Such a call should be relatively uncontroversial at a UN gathering - the General Assembly has called for a moratorium on all use of the death penalty, and the UNODC has recently (it should be noted - following concerted NGO pressure) made a clear statement opposing the use of the death penalty. In a 2010 paper by the previous Executive Director of the UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, titled 'Drug control, crime prevention and criminal justice: a human rights perspective - Note by the Executive Director' (para 25/26) the UNODC position was laid out (bold emphasis added):
"The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights specifies that in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, the sentence of death may be imposed only for the “most serious crimes”. The concept of “most serious crimes” is limited to those where it can be shown that there was an intention to kill which resulted in the loss of life. The weight of opinion indicates that drug offences (such as possession and trafficking) and those of a purely economic nature do not meet this threshold. Moreover, States that have abolished the death penalty are prohibited to extradite any person to another country where he or she might face capital punishment."
"Despite such prohibitions, a considerable number of the 47 retentionist States that continue to use capital punishment have carried out executions for drug offences in recent years. In some of these countries, drug offenders constitute a significant proportion of total executions As an entity of the United Nations system, UNODC advocates the abolition of the death penalty and calls upon Member States to follow international standards concerning prohibition of the death penalty for offences of a drug-related or purely economic nature.
The plenary statement (endorsed by Transform) as read:
Date: 24 March 2011
Agenda Item No. 7: World Situation with Regard to Drug Trafficking
"Thank you, Mr Chairman. This statement is made on behalf of:
The International Harm Reduction Association
The International Network of People Who Use Drugs
Penal Reform International
Human Rights Watch
The International Drug Policy Consortium
The German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
The Open Society Foundations Drug Policy Programme
Reprieve
Transform Drug Policy Foundation
The Quaker Council for European Affairs
and 20 other non-governmental organisations
We are grateful for the opportunity to speak on this important agenda item.
We heard yesterday from UNODC of the seizures of illicit substances made in many parts of the world. While looking at the statistics on tonnes and kilos, we must also recognise the human face of such seizures.
We must consider the penalties that will be applied to those who are arrested and prosecuted. This is not to excuse criminality – but nor can we excuse the taking of human life for any crime.
The death penalty for drug offences is a violation of international law. This is clear. Yet 32 jurisdictions retain this excessive and cruel punishment. The International Harm Reduction Association has identified hundreds of executions annually for drug-related offences but believes that as many as one thousand people may be executed for drug offences each year when states that keep their death penalty statistics a secret are counted.
The justification for this is usually deterrence. This is a faulty argument that has been presented many times over, and for a range of crimes.
While nobody should be executed for any offence, the vast majority of those known to be sentenced to die for drugs are not kingpins or major traffickers. They are carriers. Very often involvement in this aspect of the drug trade is driven by poverty, drug dependence and a lack of options. To kill these people is cruel in the extreme.
Our call is brief. All States must cease the application of the death penalty for drug offences, and, indeed, for all offences, and immediately institute a moratorium to spare the lives of those on death row."
Fifty Years of the War on Drugs: Time to Count the Costs and Explore the Alternatives The War on Drugs - Count the Costs global campaign will be launched by NGOs from around the world at a side-event at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna:
When: Wednesday 23 March, 13.15 – 14.45
Where: Mozart Room, Vienna International Conference Centre, Vienna
Speakers will outline the many costs of the war on drugs, and the aims of the campaign, to an audience of international policy makers, NGO representatives, and media. See the new project website here: www.countthecosts.org for more details
The War on Drugs: Count the Costs campaign will bring together interested parties from around the world, including NGOs, policy makers and others whose work is negatively impacted by international drug enforcement. Together they will call on governments and international agencies to meaningfully evaluate the unintended consequences of the war on drugs and explore evidence-based alternatives. The results of this campaign will be presented to the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in 2012. Here is the full text of the call:
The War on Drugs - Count the Costs and Explore the Alternatives
"The global 'war on drugs' has been fought for 50 years, without preventing the long-term trend of increasing drug supply and use. Beyond this failure, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has also identified the many serious ‘unintended negative consequences’ of the drug war. These costs result not from drug use itself, but from choosing a punitive enforcement-led approach that, by its nature, places control of the trade in the hands of organised crime, and criminalises many users. In the process this:
1. Undermines international development and security, and fuels conflict
2. Threatens public health, spreads disease and causes death
3. Undermines human rights
4. Promotes stigma and discrimination
5. Creates crime and enriches criminals
6. Causes deforestation and pollution
7. Wastes billions on ineffective law enforcement
The 'war on drugs' is a policy choice. There are other options that, at the very least, should be debated and explored using the best possible evidence and analysis.
We all share the same goals – a safer, healthier and more just world.
Therefore, we the undersigned, call upon world leaders and UN agencies to quantify the unintended negative consequences of the current approach to drugs, and assess the potential costs and benefits of alternative approaches."
Martin Powell, Co-ordinator of the Count the Costs campaign said:
“In 1961 UN member states gathered to sign the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the legal cornerstone of the enforcement-led approach that has become known as the global war on drugs. Fifty years later, with literally trillions of dollars spent, illegal drugs are one of the largest commodity trades on earth. Even the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that oversees the global drug control system, concedes that drug enforcement efforts have fuelled the creation of a vast criminal market with disastrous negative unintended consequences.
Yet no government or UN body has ever quantified these negative costs, or meaningfully explored alternatives to the war on drugs. After half a century this is long overdue. Only by looking at the evidence of what has worked and what has not can we hope to move towards a global drug control system that is, as the UNODC has suggested ‘fit for purpose’.”
The Count the Costs call mirrors numerous comments made by world leaders, concerning the need to evaluate the costs and benefits of various policy regimes including President Santos of Colombia, Washington Post, Dec 2010:
“There are some fundamental structural contradictions in this war on drugs . . . We in Colombia have been successful, but our success is hurting the whole of Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Africa, and eventually it will backfire on us again. So are we pursuing the correct long-term policy? I don't object to discussing any alternatives but if we are going to discuss alternatives, let's discuss every alternative… what is the cost, what is the benefit of each alternative?”
The War on Drugs: Count the Costs campaign launch is backed by: International Drug Policy Consortium; International Harm Reduction Association; Eurasian Harm Reduction Network; Drug Policy Alliance (US); Espolea (Mexico); Release (UK); Transform Drug Policy Foundation (UK); Hungarian Civil Liberties Union; CuPIHD (Mexico); Transnational Institute (Netherlands); International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (Canada); New Zealand Drug Policy Foundation; Washington Office on Latin America.
