Novembre 2002

FOR ANOTHER DRUG POLICY
Campaign towards Vienna 2003

Joep Oomen

Every war has its motivation, its excuse. If authorities want to continue fighting against real or imaginary enemies, they need to keep justifying themselves. In a democracy, this means that they have to criminalize the people they fight against, to make sure that these people are not considered as "respectable" citizens. Therefore, they have to contradict the "respectable" arguments that may motivate peoples’ behaviour. They need to prove that, for example, peoples’ motive is to enrich themselves instead of to escape sheer poverty. In this way, they create a public image according to which the so-called enemies are causing damage to society, and all the authorities are doing is to try and stop them from doing it.

The war against drugs is no exception to this rule. If authorities want to continue spending billions of tax dollars in military operations that end up destroying the livelihood of peasants in some of the least developed countries in the world, or in the persecution of people whose only crime is to consume certain substances that are considered as ‘dangerous’, they need to prove that these people are to be held responsible for damage being done to society in general. They need to prove that coca leaf or opium producing peasants in South America or South Asia should be considered as accomplices of drugs traffickers. They need to prove that drug users are to be seen as responsible for the main part of property crimes that occur in the industrialised world, and even for the funding of criminal organisations and of terrorist groups. That in fact, these people have an alternative option, but refuse to choose it. And so, that therefore, they deserve to face the law.

This public image of the drugs issue is so strong, that many people, even those who fight for another world based on justice and respect, have difficulties seeing through it. It is as if speaking on drugs, mentioning the word drugs, already scares people off; and when people are afraid to speak about something, it is very unlikely that a rational discussion can take place, let alone a rational solution to the problems can be found.

But let us take a look at the facts: today, producers and consumers of illegal drugs operate in an environment that could best be described as a truely ‘free market’, without any rules or limitations. Drugs are easily available to anyone including children, and there exists no control whatsoever on the quality, price or ways of production and distribution. According to UN estimations, every second, more than 16.000 USD is earned through the sale of illegal drugs. As production costs represent only 1 % of this amount, the profits of criminal organizations involved in the illegal drug industry are enormous.

International drug prohibition, based on UN Conventions is not only used to justify a global apparatus of repression, but also is directly responsible for the creation and maintenance of one of the key engines of organised crime, the second largest economic sector in the world, after oil. Prohibition of drugs hands a monopoly of these substances or services to provide them to criminal groups who are greedy by nature and avoid accountability and responsibility.

It is also responsible for the fact that each year hundreds of drug users are executed in China, half a million people are behind bars in the US for non violent drug offenses, and hundreds of thousands of hectares are being fumigated in Colombia. The problems created by the prohibition of drugs affect public health, human rights, sound economy, sustainable development and community safety. This information is well documented, but deliberately overlooked by policy-makers, mass media, and consequently, by the general public. Even the most obvious harms of prohibition are routinely and illegitimately blamed on the drugs themselves.

Drug prohibition is one of the pillars of the current global status quo. Replacing it by an effective model of regulation aimed to protect public health, human rights and community safety will be one of the ways to effectively create ‘another world’

In June 1998, government representatives from all over the world met in New York in a UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs, under the slogan ‘ A drug-free world, we can do it’. At the end of the meeting they adopted a political declaration in which they committed themselves to eliminate or significantly reduce the supply and demand for illegal drugs before the year 2008. Similar commitments have been made before, in 1961 and 1988, and all the best available evidence shows this approach is not having any impact whatsoever.

Meanwhile, most European countries have started during the past decade an irreversible process towards a drug policy that is not based on total prohibition. In the circles of political, legal and health authorities that deal with the issue in Europe, it is now well understood that persecution of drug users is counterproductive. Like tightrope walkers, authorities are balancing on the tension between the law, which is still designed to eliminate drug use, and its application, where this goal has already been replaced by so-called harm reduction. This term refers to measures like needle exchange programmes, the establishment of safe injection rooms and the decriminalisation of cannabis consumption, which allover the main cities in the European Union have been succesful in improving living conditions of users and reducing the spread of HIV and other bloodborne diseases.

