mentioned the potential political synergy between the US and UK if David Cameron gets in. Both Obama and Cameron, before becoming leaders of their respective parties, went on the record critiquing the war on drugs (and both former users).
   
   
3. Showed that the head of the UNODC has identified the drug control system as a major cause of harm
   
   
4. Suggested that the US review drug policy, as per our calls for Impact Assessment.

The pitch was universally well received, but had special support from both ends of the political spectrum, in the persons of Congressmen Rohrabacher and Kucinich.

I also had the opportunity to meet with Senator Jim Webb, who has his own bill, scrutinising the whole of the US criminal justice system, (with a particular section on drug policy) making its much slower way through Committee stage: National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.

Unfortunately the Webb Bill, hit the media and the radar, and has been mauled by those trying to water it down with substantive amendments.


See below for my itinerary on Capitol Hill:

WED 18 Nov 2009

• 10am – Meet w/ staff for Senator Cardin (D-MD). He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee
  
  
• 11am – Meet w/ Senator Webb (D-VA). He is the sponsor of the criminal justice commission bill. Also is a member of the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee
  
  
• 2pm – Meet w/ staff for Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY). Engel is the sponsor of a bill to create a commission to examine the efficacy of eradication and interdiction efforts. He also sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee
  
  
• 3pm – Meet w/ Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN). Cohen sits on the House Judiciary Committee, supports drug policy reform
  
  
• 4pm – Meet w/ Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Rohrabacher sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee
  
  
• 4:30pm – Meet w/ Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Paul sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Join Economic Committee

THUR 19 Nov

• 12:30pm – Meet w/ Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Kucinich is a former presidential candidate who chairs the subcommittee with oversight over the drug czar’s office
  
  
• 1:30pm – Meet w/ staff for Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA). Specter chairs the Senate Crime Subcommittee. A former Republican who just changed parties earlier this year
  
  
• 2:00 – Meet w/ Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Conyers chairs the House Judiciary Committee and is on DPA’s honorary bar.

Calls for reform grow

This month we have seen a plethora or articles in UK newspapers calling for an end to prohibition. There have been so many we thought we’d bring you the best of them in one blog.

The articles are written by a variety of people including a former chief constable, a well-known British philosopher and the former President of Brazil not to mention a number of journalists.

This increase in the number of articles in the British press reflects a change that is going on globally. As a number of Latin American countries move towards decriminalisation, it is sad that the UK government is so far behind in its thinking.

First up was Simon Jenkins in the Guardian who argued that the War on Drugs was ‘moral idiocy’ and praised the Latin American governments for their courage in admitting that current policy has failed.

He said,

‘The underlying concept of the war on drugs, initiated by Richard Nixon in the 1970s, is that demand can be curbed by eliminating supply. It has been enunciated by every US president and every British prime minister. Tony Blair thought that by occupying Afghanistan he could rid the streets of Britain of heroin. He told Clare Short to do it. Gordon Brown believes it to this day.

This concept marries intellectual idiocy – that supply leads demand – with practical impossibility. But it is golden politics. For 30 years it has allowed western politicians to shift blame for not regulating drug abuse at home on to the shoulders of poor countries abroad. It is gloriously, crashingly immoral.’

Days later in The Observer, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil, summarised the report he and the former presidents of Colombia and Mexico co-authored.

‘It is time to admit the obvious. The "war on drugs" has failed, at least in the way it has been waged so far. In Latin America, the "unintended" consequences have been disastrous. Thousands of people have lost their lives in drug-associated violence. Drug lords have taken over entire communities. Misery has spread. Corruption is undermining fragile democracies…

‘The core conclusion of the statement is that a paradigm shift is required away from repression of drug users and towards treatment and prevention. The challenge is to reduce drastically the harm caused by illegal narcotics to people, societies and public institutions.’

British philosopher John Gray got in on the act in The Guardian a few days later arguing that ‘the case for legalising all drugs is unanswerable.’

He wrote,

‘A decade or so ago, it could be argued that the evidence was not yet in on drugs. No one has ever believed illegal drug use could be eliminated, but there was a defensible view that prohibition could prevent more harm than it caused. Drug use is not a private act without consequences for others; even when legal, it incurs medical and other costs to society. A society that adopted an attitude of laissez-faire towards the drug habits of its citizens could find itself with higher numbers of users. There could be a risk of social abandonment, with those in poor communities being left to their fates.