ENDS
Contact:
Martin Powell, Count the Costs Project Coordinator +44 (0)7875 679301 martin@tdpf.org.uk
Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation +44 (0)7980 213943 steve@tdpf.org.uk
Where: Mozart Room, Vienna International Conference Centre, Vienna When: Wednesday 23 March, 13.15 – 14.45 Speakers:
Simona Merkinaite: Policy and Advocacy Program Officer, Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (Lithuania) - The health and human rights impacts of drug law enforcement in the Eurasian regions
Aram Barra: Drug Policy Programme Director, Espolea (Mexico) - Counting the costs of Mexico’s 'war on drugs'
Damon Barrett: Senior Human Rights Analyst, International Harm Reduction Association (UK) - Drugs and human rights: is drug law enforcement proportionate? The case for Impact Assessment
Chair: Martin Powell: Count the Costs Project Coordinator, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (UK)
The unintended consequences of the war on drugs were outlined by then Executive Director of UN Office on Drugs and Crime Antonio Maria Costa in "Making drug control 'fit for purpose': Building on the UNGASS decade" UNODC, 2008, p10:
“The first unintended consequence is a huge criminal black market that thrives in order to get prohibited substances from producers to consumers…
The second unintended consequence is what one might call policy displacement. The expanding criminal black market obviously demanded a commensurate law enforcement response, and more resources. The consequence was that public health was displaced into the background, more honoured in lip service and rhetoric, but less in actual practice… The third unintended consequence is geographical displacement. It is often called the balloon effect because squeezing (by tighter controls) one place produces a swelling (namely, an increase) in another place… The fourth unintended consequence is what one might call substance displacement. If the use of one drug was controlled, by reducing either supply or demand, suppliers and users moved on to another drug with similar psychoactive effects. The fifth unintended consequence is the way we perceive and deal with the users of illicit drugs. A system appears to have been created in which those who fall into the web of addiction find themselves excluded and marginalized from the social mainstream, tainted with a moral stigma, and often unable to find treatment even when they may be motivated to want it.”
A new report from the US based Council on Foreign Relations titled 'The Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat' makes a powerful critique of the ongoing enforcement-led US response, before calling for a more pragmatic approach built more around development and public health interventions. The report specifically calls for a Government inquiry into the potential costs and benefits drug legalisation, and for the Federal government to allow state level experimentation with the legalisation, taxation and regulation of cannabis/marijuana.
The analysis that leads to these recommendations is not new, but is clearly stated (for full text with references - see pdf) highlighting the need to look at the potential costs and benefits of current policy against those of policy alternatives (a DTO is a Drug Trafficking Organisation):
Rethinking U.S. Drug Policy
Mexico’s security crisis illustrates the limitations of current anti-drug strategies and offers an opportunity to shift the paradigm to a more sensible approach. Over the last four decades, the war on drugs has lacked clear, consistent, or achievable objectives; has had little effect on aggregate demand; and has imposed an enormous social and economic cost. A state-driven, supply-side, and penalty based approach has failed to curb market production, distribution, and consumption of drugs. The assumption that punishing suppliers and users can effectively combat a large market for illicit drugs has proven to be utterly false. Rather, prohibition bestows enormous profits on traffickers, criminalizes otherwise law-abiding users and addicts, and imposes enormous costs on society. Meanwhile, there has been no real effect on the availability of drugs or their consumption, and three quarters of U.S. citizens believe that the war on drugs has failed.
One flaw of current U.S.-Mexico strategy is the false presumption that international trafficking of drugs, guns, and cash can be effectively addressed through interdiction, particularly along the nearly two-thousand-mile U.S.-Mexican border. After a three-decade effort to beef up security, the U.S.Mexico border is more heavily fortified than at any point since the U.S.-Mexico war of 1846–48. The United States has deployed more than twenty thousand border patrol agents and built hundreds of miles of fencing equipped with high-tech surveillance equipment, all at an annual cost of billions of dollars—with $3 billion per year spent on border control alone. While this massive security build-up at the border has achieved maximum attainable levels of operational control, the damage to Mexico’s drug cartels caused by border interdiction has been inconsequential. Meanwhile, there have been several unintended consequences of heightened interdiction at the border, including added hassles and delays that obstruct billions of dollars in legitimate commerce each year, the expansion and increased sophistication of cross-border smuggling operations, and greater U.S. vulnerability to attacks and even infiltration by traffickers. Further efforts to beef up the border through more patrolling and fencing will have diminishing returns, and will likely cause more economic harm than gains in security for the struggling communities of the border region.
Given the limits of U.S. drug policy, there is a need for more information and analysis to weigh the costs and benefits of current efforts against alternative policy options. For example, one recent study suggests that legalizing marijuana would cause as much as $1 to 2 billion in losses for Mexican drug traffickers, since competition from legally registered producers would drive them out of the business. Since these DTOs would continue to smuggle other profitable illicit drugs, the main benefit of marijuana legalization would be to allow U.S. border security and law enforcement to focus their resources on other problems. Of course, while support for this idea is growing, the potential hazards and limitations of drug legalization are substantial. Legalization would almost certainly cause drug traffickers to move into other illicit activities to maintain profitability, so U.S. and Mexican authorities would still need to develop better measures to combat kidnapping, robbery, extortion, and other forms of organized crime. Meanwhile, as with other controlled substances, like tobacco and alcohol, increased recreational drug use would likely result in widespread use and significant social harms in both countries, including traffic fatalities, fatal overdoses, addiction, and chronic health problems.
Any effort to legalize drugs would need to proceed with careful study, ample deliberation, and due caution. Yet, with or without legalization, authorities should work with greater urgency and focus to develop public health and law enforcement measures to prevent, treat, and reduce the harms associated with drug consumption. In the end, treating drug consumption and organized crime as separate problems will make it possible to address both more effectively. To make this possible—and before other countries or even some U.S. states venture further down the road toward drug legalization—the U.S. federal government should move quickly to examine the current approach and chart a course toward a more effective drug policy.
