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Calls for a Paradigm Shift in the War on Drugs
Cocaine production surge unleashes wave of violence in Latin America
CARACAS - Cocaine production has surged across Latin America and unleashed a wave of violence, population displacements and corruption, prompting urgent calls to rethink the drug war.
U.S. Border Patrol agents discuss their 400 pound marijuana seizure on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River in 2008. Venezuela wants to send a mission to the United States to see how well it fights drug trafficking, the Attorney General's office said Wednesday, five days after a US report criticized Venezuela's war on drugs.
(AFP/Getty Images/File/John Moore) More than 750 tonnes of cocaine are shipped annually from the Andes in a multi-billion pound industry which has forced peasants off land, triggered gang wars and perverted state institutions.
A Guardian investigation based on dozens of interviews with law enforcement officials, coca farmers, refugees and policymakers has yielded a bleak picture of the "war" on the eve of a crucial United Nations drug summit.
Almost 6,000 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year alone, an unprecedented level of mayhem that is showing signs of spilling northwards into the United States. More than 1,000 have been killed already this year in Mexico.
A new trafficking route between South America and west Africa has grown so quickly that the 10th latitude corridor connecting the continents has been dubbed Interstate 10.
Almost all those interviewed agreed that insatiable demand for cocaine in Europe and north America had thwarted US-led efforts to choke supply and inflicted enormous damage on Latin America.
"We consider the war on drugs a failure because the objectives have never been achieved," said César Gaviria, Colombia's former president and co-chair of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy.
"Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and criminalisation have not yielded the expected results. We are today farther than ever from the goal of eradicating drugs."
The commission is urging a "paradigm shift" from repression to a public health approach, including decriminalisation of marijuana. Dismal statistics about coca cultivation, cocaine exports and murder rates have amplified calls to replace a policy which dates back to Nixon with one which focuses on curbing demand.
"The strategy of the US here, in Colombia and Peru was to attack the raw material and it has not worked," said Colonel René Sanabria, head of Bolivia's anti-narcotic police force.
A report by the Brookings Institution, and a separate study by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron which was endorsed by 500 economists, have joined the chorus demanding change.
The debate comes to a head on Wednesday when ministers from across the world convene in Vienna to forge a new UN approach to drugs. The European Union and some Latin American countries hope to shape a strategy based on "harm reduction" measures, such as needle exchanges. But holdovers from the Bush administration are lobbying Barack Obama to stick with traditional US emphasis on supply.
Even Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, who backs Washington's drug war, has sounded the alarm. "Organised crime could destroy us all if we do not come together to fight it," he told regional leaders recently.
The crucible is Colombia, the world's main cocaine exporter. Since 2000 it has received $6bn in mostly military aid from the US for the drug war. But despite the fumigation of 1.15m hectares of coca, the plant from which the drug is derived, production has not fallen. Across the whole of South America it has spiked 16%, thanks to increases in supply from Bolivia and Peru. Defenders of the drug war point out that the military-led strategy clawed back territory from armed groups and stabilised Colombia.
"It's not fair to say there has been no progress," said Aldo Lale-Demoz, head of the Bogota headquarters of the UN Office on Drug and Crime. "We are not winning and we are not losing. We are controlling."
Successive US drug czars put a brave face on the results but Washington's patience has frayed. A recent report by the Government Accountability Office concluded the war had failed in Colombia. It was commissioned by Joe Biden, then a senator, now the vice president.
A spokesman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which spearheads Washington's approach, hinted the new administration may switch tack.
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33 Comments so far
Show AllChina has a good policy for "curbing demand": Death by firing squad.
Singapore has the exact same laws. And they put people to death every year, and lock up even more. It hasn't fixed things at all. Never has.
The war on drugs is nothing more than a massive revenue generator for the military industrial media complex and the prison industrial complex.
Global demand for drugs never increases or decreases, irrespective of laws, etc. People who want drugs will get drugs. When the economy was soaring there were 10 people ready to take the place of any drug dealer that got busted. In the current down economy there are 150 people ready to take over.
My hypochondriac brother has been busted so many times for illegal drugs that he is required to pee in a bottle every Monday. His drug consumption has not diminished. He simply lined up 3 or 4 doctors who gladly write him prescriptions for legal recreational drugs that are now paid for by the taxpayers.
Legalize all drugs and you will eliminate the wealthy criminals that have taken over Mexico and you will have no more drug addicts than you did before.
The legalization of all drugs would be a start. Rectify the political one party system in Mexico and spread out the wealth and ability to generate wealth and you will have fewer drug addicts. Addiction is bread from hopelessness.