‘These dangers have not disappeared, but the fact is that the costs of drug prohibition now far outweigh any possible benefits the policy may bring. It is time for a radical shift in policy. Full-scale legalisation, with the state intervening chiefly to regulate quality and provide education on the risks of drug use and care for those who have problems with the drugs they use, should now shape the agenda of drug law reform.’

Just days later, the Executive Director of the UNODC wrote an article in the Observer disputing these arguments. He initially focussed on the claim made by John Gray and many others including Transform, that the costs of prohibition outweigh the benefits.

Costa wrote,

‘Some even say that the costs of prohibition far outweigh the benefits (although there is no body count of people who haven't died thanks to drug control versus those who have been killed in the crossfire).’

He then went on to argue that,

‘Maybe western governments could absorb the health costs of increased drug use [that he assumes would occur once drugs were legalized], if that's how taxpayers want their money to be spent.

‘But what about the developing world? Why unleash an epidemic of addiction in parts of the world that already face misery, and do not have the health and social systems to cope with a drug tsunami?

‘Critics point out that vulnerable countries are the hardest hit by the crime associated with drug trafficking. Fair enough. But these countries would also be the hardest hit by an epidemic of drug use, and all the health and social costs that come with it. This is immoral and irresponsible.’

A few months ago we had a comment posted on the Transform blog refuting this argument.

‘Was it just me or did someone else pick up the massive contradiction underlying the WDR's main argument for continued prohibition? In section 2.1 of the report, the UNODC crowd pretty much concedes that a legalize-tax-and-regulate framework would work...but only in developed countries. Developing countries are thought unable to impose meaningful taxes and regulations on a legal drug industry, and therefore, would see their consumption levels explode. Thus, global prohibition must continue for the sake of poor countries (the condescension is almost unbearable).

‘Yet those same developing countries are expected to, simultaneously,: a) successfully interdict supply; b) reform police forces and judicial systems; c) fight corruption in the face of massive illegal profits; d) address the problem of slums and dereliction in cities; e) close open drug-markets; f) provide universal access to drug treatment; etc. etc. If the governments of developing countries are considered too weak to tax and regulate small national drug markets, why would anyone think them capable of performing that daunting list of tasks? The contradiction is so glaring that my eyes hurt.’

On the same day, and in the same newspaper, that Costa, wrote his piece, Tom Lloyd, a former chief constable, argued that the War on Drugs was a ‘not only very expensive and misdirected activity, but counterproductive and harmful’.

‘More recently, I have been working abroad and the problems that exist worldwide are recognised at the highest levels, with most acknowledging the harmful unintended consequences [including Costa himself] of the current approach. A huge criminal market (with enormous financial incentives) has been created using corruption and violence to make its huge profits.

‘Efforts to destroy crops only destroy peasant farmers' livelihoods and the environment, while the poppy fields and coca plants spring up elsewhere, with producers adapting to meet the demand. Growing other crops is futile if the demand for drugs remains.

‘Our limited resources are directed towards this futile "war" while public health, which is clearly the first principle of drug control, remains an impoverished baby brother.’

He went on to call on

‘police leaders throughout the world to challenge the status quo and focus resources on serious, organised criminals, not blighted users, and to focus on harm reduction not some pie-in-the-sky dream of a drug-free society. Where they lead, politicians will follow.’

In the same edition of The Observer there was a leader article calling for ‘a new drugs policy’ and arguing for an honest evaluation of the current drugs laws.

‘The entire framework of the debate must change. In Britain, we operate with laws that start from the premise that drug use is inherently morally wrong, and then seek ways to stop it. Instead we must start by evaluating the harm that drug use does, and then look for the best ways to alleviate it; and we must have the courage to follow that logic wherever it leads.’

This has been Transform’s position from the start. Now is the time to assess the impacts of the current policy and look to a future where drug use is not a moral issue but a public health issue where drugs are controlled and regulated by governments not gangsters.