The author seems to make somewhat sweeping, non evidence-based assumptions about reform and increasing use (although it is ambiguous - is he merely warning or the dangers of increased use if the process is ill managed?) and fails to make a distinction between use and misuse, or prevalence and harm (See Blueprint for Regulation, p. 40)
It is, however, worth reading the whole 56 page report. The key drug law reform recommendations are:
Reevaluate U.S. Drug Policy
The U.S. Congress should commission an independent advisory group to examine the fiscal and social impacts of drug legalization as well as other alternative approaches to the war on drugs. The commission should be provided adequate funding---at least $2 million---to provide a comprehensive review of existing policies and develop realistic, clearly defined, and achievable policy recommendations for reducing the harms
caused by drug consumption and abuse.
Shift U.S. Counter-Drug Priorities to Focus on Major Sources of Illicit Income
To allow policy experimentation, the federal government should permit states to legalize the production, sale, taxation, and consumption of marijuana. While testing this policy shift, authorities should redirect scarce law enforcement resources to focus on the more damaging and socially unacceptable drugs (like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine) from which Mexican DTOs derive more than 70 percent of their drug proceeds.
The first of these calls is in line with Transform's call for current drug policy and alternatives to be subject to meaningful scrutiny in the form of an Impact Assessment.
We would question the wisdom of directing resources towards more risky drugs proposed in the second (no more likely to succeed, and just as likely to lead to unintended negative consequences as any prohibition where demand is already established) but the call for an experiment in legalisation and regulation of cannabis is still an important one for an influential body such as the CFR to be endorsing.
Most people would assume that professional pollsters understand the importance of how their questions are worded. If you want to obtain valid results from your poll, you need to make sure that your questions represent both sides of an issue fairly, without any latent bias in their wording.
For example, if you want to know people’s views on taxation, you should recognise that there is likely to be a vast difference in responses between the following questions:
(1)Do you favour an increase in the level of tax you pay on your income?
(2)Do you favour greater investment in public services such as healthcare, education and policing?
Obviously the two questions are different sides of the same coin, but if you only ask the first, you’re likely to get an overwhelming ‘no’, and if you only ask the second, you’re likely to get an overwhelming ‘yes’. Predictably, therefore, how a question is phrased, or the context in which it is asked, affects the answer you will get to it (as ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ brilliantly satirises in the scene below).
Pollsters appear to understand this concept when it comes to most issues – but rarely with drug policy reform.
If you look at the findings of an Angus Reid public opinion poll conducted last year, then you may feel disheartened at the lack of public support for a more progressive UK drug policy. In that poll, participants were shown a list of banned substances, including cannabis, along with the question ‘Do you support or oppose the legalisation of each of the following drugs?’.
Unsurprisingly, when formulated bluntly like this, the question yielded only a 35% level of support for the 'legalisation' of cannabis; and support for the legalisation of other drugs (generally seen as riskier) was lower still, with approximately one in five respondents approving of such a move. (It should be noted, however, than even this seemingly low level of support is relatively encouraging, as several years ago some polls claimed that only one in ten were in favour of legalising the most risky drugs.)
Part of the problem relates to the visceral aversion, embedded in the public consciousness, to the word ‘legalisation’. This aversion is largely based on confusion about what the term means when used in the drugs debate. The confusion is not surprising; it stems from the fact that legalisation is merely a process (broadly of making something illegal, legal), rather than a policy end point. A straight ‘Legalisation: yes/no?’ question gives no indication of how the legal regulatory regime being advocated as the final outcome of the process might actually work.
In the absence of such policy context just saying ‘legalisation’ on its own can reasonably be taken to suggest the removal of all controls – moving to the sort of commercial free market that Transform and most drug law reform advocates are specifically not calling for.
The legalisation question without any policy or regulatory context can also be confused with a question about personal or moral approval of drugs or drug use (in effect, ‘Do you approve of/condone the use of “drug x”’), as opposed to the real question, which is about what one thinks is the best policy response to dealing with a particular drug or drugs in society. We may, for example, disapprove of unhealthy food or overeating without suggesting blanket prohibitions on pork scratchings, or criminal punishments for people who eat too many of them.
If we want to know whether people morally approve of certain drug-using behaviours then it would be fine to ask a question about that. If we want to know what form of legal regulation people think would be appropriate for certain drugs or drug-using behaviours then we need a better question than ‘Legalisation: yes/no?’.
As a starting point, instead of using only the word ‘legalisation’ in opinion polls on drug policy reform, it might be more appropriate and accurate to ask people whether they support or oppose‘legal regulation of drug production supply and use’, or ‘legalisation and regulation’, which would be better, if still imperfect. What is really needed, however, is a more specific and detailed description of the policy options people are being asked to chose from.
This semantic minefield of drug policy terminology is made all the more perilous by misunderstandings of the word ‘decriminalisation’. Instead of conflating the meanings of ‘decriminalisation’ and ‘legalisation’, as so often happens in media debate, pollsters should be aware of and clearly clarify the distinction between the two terms. The term ‘decriminalisation’ is usually understood to refer to the removal of only criminal penalties for certain activities (most commonly possession and personal use of drugs), but not of other, non-criminal sanctions, such as fines. 'Legalisation', by contrast, refers to a transition from prohibited to legally regulated production, supply and availability, with decriminalisation of use implicit in this process.
Neither term, unfortunately, has a strict legal definition, so they are subject to frequent confusion, often being used interchangeably. The only solution to this misunderstanding is to refrain from using the words in isolation and, again, contextualise them with some clear and concise explanatory text, eg: ‘Decriminalisation – moving from criminal to civil/administrative sanctions such as fines, for personal possession and use’.
When you look at polls which are more aware of the nuances of drug policy language, the results are strikingly different and give reason to be considerably more optimistic about the prospects for reform.
A recent poll of 2,000 people, commissioned by the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform, asked participants to select the most tolerable of three regulatory options for a range of drugs, along with a clearer description of what each option actually entails. They were:
Light regulation (drugs sold like tobacco and alcohol are now)
Strict government control and regulation (an example of how government could heavily regulate a legal market in an attempt to minimise harm)
Prohibition (the current status of illegal drugs)
Now without claiming this formulation is methodologically bulletproof, it does demonstrate that when given a clearer overview of the features of each option, it seems that, contrary to the findings of the less comprehensive Angus Reid poll, respondents are increasingly receptive to the idea of moving from absolute prohibitions to some method of legally regulating drug markets and availability.
The results of the LDDPR poll were that 70% of participants favoured some form of legal regulation of cannabis, with one in three of those polled favouring a regulatory system similar to that for tobacco and alcohol.