Oh yeah, China has a good solution for most things. Check out the "Little Red Book". When we are choking on our depleted oxygen supply, we can thank China for using coal as its industrial fuel. China is still smarting over being forced to use opium under the rule of the British. I doubt very much if firing squads are curbing drug use in China.
The death penalty means that you simply have to bribe the right person.
Sorry, Mr Lale-Demoz, but you are not controlling a thing. You have a water balloon in your hands, and when you squeeze one place, it bulges into some other place. You are deluding yourself if you think you are controlling a thing. In truth, I suspect that you just don't want to give up your power.
This is a completely failed policy, it has been a completely failed policy every time and every place it's been tried, and it will always BE a completely failed policy. It's hypocritical in it's very core. You can't have a couple of hits of cannabis, but you can pop pills all day long, because some guy who gets kickbacks from the frug companies gave you a note. And those pills kill tens of thousands of people every year, while cannabis has never killed anyone in thousands of years of use. You can drink, but we seem to be able to handle the effects of that, or you can kill yourself with cigarettes, and we seem to be able to accept that. Those things kill people, why can we not handle something that kills NO ONE?
It's finally time to end this. If we raise our voices loud enough and MAKE the politicians grow up, we can stop it. It's a shame that it has to be over MONEY, but that is what the whole game is about anyway. In My state, Colorado, for instance, we spend $64 MILLION every year on cannabis ALONE. We could raise our education spending from 49th in the nation and reduce our prison spending (currently 3rd in the nation) at the same time. We could fix all kinds of our roades, bridges, schools, and stop ruining our state all at the same time.
When the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Deepa
There are some myths circulated around the world by the US and the western media that the US and the west are fighting against drugs. However, these myths are exposed in Afghanistan, where one finds collusion between US, Drug-lords and terrorist organisations.
In April of 2007 the ABC News journalists Brian Ross and Christopher Isham reported that the US was funding a terrorist group Jundullah or Allah’s Brigade to carry out strikes inside Iran. According to them, its leader Abdul Malik Regi, a former Taliban member, was alleged to be involved in large-scale narcotics trafficking through Iranian exiles with connections in West Asia and Europe.
The Report of the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime points to the interlink between drug trafficking and terrorism. The CIA’s role in the expansion of opium cultivation in Afghanistan may be found in the book “Whiteout, the CIA, Drugs and the Press” by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn. Opium production has skyrocketed since the US occupied the country by toppling the Taliban regime in 2001. Opium cultivation steadily increased: 30,750 hectares of poppy in 2002, 61,000 hectares in 2003, 104,000 hectares in 2005, 165,000 hectares in 2006, and 193, 000 hectares in 2007 compared with 7,606 in 2001 under the ousted Taliban rule.
While the US government repeatedly claims that it is committed to curbing the Afghan drug trade, statistics prove that the US occupation has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. Afghanistan now supplies about 92 percent of the world’s illicit opium. Opium trade has a good market in US and Europe. Over 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions.
The benefit of drug trade to US and Europe is twofold: their banking and financial institutions receive billions of dollars annually; and by supporting poppy cultivation and drug trade they get the loyalty of terrorist organizations without much expenditure to buy their loyalty.
Excellent post...!
Another benefit is having a docile and addicted sector of society, and justification for superceding civil liberties, and imprisoning millions of folks in privatized facilities, or the rehab racket...
Afghanistan and Colombia have much in common...
Exactly, Deepa. Great post. And thank you for the book suggestion.
Anyone remember the BCCI scandal? The US government, Islamic terrorists, money laundering, and the drug trade all rolled together! And the Bush family was neck-deep in that shit.
Legalize and then treat the users. This a far "cheaper" alternative.
North America and Europe are the largest markets for drugs. WHY? Is it JUST because we are wealthier? does wealth=drug use?
Is it societal? Maybe our societies are not all they are cracked up to be and we should try and determine why people want to use drugs as an escape.
An escape from WHAT?
A local ex-judge made an excellent point regarding a current gang war going on over the local drug trade here in vancouver.
This in reply to demands for ever harsh sentences and or the death sentence for these gangsters.
He pointed out that the GANGS kill each other at a far greater rate then the State can ever do. He pointed out that a good deal of these gang members are shot dead by rivals before they hit their 30th birthday.
He pointed out that even at that there are still gangs and still peoeple willing to sell drugs for profit even if the odds of their being shot by a rival were very high.
He asked the listening audience.
"If the threat of a Rival GANGmember shooting them dead is no deterrent and is happening at a rate far higher then the state can ever implement how would the death penalty be a deterrent?"
As long as there great money to be made , there will be people drawn to the drug trade.
When you cut supply all you do is raise prices meaning more profits.
The only REAL way to address this is via legalization and the lowering of demand.