Still it seems that harm reduction is above all a strategy to reduce the most threatening and visible consequences of a problem, but not to deal with the roots of it. Much harm remains that cannot be reduced by current policies as long as they are based on prohibition. For instance, what is the point in preventing users from getting HIV, but not to prevent them from consuming adulterated heroin that they have paid for by selling their bodies? What are you going to do as a nurse, having to give clean needles to someone who shoots dirty drugs? Look the other way? It is like the Red Cross sending a clean plate, knife and fork to Ethiopia and say: sorry, this is all we are allowed to do for you. Good luck.

Furthermore, harm reduction is almost nonexistent in European prisons. Apparently because authorities find it difficult to accept that illegal drugs enter prisons where people are sent to for violating drug laws, there are virtually no programmes to assist drug users in prisons with for instance clean injection equipment. Nevertheless, the percentage of drug users among the popuation behind bars is much higher than outside, despite the fact that the price of drugs is usually two to four times higher. These people are obliged to smuggle needles in their body, share them with other inmates and get involved in prostitution and drug dealing in order to maintain their use. According to the latest statistics published by the competent EU authorities, this situation counts particularly for the female population in prison.

Europe also participates in the open war on drugs on a global level. European governments are indirectly involved in the war against drug production that currently is imposed upon countries like Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Morocco, Afghanistan or Burma. The governments of these countries do not have the luxury of applying something like ‘harm reduction’. Their approaches usually aim at eliminating drug-linked cultivation completely, using devastating practices such as aerial fumigations with chemical herbicides that have an extremely negative impact on the environment and human health.

European funding has been focusing primarily on so-called ‘alternative development programmes’ that aim to replace illegal crops with legal sources of income. But both strategies, the stick and the carrot, have been unable to address the determining factors for the increase of cultivation of coca leaves, opium and cannabis. These problems are, of course, lack of land reforms, lack of basic infrastructure, unstable and decreasing prices for traditional crops, in short, problems that are maintained by economic policies oriented towards the promotion of liberal and free-market principles.

As a result armed conflicts take place in many of the countries mentioned, causing deaths and massive human rights violations on a daily basis, and these armed conflicts contribute to the creation of alliances between drug traffickers, corrupt officials, armed and extremist groups.

“Harm reduction”, measures such as the distribution of methadone or the establishment of coffee shops, can do very little against the accumulation of wealth and power by the organisations and people who make 99 % of the profits that illegal drugs generate. As the recent reforms of the international markets tend to facilitate the circulation and recycling of dirty money in the international banking system, the evidence suggests that legal and illegal businesses are increasingly interlocked. Thus, illicit money enters normal financial and business operations as well as the organs of state power.

Quoting Michel Chossudowsky, professor of University of Ottawa:

“The process operates in both directions: criminal organisations (e.g. with interest in the drug economy) acquire banking and productive assets in the legal economy; conversely legal economic and financial interests have a financial stake in the illicit economy. There is in this context a consequent distortion in political structures and social relations which has a direct bearing on policy formulation by national governments, including the articulation of macro-economic and financial reforms. Criminal organisations involved in illicit trade increasingly constitute a powerful undercover lobby operating both at the national and international levels influencing the scope and direction of government policy.”

Needless to say that one of the issues that this undercover lobby will continue to strongly put forward is the need to fight against drugs. At the same time, experts say that police operations against international drug trafficking will first be succesful in reducing the profits if they are able to seize 70 to 80 % of the produced amounts. At the moment, they are not able to capture more than 20%. But even if they succeed in stopping more, the only impact will very likely be a change of routes or a decrease in purity.

Therefore, there is no doubt that the only way to really minimise all harms related to drug production, distribution and consumption is to change the basic logic of traditional drug policies: to stop prohibiting and start regulating. This is not an ideological position; it is simply a prediction of the logical order of events that WILL happen, sooner or later. What we urgently need is an international agreement on the regulation of Production, Trade and Consumption of Drugs (including those that are legal today). Only when the state itself is in some kind of control of the market, will it be able to get to grips with all the social evils that are related with it today.