It also emerged that, when compared to the results of the Angus Reid poll, a far greater number of people would like to see the legally regulated availability of ecstasy (39% vs. 19%), cocaine (36% vs. 16%) and heroin (30% vs. 18%).
Perhaps emphasising just how much of a difference good polling can make, the LDDPR survey also made the somewhat unexpected finding that Daily Mail and Daily Express readers constituted the demographic most in favour of the strict control and regulation of drugs. Total support for at least some system of legal regulation was 66% among these readers, and 67% among Conservative voters.
Clearly more work in this area is needed (perhaps with some independently agreed formulation for the questions), but Ewan Hoyle, the founder of LDDPR, has highlighted the importance of asking the right questions when trying to establish the public’s views on drug policy reform.
Interestingly, his conclusion – that ‘…when asked to choose between various regulatory options, the British people are comfortable with strict control and regulation as a solution to our drugs problem’ – also seems to apply to the American people, too.
An Economist-YouGov poll carried out last month asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement ‘Marijuana should be legalised, taxed and regulated’. In every age group polled – even over-65s – more people favoured than opposed legalisation. Although it is hard to say definitively, it seems reasonable to suggest that this is due to the mention of the more public-friendly measures of taxation and regulation – measures which, although they go hand in hand with legalisation, are so often omitted in opinion polls on drug policy reform.
It certainly seems to be the case that this question, which spells out a little more clearly what is actually being advocated, delivers more positive results than the more traditional ‘Legalisation of marijuana: yes/no?’ – although even when this latter question is asked we can observe a long-term trend of growing support for change in the US:
The above graph, compiled by polling guru Nate Silver, amalgamates all the data he could find on the issue of the legalisation of cannabis/marijuana – including the results of several Gallup polls and the General Social Survey – and shows that there has been an upward trend in favour of such a move since 1990.
Consequently, while especially encouraging findings emerge from polls that provide a more comprehensive overview of what drug law reform might actually entail, even the findings of polls that do not give a sufficient account of the options for reform show a sustained, long-term increase in support for more progressive drug control measures.
The story with regard to cannabis was roughly similar in the UK until the mid-2000s, since when support has dropped from between 40-50% (up from 15% in the 1980s), to between 30-40% today. Speculating as to why this has happened is for another blog, although it probably reflects the shifts in the nature of the UK cannabis market towards stronger varieties and the associated health concerns raised, or arguably hyped, by the media and politicians during the interminable cannabis re-re-classification saga. It may also reflect the fall in use noted by the British Crime Survey over the same period.
Hopefully the growing support more broadly – in the UK and elsewhere – will reassure policymakers and politicians that the legal regulation of currently illegal drugs is not only practical but politically possible. Remember that the steady change in public opinion has happened despite, until very recently, near universal political and media hostility. If any major political forces got behind reform it seems likely that things would change much more quickly – it's a question of who wants to pick up the baton and claim the plaudits.
Transform's senior policy analyst, Steve Rolles, will be amongst the speakers at the second event in the 'Ceasefire in the war on drugs?' debate series organised by the University of Bedfordshire, joining former chief constable Tom lloyd, and the UK's Colombian Ambassador Mauricio Rodriguez Munera. Titled 'How the world's view of the drugs 'war' is changing', the event is at Kings College London at 6pm on the 6th of April. The event is are free and open to all (but space is limited).
For more details, including speakers at both events, please see the flyer below (click to see full size).
Those who have followed the drugs debate will be only too aware of the way that politicians play on the fears of their citizens in order to maintain the war on drugs, despite the fact that it is their citizens who bear the brunt of its counterproductive effect. The International Relations theory of securitisation describes, better than any framework I’ve seen, how the threat-based process works. Moving to a non-securitised approach is essential to ending the war on drugs.
Securitisation is described as “the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics” (Buzan et al. 1998: 23). By declaring something a security issue, the speaker entitles himself to enforce and legitimise unusual and extreme measures to fight this threat. Referenced from here.
“The main argument of securitisation theory is that security is a speech act, that alone by uttering ‘security’ something is being done. “It is by labelling something a security issue that it becomes one.”(Wæver 2004a,) A securitising actor, by stating that a particular referent object is threatened in its existence, claims a right to extraordinary measures to ensure the referent objects survival. The issue is then moved out of the sphere of normal politics into the realm of emergency politics, where it can be dealt with swiftly and without the normal (democratic) rules and regulations of policy making. For the content of security this means that it has no longer any given meaning but that it can be anything a securitising actor says it is. Security - understood in this way - is a social construction, with the meaning of security dependent on what is done with it.”
This table illustrates how the process of securitisation applies to drug policy:
In March 2009 Senator John McCain described President Calderon's struggle with the cartels as "an existential threat to the very fabric of the government of Mexico," a statement Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she agreed with.
In April that year Hillary Clinton told a House committee that the government in Islamabad is ceding territory and "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists" in signing a deal that limits the government's involvement in the war-torn Swat Valley. Adding: "I think we cannot underscore [enough] the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances," said Clinton, adding that the nuclear-armed nation could also pose a "mortal threat" to the United States and other countries.
The following is from former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and appeared in the International Information Program electronic journal "U.S. National Security Strategy: A New Era", issued in December 2002.
“Perhaps most fundamentally, 9/11 crystallized our vulnerability. It also threw into sharp relief the nature of the threats we face today. Today's threats come less from massing armies than from small, shadowy bands of terrorists -- less from strong states than from weak or failed states. And after 9/11, there is no longer any doubt that today America faces an existential threat to our security -- a threat as great as any we faced during the Civil War, the so-called "Good War," or the Cold War.”
The use of the phrase ‘existential threat’ is highly revealing if you are aware that its source is the Copenhagen School, and appears in ‘Security: a new framework for analysis’ Buzan et al 1998. In a significant theoretical departure from classical security studies, Buzan, Waever and De Wilde came up with a new framework they called ‘securitisation’.
So, an existential threat is constructed as a threat to the very existence of the referent object. It is an academic version of “We’re all going to die!” It is generally understood that a speech act is made by a political leader and that the intended audience is the public. In the war on drugs the audiences who need to buy into the speech act are in fact other governments.