As long as our culture keeps incresing the demand for drugs, there will be a constant supply of them. I guess nobody has ever read history in our government. Prohibition gave rise to the "Maffia" and plenty of bootleggers. Our CIA has facilitated the delivery of drugs to our country, so they can have something to do. If there was no drug trade, many companies would go out of business - the prison industry, the militarized borders, the militarized police departments. All we would need is dope stores like we have liquor stores where anybody of age can buy the products and take it home for use. The penalties for DWD would be the same as DWI. Marijuana has never killed a soul anyway. If our culture wasn't so darn focused on stuff, we would be a happier place.
'If there was no drug trade, many companies would go out of business - the prison industry, the militarized borders, the militarized police departments'
That's exactly the reason for this farcical 'war on drugs' to create the seeming necessity for these clandestine groups and operations. Weather conscious or not, the continued demonization of mind altering substances has and will continue to create a immensely disruptive and imbalanced repercussions in the united states and around the world.
Hasish was burned as incense in the temples of the old world, psychedelic mushrooms birthed the mystery religions of the near east, LSD came within a hair breadth of toppling the western cartesian world-view in the sixties. Yet ALL REMAIN TO THIS DAY ILLEGAL in the united states and most 'developed' countries. As yourself WHY!
Not just those. As per a bumber of reports and investigations MAJOR US blue chip companies including banks have been propped up by drug money.
If you really want to see the DOW Crash down to 2000 and less legalize those drugs currently deemed ilegal.
When groups make money off drugs , they INVEST that money.
PK
"But holdovers from the Bush administration are lobbying Barack Obama to stick with traditional US emphasis on supply."
Easy. If President Obama has to keep Bush holdovers so as to appear bipartisan, a big mistake in my opinion, he should simply do the opposite of what they say. After all, conservatives are totally responsible for starting and continuing the WOD and all its suffering, deaths, billions, and for much of the resurgent left in SA, thank you.
While most of the drugs are used by addicts, most users of drugs are not addicts. It makes no sense to pass and try to enforce laws to which people pay no attention.
Besides, it's none of anybody else's business if I want to smoke pot, or for that matter use heroin for recreational purposes.
These laws against the use of drugs, against prostitution, are insane, quixotic, and ineffective.
If you want to spend some money on these things offer addicts treatment and clean needles, and go after the slave trade that is flourishing in the shadows right here in the land of the free.
My father was in the FBI when the WOD was started, lo those many years ago. LEAA - Law Enforcement Admin Act(?) provided extra funding for police departments and the ATF. He surmised that this so-called WOD was a mechanism to militarize local police forces to get around posse comitatus act. Hence the rapid growth of SWAT teams and related industry (which includes then-Blackwater). Then came the ability to seize a drug SUSPECT'S property and commandeer it for use or sell it and use for WOD operations - without due course. Seized property is almost never returned which has led to widespread abuse. duh! etc....etc....
Greed is driving the WOD - there ain't much profit in legalizing. Education and easy access don't generate much bucks.
So, we see there is a whole industry dependent upon and driving WOD just as there is a whole industrial complex driving our military wars and maintenance of bases all over the world.
I Huff-posted that Big Pharma, Big Booze and Big Tobacco are trying to kill any competition from marijuana legalization with such as "The Partnership for a Drug Free America". My post was not approved and disappeared. Co-incidentally, an ad from the "PDFA" appeared at the same time.
Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs do !!
Over 60 Million Americans rely on their daily Prozac !!!!!!
A plea on behalf of Victimless "crime" folks !!!!!
The goody goody Christian type people are allowed to line up to get their "high" by eating their drug of choice the "Body & Blood" of their "God" !!!!!
What about leting us have personal sovereignty over our bodies !!!
Anyone over 18 should be free to "experiment" or use these wonderful "illegal" drugs with a guarantee of their purity !!!!
The DEA is a shameful wasteful criminal waste of Taxpayers money.
If it wasn't for criminal contamination in their preparation most "illegal" drugs could provide what knowledgeable users would very much appreciate.
The War on "drugs" has given the USA the highest % prison population in the World.
What happened to the Pursuit of Happiness guaranteed to the American People ????
Are our own bodies our own to do with them as we wish without harming others ???
Oops, there must have been a typo in the constitution. It should have read life, liberty, and the pursuit of money. Prescription drugs are the other half of our 'drug problem'. And our drug problem is just one manifestation of our real problem: GREED. Our tax system has created a huge fund of money and the greedy line up to spend it. War, drugs, you name it, it's all funded by the federal authority to milk us of our hard earned cash. The conservatives have it right when they warn us against big government. The ways in which our government can spend our money should be limited and spelled out. But there are a few things that only a federal government can do better than state, local or private interests--such as build a passenger railroad system, run a post office, create a single payer health system, etc. Is our government doing any of these things? Oh where are the true conservatives when you need them!
