February 12, 2009
Drug War: No mas?
Seeing as how today seems to be chock-full of news about the Drug War, let's travel south of the border and check in with our Latin American allies on how we're doing.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point.
"The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war," said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. "We have to move from this approach to another one."
The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy "taboo" and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts.
The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana.
The report, by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, is the latest to question the U.S.'s emphasis on punitive measures to deal with illegal drug use and the criminal violence that accompanies it.
A recent Brookings Institution study concluded that despite interdiction and eradication efforts, the world's governments haven't been able to significantly decrease the supply of drugs, while punitive methods haven't succeeded in lowering drug use.
[...]
The three former presidents who head the commission are political conservatives who have confronted in their home countries the violence and corruption that accompany drug trafficking.
The report warned that the U.S.-style antidrug strategy was putting the region's fragile democratic institutions at risk and corrupting "judicial systems, governments, the political system and especially the police forces."
The report comes as drug violence is engulfing Mexico, which has become the key transit point for cocaine traffic to the U.S. Decapitation of rival drug traffickers has become common as cartels try to intimidate one another.
[...]
Latin American governments have largely followed U.S. advice in trying to stop the flow of drugs from the point of origin. The policy has had little effect.
In Colombia, billions of dollars in U.S. aid have helped the military regain control from the hands of drug-financed communist guerrillas and lower crime, but the help hasn't dented the amount of drugs flowing from Colombia.
In the conference call, Mr. Gaviria said the U.S. approach to narcotics -- based on treating drug consumption as a crime -- had failed. Latin America, he said, should adapt a more European approach, based on treating drug addiction as a health problem.
Doesn't sound good, does it?
The WSJ article features some frantic spin from "a senior U.S. official," who argues that the increasing violence is a sign that we're winning the war. That is, quite frankly, monumentally idiotic.
The real metric of success is whether or not drugs are less available for purchase on American streets and in American schools and prisons, and whether or not prices have gone up as a result of police seizures reducing the supply.
The answer -- from street cops (and not their political bosses) -- is that drugs have never been more plentiful, more readily available, nor more "reasonably" priced.
I'd suggest that the increasing levels of violence associated with the drug trade have more to do with the almost unimaginable wealth to be made by the most ambitious -- and ruthless -- of the narco-traffickers. There's a strong financial incentive to become an industry leader, and that requires achieving and maintaining market dominance over the competition.
That dominance was established via the Tommy Gun and the bribe during Capone's day; only the choice of weapon has changed -- that and the level of violence, where today's cop-decapitating psychopaths make one long for the more civilized (by comparison ), genteel days of the Chicago Mob.
Our four decades spent fighting the flow of drugs across the border has been as effective as trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.
But just because it hasn't worked for more than thirty years is certainly no reason to try another approach.
We just may be staying the course without the assistance of our Latin American allies.
Posted by Mike Lief at February 12, 2009 10:43 AM
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Comments
Hugs and treatment not guns and handcuffs are what drug offenders need. It's time to end the insane war on drugs. Great post.
Posted by: ILG at February 12, 2009 07:16 PM
I think you missed the point of this blog ILG, it's not about drug users it's about drug suppliers. These criminals need to be stopped and not hugged.
Posted by: April Lief at February 13, 2009 12:03 AM
no no no no.... the 'war on drugs' has been going on for **95** years now. until 1913/14, you could walk into a pharmacy and buy heroin, cocaine, morphine...any old thing you wanted.
then our betters in washington decided we were helpless, ignorant sheep in need of guidance, so they put a stop to that. then they criminalized drugs, since the sheep didn't seem to be getting the message. and on and on.
*95* frickin' YEARS of government ruining lives and families. innocent people getting killed. police getting ever more militarized and corrupt. all to - so they tell us - all this over the self-administered ingestion of powders and herbs.
clearly, the answer lies in tougher and more draconian laws and punishments. if a 95-year track record of spectacularly dismal failure has taught us ANYthing, it's that the cops and the government needs more power and money.
funny how that works.
Posted by: ici chacal at February 13, 2009 11:40 AM
How about a law that goes like this:
if you are caught selling drugs you do SERIOUS prison time.
Users can be given treatment (assuming they are not out victimizing other people).
My problem with the comparison between the drug problem and prohibition is that the substances are not comparible. Methamphetamine is highly addictive for most people the first time they use it. The same is not true for alcohol. People who compare the two do not understand the difference and DEFINITELY have not spent any time walking through the home of a meth user.
Also, Mike you are DEAD wrong about the prices of drugs. Meth and Marijuana right now are more expensive than they have ever been in Ventura County. Whether this is a result of supply or demand is debatable, but the fact remains that meth is almost twice as expensive as cocaine.
The problem with the "War on Drugs" is that we are not fighting a war. If we were we would be doing what it takes to win. The War on Drugs is lip service by politicians. We have to seal up the border and seriously punish anyone caught dealing this crap. How would we treat someone who was handing out rattle snakes for our kids to play with? What would people want the penalty to be? Drug dealers are the same. They pray upon the weaknesses of their fellow man.
The War on Drugs is not a domestic criminal issue. It is a homeland security issue.
I still say that if I were Al Qaeda I would be setting up meth shops in upper middle class neighborhoods.
Posted by: RW at February 13, 2009 08:42 PM
There is no will in this country to put up an iron ring around the country. The drugs will keep coming in. You can't stop human beings from seeking what they crave. Our jails are so crowded that the courts are going to let people out of jail. How can this society lock more people up RW? April Lief I did not miss the point. You apparently missed the demand part of the "supply" and "demand" lecture in high school economics.
Posted by: ILG at February 14, 2009 12:37 PM
If you read what I wrote, I advocated for treatment for the users -- not locking them up.
What I said is longer prison sentences for the sellers. Also, we do need to consider serious border security, but not just for the drug problem. Most Americans, I bet, favor closed borders.
Posted by: RW at February 15, 2009 05:42 PM