Securitisation 1 Fifty years ago the international community, through the UN, (and under considerable pressure from the US), agreed that addiction to and abuse of “narcotic drugs” constituted a threat to mankind. Describing it as a “serious evil for the individual” and “fraught with social and economic danger to mankind” and “Conscious of their duty to prevent and combat this evil” they agreed to put in place “effective measures against abuse of narcotic drugs” stating that this would “require co-ordinated and universal action”. These words from the 1961 UN Single Convention formed the basis of what has come to be known as the War on Drugs.
The “universal action” was to treat coca, cannabis and opium based drugs, destined for non-medical use, as a threat to the very existence of civilization as we know it. It is this threat-based approach, (in contrast to our predominantly trade and public health-based approach to alcohol and tobacco) that gave rise first to a global regime of prohibition and, somewhat predictably, to a globally profitable market exploited by organized criminals.
Securitisation 2 Over a period of decades these criminal cartels became a significant economic global force and, in combination with non-state actors, are perceived as a threat to nation states, and indeed entire regions of the globe. The 1988 UN Convention on drugs reads:“Recognizing the links between illicit traffic and other related organized criminal activities which undermine the legitimate economies and threaten the stability, security and sovereignty of States”. The recognition of this secondary threat from organized crime, the global community, again under pressure from the US (and in denial that it was the primary prohibition that had created the opportunity for organized criminals in the first place), embarked upon an increasingly militarized drug war to neutralize the ‘threat’ to nation states.
The collective amnesia, that it was the initial prohibition that created the opportunity for organised criminals, means that many politicians deliberately or unconsciously conflate the two securitisations and contend that ‘drugs’ or ‘addiction’ are the threats, when in fact the far greater threats arise from the ‘unintended consequences’ of the ‘extraordinary measure’ – prohibition.
It could be worse however. We might have had a thrid securitisation. In March 2010, during an expanded session of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels, Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN), presented Moscow’s seven-point plan on fighting drug production in Afghanistan and suggested creating a joint group with NATO to tackle Afghan poppy production.
Among other ideas, the plan included “an upgrade of the status of the Afghan drug production problem in the UN Security Council to the level of a threat to world peace and security."
The inherent nature of a securitisation is anti-democratic, in so far as it is “the move that takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics”. That is why evidence is anathema and why the political rhetoric around drug policy is so irrational and populist in tone. Once an issue has been securitised, a system of propaganda must be maintained to hold it within that framework.
Which leads me to one last point. When a securitisation has been in place for as long as the one relating to the non-medical use of drugs, progressive reform in itself becomes a ‘threat’ – a ‘threat’ to a long standing mission and some very well resourced agencies, charged with fighting the drug war. Now we see that what is actually under threat is an inflexible world order. A world order, whose long standing international relations, and indeed, national domestic social policies are predicated on fighting a futile war on drugs, are fundamentally threatened by a reform process that undoes its foundations.
Since the recent economic meltdown, it has been suggested that the global financial institutions are “too big to fail”. In many ways this is the case with macro-securitisations, like those of terror and drugs. There is so much political and economic capital tied up in the securitisation of drugs, it is difficult for those in power to envisage its demise. Tragically, what is bringing criticism of the securitisation to the fore, are the events in Mexico, Colombia and West Africa (very few care about Afghanistan). The collateral damage of the 1961 convention is taking a very heavy toll and the threat based narrative is sounding tired and paranoid.
When the US objected to Bolivia’s recent attempt to end the ban on coca chewing, they cited their main reason as maintaining the “integrity” of the UN Conventions. It isn’t the integrity of the Conventions that they are interested in maintaining, it is the maintenance of a world order, so much of which is based upon two major securitisations.
It is time that those pursuing a threat-based approach engaged in genuine debate regarding the outcomes of the extraordinary measure of prohibition and explored whether legally regulating drugs could deliver the kind of security outcomes that meet the needs of ordinary citizens in Colombia, Afghanistan, Mexico and West Africa.
Acknowledgement
I am indebted to my colleague Emily Crick for introducing me to the concept of securitisation, its application to international drug policy, and for numerous conversations that were essential to the develpment of this analysis.
Further reading:
Robert Mackey says the only real existential threat to the US is the Russian nuclear arsenal.
Jan Freeman on whether US citizens will believe the threat propaganda.
Well, here he is talking about it, and certainly not laughing it off like the last time he was asked. He specifically says he doesnt support legalisation, but certainly seems to be edging towards some form of decriminalisation of use. Progress then, albeit small steps. And as LEAP make clear - its important for actions to match words.
Still, lets have that debate.......
here's the video:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 27, 2011
CONTACT: Tom Angell - (202) 557-4979 or media//at//leap//dot//cc
Obama Says Legalizing Marijuana and Other Drugs a "Legitimate Topic for Debate"
President Says We Need to Shift to Public Health Focus, But His Budgets Haven't Done That
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today, in response to a video question from a former deputy sheriff about whether it is time to discuss legalizing and regulating drugs in light of the failure of the "war on drugs," President Barack Obama said that it is "an entirely legitimate topic for debate" but that he is not in favor of legalization.
The President then went on to say that he sees drug abuse as a public health issue and that a shifting of resources is required, away from the traditional approach of incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders.
"The president talks a good game about shifting resources and having a balanced, public health-oriented approach, but it doesn't square with the budgets he's submitted to Congress," said Neill Franklin, a retired Baltimore narcotics cop and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a group of cops, judges and prosecutors who support legalizing and regulating drugs. "The Obama administration has maintained the Bush-era two-to-one budget ratio in favor of prisons and prosecution over treatment and prevention. It doesn't add up. Still, it's historic that the president of the United States is finally saying that legalizing and regulating drugs is a topic worthy of discussion. But since the president remains opposed to legalization, it's clear that the people are going to have to lead the way. Police officers and innocent civilians are dying every single day in this drug war; it's not a back-burner issue."
The president's comments today, part of a forum organized by YouTube where people could submit and vote on questions, came in response to a question from MacKenzie Allen, a LEAP member and a retired deputy sheriff who did policing in Los Angeles, CA and King County (Seattle), WA. Allen's question got the most votes in the contest, garnering twice as many as the second most-popular question.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) represents police, prosecutors, judges, FBI/DEA agents and others who want to legalize and regulate drugs after fighting on the front lines of the "war on drugs" and learning firsthand that prohibition only serves to worsen addiction and violence. More info at http://www.CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com.
We are pleased to announce the publication of a Russian translation of 'After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation' (24 page executive summary),Transform's groundbreaking 2009 publication that considers the detail of how a post-prohibition regulatory framework for drug markets can operate (click the image below to view the pdf). We are grateful to our Russian colleagues for providing the translation.