Baltimore police call for an end to the drug war

This is a short clip from MSNBC news, featuring interviews with the authors of a recent Washington Post article 'It's time to legalise drugs'; Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of "Cop in the Hood", and Neill Franklin, a 32-year law enforcement veteran. Both served as Baltimore City police officers (home of 'The Wire') and are members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.




from the Washington Post piece:

"Only after years of witnessing the ineffectiveness of drug policies -- and the disproportionate impact the drug war has on young black men -- have we and other police officers begun to question the system.

Cities and states license beer and tobacco sellers to control where, when and to whom drugs are sold. Ending Prohibition saved lives because it took gangsters out of the game. Regulated alcohol doesn't work perfectly, but it works well enough. Prescription drugs are regulated, and while there is a huge problem with abuse, at least a system of distribution involving doctors and pharmacists works without violence and high-volume incarceration. Regulating drugs would work similarly: not a cure-all, but a vast improvement on the status quo.

Legalization would not create a drug free-for-all. In fact, regulation reins in the mess we already have. If prohibition decreased drug use and drug arrests acted as a deterrent, America would not lead the world in illegal drug use and incarceration for drug crimes.

Drug manufacturing and distribution is too dangerous to remain in the hands of unregulated criminals. Drug distribution needs to be the combined responsibility of doctors, the government, and a legal and regulated free market. This simple step would quickly eliminate the greatest threat of violence: street-corner drug dealing.

We simply urge the federal government to retreat. Let cities and states (and, while we're at it, other countries) decide their own drug policies. Many would continue prohibition, but some would try something new. California and its medical marijuana dispensaries provide a good working example, warts and all, that legalized drug distribution does not cause the sky to fall.

Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do -- for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.

Without the drug war, America's most decimated neighborhoods would have a chance to recover. Working people could sit on stoops, misguided youths wouldn't look up to criminals as role models, our overflowing prisons could hold real criminals, and -- most important to us -- more police officers wouldn't have to die."

UKDPC calls for Tactical Strikes in the War on Drugs

In its report "Refocusing Drug-Related Law Enforcement to Address Harms" released today, the UKDPC suggests that we need to get smarter in focusing law enforcement to reduce the harms associated with illegal drugs and illegal drug markets.

In a report supported by both SOCA and ACPO, the main conclusions are:

• Enforcement has contained illegal drug supply, but more arrests and drug seizures do not always lead to lower availability or fewer problems.
• However, some innovative approaches have addressed the most harmful characteristics of entrenched drug markets e.g. violence/intimidation.
• New measures of impact are needed so operations are judged on real benefits to communities, not simply arrests and seizures.

The report suggests very clearly that there are ‘unintended consequences’ of enforcing the drug laws and quotes UNODC chief Antonia Maria Costa from his 2008 paper ‘Fit for Purpose’.

Transform welcomes the report for its clarity in showing that enforcement creates harm and for clearly calling for impact assessments of enforcement activity. As we explained in our recent meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, to be meaningful such an assessment must explore all the options.

However, it is Transform’s view that the UK’s domestic strategy on drugs is part of a global ‘war on drugs’, (despite the US Drug Czar and Roger Howard’s claims to the contrary). On the BBC news this morning Roger was at pains to explain that there is no ‘war on drugs’.

Here's the Drug Czar's quote:

"Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war on them," he said; "We're not at war with people in this country."

Here's Roger's (BBC News): "You can't have a war against your own people and against your own citizens."

The fact is that states can (and do) indeed engage in drug wars against their own and other nations’ citizens. And therein lies the problem with the UKDPC report. Like the conclusion of the report from Costa, it effectively calls for ‘tactical strikes’ in the war on drugs, not an end to the war.

The ‘harms’ in the global drug war are the deaths and degradation of millions of the most marginalised people on earth, and it smacks of propaganda to even use the term ‘harms’. Tactical strikes to reduce damage to civilian bystanders is a nonsense when it is the drug control system itself and the enforcement of supply side laws that creates most of the trouble in the first place.

If we are to truly remove the ‘harms’ caused by the drug control system we do not need smarter weapons, we must end the war on drugs altogether, and replace it with a normative regime based upon human development, human security and human rights – the three pillars of the UN.

See also: Politics.co.uk on the UKDPC Report - with Transform quote

UKDPC Briefing Paper - Moving towards Real Impact Drug Enforcement