According to this agreement, every single country in the world should be allowed to establish its own mechanisms to regulate the production and consumption of drugs, and form bilateral agreements with other countries concerning the supply of drugs they cannot produce themselves. Sustainable relationships should be fostered between drug producers and authorities, based on mutual respect that includes the recognition of the fact that collaboration serves mutual benefits. Particularly, those groups of people who are especially disadvantaged by economic or social marginalisation, such as small-scale farmers or settlers in developing countries, should be able to participate in the design of policies that concern them.

It is expected that this process will lead to the improvement of life conditions in producing areas, which again will make the population less vulnerable to incentives from the black market. Establishment of basic health care and education facilities, measures to avoid environmental damage and mechanisms to ensure food security, fair prices and market access for any products, also including legal outlets for plants like coca, cannabis and opium, will contribute to a rationalization of drug production.

Regulation of the market will also act to counter the intervention of unscrupulous middlemen with measures that protect the interests of producers and consumers. These can include quality control in places of consumption, accurate information on prices and quality to producers and consumers, and methods of controlled distribution. Countries, which decide to allow the distribution of drugs could do this either through the public provision or through the private market. But it seems obvious that social, health and criminal justice authorities should be supervising the drug trade, and special limitations (with regards to advertising or sale to minors, for instance) should be maintained.

Access to drugs that present significant risks to the user should be controlled in one way or another. Drugs with a greater potential for harmful use must be more tightly regulated. However, this regulatory scheme should not be so restrictive as to produce a significant illegal market in the substance. Once a significant illicit trade in a substance appears, we can be sure that our policy is a failure and bound to contribute to, rather than minimize the harms of the commerce and use of that substance. Therefore, the lack of impact of the current UN Conventions is best illustrated by the dimension of the criminal industry, which, as mentioned before, makes 16.000 USD a second dealing drugs.

Finally, it is necessary to make a well-defined distinction between problematic and non-problematic consumption. Of course neither of the two should be considered a crime. Instead, all efforts to prevent and treat the problems that may arise as a consequence of drug use should aim at promoting the well being of drug users and their surroundings, including measures to prevent diseases and guarantee access to all treatment. Consumers should be encouraged to maintain their use at a moderated level, and discouraged to increase it. Prevention campaigns should aim at encouraging responsible and informed attitudes towards drug consumption.

Another drug policy is possible. In countries like Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands, where some elements of these policies are already in place, the results show that problematic drug use diminishes, and society learns to cope with the phenomenon. Not all problems are solved, but the comparison with other parts of the world, or with the situation ten years ago, is astonishing.

Now what can be done to achieve this major shift in drug policy, that will improve living conditions of millions of people while attacking the interests of some of the world’s strongest economic interests?

From 8 to 18 April 2003, government representatives from all over the world will meet in Vienna to review progress at the half way point of the 10 year strategy adopted in 1998 by the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs.

In the past 5 years, an international coalition of organisations has been formed, representing citizens and independent experts who together want to confront policy-makers with the ineffectiveness of this strategy, and the evidence that better alternatives do exist.
In the coming months, European members of this coalition will try to convince policy-makers in their countries to use the opportunity of the April 2003 summit to show that drug prohibition is causing more harm than the consumption of prohibited drugs themselves, and that UN Conventions need to be reviewed in order to allow countries to implement policies that manage to cope with drugs rather than eliminating them, and the people who are associated with them.

One of the events we are considering will be a mass demonstration at the UN building in Vienna at the time of the summit, under the title: Another Drug Policy is possible. Other events include a hearing at the European Parliament in Brussels and several events throught European countries.

Anyone interested in joining these efforts is welcome to contact encod@glo.be or visit the campaign website at www.edprc.org

Hopefully see you in Vienna.