The Russian translation of the exec summary joins the existing translations in Portugese, Spanish and Italian (print copies also available). A German translation is due for pulication shortly. 2011 will also see the arrival of translations of the complete text of the book into German, Spanish and Italian.
The following press release and advocacy note were issued by the International Drug Policy Consortium (of which Transform is a partner member) on Jan 13th
Correcting a historical error: IDPC calls on countries to abstain from submitting objections to the Bolivian proposal to remove the ban on the chewing of the coca leaf
Several governments led by the United States are mobilising to block a request by the Bolivian government to remove an international ban on the centuries-old practice of chewing coca leaves. The 18-month period to contest Bolivia’s requested amendment ends January 31, 2011.
In 2009, Bolivia’s first indigenous President, Evo Morales Ayma, sent a request to the United Nations to remove the unjustified ban on coca leaf chewing. This would amend the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and bring it in line with the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Mr Morales sought to correct a historical error. He stated in his letter to the Secretary General: "Coca leaf chewing is one of the socio-cultural practices and rituals of the Andean indigenous peoples. It is closely linked to our history and cultural identity.” This ancestral practice "cannot and should not be prohibited.”
In the 1990s, a study conducted by the World Health Organisation concluded that chewing coca causes none of the harmful health or social consequences as cocaine use. The US blocked the publication of this evidence.
The US and a number of other governments including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, the Russian Federation, Japan and Colombia are now planning to stop the right of Bolivians to express their own culture. They are planning to lodge formal objections to the amendment prior to the deadline on the January 31, 2011 which would result in the UN rejecting the Bolivian request.
Jeremy Corbyn, a UK Member of Parliament and the Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Bolivia, said,
“At a time when drug prohibition has enriched and emboldened criminal cartels to such an extent that they are attempting to violently annex the state in parts of Mexico and Guatemala, the US is expending considerable effort in blocking the Bolivian government’s legitimate and democratic right to protect and preserve a harmless indigenous practice. The international community needs to get its priorities right and resist this culturally ignorant attempt to dictate to indigenous people in Bolivia.”
The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) calls on countries not to oppose the amendment. Ann Fordham, the Coordinator of IDPC, stated,
Bolivia has made a reasonable and democratic request to the international community. The fact that predominantly Western countries are unwilling to allow even the slightest amendments to the drug control regime, even where they conflict with the cultural and indigenous rights, is a very worrying development.”
In 2009, the Bolivian government requested that the United Nations amend the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs(1). The proposed amendment would remove the unjustified ban on coca leaf chewing while maintaining the strict global control system for coca cultivation and cocaine(2). The 18month period to contest Bolivia’s requested amendment ends January 31, 2011. Several countries, including the United States, Colombia, the Russian Federation, Japan, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Denmark, are considering submitting formal objections to the Secretary General. IDPC calls on these governments to think again. The continuation of the ban clearly conflicts with official multilateral government declarations, including the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(3).
Protecting the indigenous and cultural right of Andean-Amazon peoples to chew coca does not undermine the international efforts to address the significant problems related to the illicit cocaine market. The amendment’s defeat would demonstrate that the international community continues to prioritise a punitive zero-tolerant approach to drug control over the rights of indigenous peoples. Objecting to the requested amendment would perpetuate an obvious violation of these liberties.
Furthermore, reasonable and technically sound amendments to the drug control Conventions should be
seen as a normal part of the modernisation process to make them fit for purpose in the 21st century.
Background
The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs(4) is the key United Nations agreement that enshrines the global drug control system. When it was drafted and agreed, one of the drugs that Western governments wanted to bring under tight international control was cocaine. However, a dilemma existed in the widespread and culturally embedded traditional practice of chewing coca leaves in several Latin American countries (Colombia's Indigenous territories, the Brazilian Amazon, Peru and Bolivia and the North of Argentina and Chile). Unlike cocaine use, chewing coca leaf causes no known health or social problems. Nevertheless, chewing coca was banned, with governments being given twenty-five years to eradicate the practice. That deadline expired in 1989(5). Since then, the International Narcotics Control Board has constantly pressured countries to enforce the ban.
The ban on coca chewing was passed in a time when scant attention was given to cultural and indigenous rights, and records of the debate around coca leaf at that time show that the international community did not consider the rights and interests of the communities that consumed coca leaves to perpetuate religious, social, cultural and medicinal traditions.
The findings of the UN 1950 Coca Leaf Enquiry Commission report formed the justification for the ban on
coca leaf chewing in the Single Convention(6). Analysts sharply criticised the report as arbitrary, imprecise, racist, and culturally insensitive. Fifty years on, the United Nations has commendably agreed much stronger protections for indigenous rights. These resolutions raise questions regarding some aspects of the drug control conventions.
There have been several efforts to rectify this error:
1) The 1988 Trafficking Convention stipulated that any measures “shall take due account of traditional licit uses,” but immediately neutralised its possible application by holding that it could not undermine obligations assumed in previous treaties.
2) The World Health Organisation and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute initiated the Cocaine Project(7) in the early 1990s. This project concluded that traditional consumption of coca leaves has no negative health effects and fulfils positive therapeutic, sacred and social functions for indigenous Andean populations. However, U.S. diplomatic pressure blocked the study’s publication, revealing a determination to assure that ideology prevails over scientific evidence.
Widespread Support for Reform
Over the past fifty years, national and international law have firmly embedded indigenous peoples’ rights in a number of legal instruments and declarations. The 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights ofIndigenous Peoples states that “indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions.”(8)
In April 2010, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, an advisory body to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), welcomed Bolivia’s amendment on the traditional use of the coca leaf. “The Forum recommends that Member States support this initiative.”(9) In May 2009, the Forum stated that it “recognizes the cultural and medical importance of coca in the Andean region and other indigenous regions of South America” and recommended “the amendment or abolishment of the sections of the Convention relating to the custom of chewing coca leaf that are inconsistent with indigenous people´s rights to maintain their traditional practices in health and culture enshrined in Articles 11, 24 and 31 of the Declaration”(10).
Representatives of Latin American indigenous peoples have successfully fought for and secured their place in modern politics and society, defending traditional practices including the consumption of the coca leaf. Correcting the historical error banning coca use in its natural form is an indispensable measure to respect the rights of indigenous peoples in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. For example, the Bolivian UN amendment proposal arose from the recognition in the nation’s 2009 Constitution that the coca leaf is an integral part of Bolivia’s cultural heritage.(11) Peru has always maintained a legal coca market and the National Culture Institute declared coca chewing in 2005 as immaterial cultural patrimony(12). Colombia allows traditional use of coca in its indigenous reserves and Argentina also legally recognizes coca leaf use and protects the rights of its consumers(13). With the August 2009 Presidential Declaration of Quito(14), all South American nations expressed support for the Bolivian proposal, requesting that the international community respect the ancestral cultural practice of coca leaf chewing. Potential Outcomes
If no UN members submit objections by 31st January, the amendment would automatically enter into force. If some nations object, ECOSOC will have the following options:
(a) Approve the amendment, which would not apply to objecting nations;
(b) Reject the amendment in response to objections and the substantive arguments provided; or
(c) Convene a Conference of the Parties to discuss the matter
Conclusion and Recommendations
IDPC strongly urges the international community to abstain from submitting objections to the proposed
amendment to ensure that the discriminatory and scientifically unsubstantiated ban on natural coca leaf
consumption can finally be eliminated. IDPC also calls on ECOSOC Member States to support the
amendment’s approval, with the understanding that its stipulations will not apply to objecting nations.
Resolving this contradiction between the 1961 Single Convention, the 1988 Convention and the UN
Declarations on the rights of Indigenous Peoples is long overdue.
1. Economic and Social Council (15 May 2009), Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961 (New York, 8 August 1975) - Proposal of amendments by Bolivia to article 49, paragraphs 1 (c), E/2009/78 and 2 (e), http://druglawreform.info/images/stories/documents/ECOSOC_Bolivia_Coca_EN.pdf
2. Cocaine is the concentrated alkaloid extracted from the coca plant. The process of extracting this alkaloid is difficult and lengthy, involving numerous chemicals and requiring significant quantities of coca leaves (upwards of 100 kilos). It is not economically viable to extract cocaine from sun-dried coca leaves, coca tea or coca flour available in the legal consuming markets in the Andes region. See Henman, A & Metaal, P. (2009) Coca Myths. TNI Drugs and Conflict Debate papers, June 2009, No. 17, http://www.tni.org/sites/www.tni.org/files/download/debate17_0.pdf.
5. The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs entered into force in 1964. The deadline for banning the
chewing of coca leaves was the 12th December 1989.
11. Article 384 of the Bolivian Constitution: “The State protects the original and ancestral coca leaf as part of the cultural heritage, and a renewable natural resource of Bolivia’s biodiversity: in its natural state it is not a narcotic. Its valuation, production, trade and industrial uses will be defined by law”.
12. Resolution 1707/INC of December 6th 2005, Peruvian National Culture Institute, http://www.inc.gob.pe/patrimonio_cultural.shtml?x=23
13. Criminal Law, N 23.737, 1989, Art. 15: “The possession and consumption of the coca leaf in its natural state, destined for the practice of "coqueo" or chewing, or its use as an infusion, will not be considered as possession or consumption of narcotics”. http://infoleg.mecon.gov.ar/infolegInternet/anexos/0-4999/138/norma.htm
14. Declaración Presidencial de Quito (10 August 2009), III Reunión Ordinaria del Consejo de Jefas y Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR), http://www.comunidadandina.org/unasur/10-809Dec_quito.htm
Sinn Féin, Ireland’s fastest growing political party, has taken several steps to encourage a more effective, evidence-based approach to tackling the problems of drug addiction and drug-related crime.
In its most recent drug policy document, Sinn Féin demonstrates a welcome and pragmatic understanding of the factors influencing drug abuse, stating:
“Harmful drug use has a complex relationship with class, inequality and poverty. Unless poverty and inequality are tackled, the scourge of drugs will continue.”
The party’s reasoned stance on drug use continues with the call for a drug policy which is founded on facts rather than ideology:
“The administration of criminal justice as it interacts with drug-related crime should be reviewed, reformed and tailored to more effectively address and reduce systemic crime, economic compulsive crime and psychopharmacological crime. A broad societal debate considering every possible approach and all relevant evidence from other jurisdictions including those that have experimented with decriminalization and/or legalization is warranted to this end.
“New approaches must be informed by the most credible emerging evidence and international best practice.”
Sinn Féin has further indicated its willingness to embrace drug policy reform with the introduction of a bill to regulate the sale of ‘legal highs’. Presented to the Irish Parliament in April this year, the bill proposes the establishment of a Non-Medicinal Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority, whose main functions would be:
To formulate and publish rules for the issuing of licenses to those involved in the retail, distribution, import and production of non-medicinal psychoactive substances
To establish and maintain a publicly available register of those licensed to engage in the sale, importation, distribution and production of non-medicinal psychoactive substances
To conduct or otherwise instigate inspections of licensees’ premises, products and any property connected to the sale, distribution, importation and production of non-medicinal psychoactive substances
In the explanatory memorandum to the bill, the Sinn Féin spokesperson for Justice, Social Welfare and International Affairs, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, highlighted the futility of adopting a purely prohibitive stance on the trade of these substances via ‘head shops’:
“The current system of identifying and banning substances has proven ineffective in dealing with these dangerous substances. Through cynical labelling and the masking of active ingredients the head shops have managed to establish an increasingly lucrative industry to the detriment of public health and well-being.”
In contrast, Ó Snodaigh rightly claims that by taking a regulatory approach to the sale and distribution of legal highs, the new bill will help to “protect public health and reduce the risk of harm from such products and substances”.
Ó Snodaigh further highlighted his party’s commitment to establishing a more effective drug policy by putting a parliamentary question to the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin. After being made aware of the proposal by Transform, Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for his views on carrying out a transnational impact assessment of drug policy, a measure initially advocated in a briefing paper by the International Drug Policy Consortium.
Martin’s response to the question was typically evasive and dismissive, stating that he was “not aware” that the IDPC’s proposals for an impact assessment of drug policy had been raised in any relevant international forum.
As Transform is proposing, impact assessments of drug policy are a vital step in establishing a fairer and more successful solution to the challenges of problematic drug use and the illegal drug trade. Without such non-partisan evaluations of drug policy, drug war ideology, knee jerk responses to media panics and populist law and order posturing will continue to underpin governmental approaches to drugs. Bad policy can be the only result and the plight of the most vulnerable members of society will continue to worsen.
Bob Ainsworth MP, former Home Office drugs minister and Secretary of State for Defence, will call for the legalisation and regulation of drugs during a Parliamentary debate he is leading in Westminster Hall, at 2.30pm, Thurs 16th December 2010.
Mr Ainsworth said;
“I have just been reading the Coalition Government’s new Drugs Strategy. It is described by the Home Secretary as fundamentally different to what has gone before; it is not. To the extent that it is different, it is potentially harmful because it retreats from the principle of harm reduction, which has been one of the main reasons for the reduction in acquisitive crime in recent years.
However, prohibition has failed to protect us. Leaving the drugs market in the hands of criminals causes huge and unnecessary harms to individuals, communities and entire countries, with the poor the hardest hit. We spend billions of pounds without preventing the wide availability of drugs. It is time to replace our failed war on drugs with a strict system of legal regulation, to make the world a safer, healthier place, especially for our children. We must take the trade away from organised criminals and hand it to the control of doctors and pharmacists.
As drugs minister in the Home Office I saw how prohibition fails to reduce the harm that drugs cause in the UK, fuelling burglaries, gifting the trade to gangsters and increasing HIV infections. My experience as Defence Secretary, with specific responsibilities in Afghanistan, showed to me that the war on drugs creates the very conditions that perpetuate the illegal trade, while undermining international development and security.
My departure from the front benches gives me the freedom to express my long held view that, whilst it was put in place with the best of intentions, the war on drugs has been nothing short of a disaster.
Politicians and the media need to engage in a genuine and grown up debate about alternatives to prohibition, so that we can build a consensus based on delivering the best outcomes for our children and communities. I call on those on all sides of the debate to support an independent, evidence-based review, exploring all policy options, including: further resourcing the war on drugs, decriminalising the possession of drugs, and legally regulating their production and supply.
One way to do this would be an Impact Assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act in line with the 2002 Home Affairs Select Committee finding – which included David Cameron – for the government to explore alternatives to prohibition, including legal regulation.
The re-legalisation of alcohol in the US after thirteen years of Prohibition was not surrender. It was a pragmatic move based on the government’s need to retake control of the illegal trade from violent gangsters. After 50 years of global drug prohibition it is time for governments throughout the world to repeat this shift with currently illegal drugs.”
Peter Lilley MP, former Conservative Party Deputy Leader said
“The current approach to drugs has been an expensive failure, and for the sake of everyone, and the young in particular, it is time for all politicians to stop using the issue as a political football. I have long advocated breaking the link between soft and hard drugs – by legalising cannabis while continuing to prohibit hard drugs. But I support Bob Ainsworth’s sensible call for a proper, evidence based review, comparing the pros and cons of the current prohibitionist approach with all the alternatives, including wider decriminalisation, and legal regulation.”
Tom Brake MP, Co-Chair, Liberal Democrat Backbench Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities said;
“Liberal Democrats have long called for a science-based approach to our drugs problem. So it is without hesitation that I support Bob Ainsworth’s appeal to end party political point-scoring, and explore sensitively all the options, through an Impact Assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act.”
Labour’s Paul Flynn MP said;
"This could be a turning point in the failing UK 'war on drugs.' Bob Ainsworth is the persuasive, respected voice of the many whose views have been silenced by the demands of ministerial office. Every open rational debate concludes that the UK's harsh drugs prohibition has delivered the worst outcomes in Europe - deaths, drug crime and billions of pounds wasted."
Bob Ainsworth MP has represented Coventry North since 1992 and has held a number of shadow and ministerial positions including:
Home Office - Parliamentary secretary, with responsibility for drugs (Jun 2001 - Jun 2003) Deputy Chief Whip (June 2003 – June 2007) Minister for the Armed Forces (June 2007 – May 2009) Secretary of State for Defence (June 2009 – May 2010) Shadow Secretary of State for Defence (May 2010 – October 2010)
As a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into drug misuse in 2002 David Cameron voted in favour of recommendation 24: “We recommend that the Government initiates a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways—including the possibility of legalisation and regulation—to tackle the global drugs dilemma (paragraph 267).”
The Liberal Democrat party policy recognises “The failure of prohibition”, supports decriminalisation of drugs, and calls for an audit comparing the current approach with the alternatives. Lib Dem drug policy paper. Lib Dem manifesto
There is a long history of those involved in developing or delivering drug policy supporting reform once out of office. See Transform's'supporters of reform' archive which includes:
The difference between decriminalisation and legalisation:
Decriminalisation is the removal of criminal sanctions for the production, supply or use of an illegal drug. Civil or administrative sanctions, such as a fine or requirement to enter treatment, may remain, even if criminal sanctions (resulting in prosecution and a criminal record) are removed. In popular usage, the term 'decriminalisation' usually refers to the removal of criminal sanctions for possession of drugs for personal use, while sanctions often remain for the production or supply of drugs.
Legalisation and regulation - ‘legalisation’ is a process - moving away from absolute prohibition - and does not specify what legal framework to regulate production, supply and use of drugs replaces it. ‘Legalisation and regulation’ is not the free for all some have envisaged, and is not a free market model as espoused by some libertarians. Instead it involves controls on producers, products, vendors and consumers. For example models of strict legal regulation see Transform's 2009 publication: “After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation”
We have now uploaded footage of the speakers at our 'Ending the War on Drugs' event which has held last month in London.
This was a really successful event, with some great speeches from a range of people who each provided their own particular insight into the so-called 'War on Drugs'.
The speakers are Angus MacQueen, award-winning documentary maker and director of the recent Channel 4 series 'Our Drugs War'; Carel Edwards, former head of the European Commission's Anti-Drug Coordinating Unit; and Misha Glenny, a specialist on Southeastern Europe and author of 'McMafia: Seriously Organised Crime'.
Great to see yet more mainstream media coverage of the drug law reform debate, this time in a special issue of The Nation Magazine. The cover story includes a visual riff on the logo of the infamous D.A.R.E drug prevention program, a gag used previously by Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP is covered in one of the feature articles, by SSDP director Aaron Houston - see below).
The feature content list is as follows (most available online for non-subscribers):
Congress's vote to scale back mandatory sentences for federal crack cocaine offenses was a watershed in the long campaign for better drug policy. Marc Mauer
Drug courts have helped some addicts recover. But they may be delaying expansion of treatment programs that will best reduce harms from addiction. Tracy Velázquez
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