Credibility is a problem when you have one arm of the government making money from what another arm of the government is taking tax dollars to stop.
Why not decriminalize ALL victimless crimes? Stop persecuting people based on shallow and hypocritical morals.
Decriminalization is the only sensible thing to do, but when has sense had anything to do with it? Follow the money trail, I say, and you will find out why the war on drugs had to fail. The only way to curb drug use is to alter the state in which much of the world lives. That's not a very money making proposition, and isn't that the name of the game?
The cost of the WOD includes the violence, the profiteering, lots of other crime (to buy and protect drugs), and the cost of misallocating resources which might be applied to other needs. It is an abysmal failure. We are in denial about drugs, and our drug policy is like the policies in old Hollywood to protect the reputation of stars.
We need to learn that coercion is not something which ultimately works well, and to use other means of approaching problems. Maybe something like accept the problem and treat the addicted and afflicted instead of throwing the military (or something like it with a different name) at the problem. Marijuana is a narcotic only in the imagination of some law makers. Let's see how it really stacks up -- and other drugs as well -- against legal pharceuticals and alcohol, as well as consider the whole cost of our current policy instead of something more humane, especially as to our returning vets. Screaming names and shiboleths does not help.
Cumulatively, refined SUGAR is worse for the people of this country, and for that matter, the world, than any recreational psycho-tropic substance.
freedom-biscuits has it right.
If drugs were legalized but controlled like liquor there would be fewer addicts because there would not be any pushers; there would be fewer crimes both violent and property; there would be a need for fewer police and prisons and court time which would mean lower taxes; and property insurance rates would go down because of fewer property crimes.
Obviously all of these things are bad for business therefore people have to put up with the governments support for this crime industry.
I believe that if there were some kind of sanctioned and safe sacro-secular form of initiatory practices/processes (i.e. yoga, meditation, wilderness survival, full immersion in foreign countries, Yes, even psychotropic substances) with the intention of fostering greater awareness and respect for self and others (and ultimately a healthy and holistic understanding of world/self) We would see far, far less abusive behavior. Not merely substance abuse, but emotional abuse, violence, etc..
I'm aware that this concept presents somewhat of a slippery slope. But should we be satisfied with the only two mainstream forms of initiation our culture currently subscribes to, Public Schools, and Parties...?
My main point is that not enough kids have access to this kind of knowledge and they should have someone to talk to and give them the lowdown when they're old enough to really know what's up.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
LEGALIZE ALL PLANTS!..LEGALIZE NATURE!..For goodness sakes you can't even get 'high' off hemp!(food,fiber,clothing,replace toxic fiberglass & plastic)..Hey Obama, you can cut the DEA's budget, all the State's Prison's budgets, and even make the Treasury BILLIONS off the taxes...This is a social justice & SMALL FARMERS RIGHTS ISSUE!
Here is an excerpt about 'Natural Law' from the Universal Life Church
in Modesto. I am a Reverend with ULC and utilize their well organized
online information about questions regarding Religion.
You can find the following excerpt on their web page:
http://www.themonastery.org/index.php?destination=guide_to_divinity
"Natural Law is the concept that life forms have a certain function and
purpose. When beings live according to their scientifically evident purpose
then nature generates benefit; when life is artificially forced into non-functional,
illogical roles then nature generates problems.
Natural Law asserts that humankind has inherent in its very design, as
evidenced by its very existence, certain inalienable and God-given rights.
These rights can be readily determined by assessment of actions for harm
and benefit; if a certain action is beneficial to a person, and if that action
causes no harm to others, then execution of that action should be an
inherent right associated with human existence."
That is basically the reason why we are in dire straits right now. Religious
people, politicians, government employees, cops and specifically Judges
need to look at the last paragraph.
The US is obsessed with regulations, restrictions, limitations, subsequent law
'enforcement', imprisonment and punishment. Time to wake up from this
'Nightmare on Main Street' for more than one good reason.
If You ain't free to do what You like to do without harming
or hurting others, You have no Freedom at all.
May All Beings Be Blessed.
No Restrictions Or Limitations Shall Apply.
RE-LEGALIZE all drugs. Prohibition is a proven and unconstitutional failure. One aspect of the drug war is that hundreds of millions of dying and suffering human beings globally cannot obtain opiate pain relief. In this country there are 78 million chronic pain patients alone, the government is continuing to restrict access to medications and put pain treating physicians in prison on drug trafficking charges by the thousands. The DEA regulates medicine in this country empowered by the DOJ using the Controlled Substances Act, the CSA must be struck down in order to end the drug war and get medicine out of the hands of federal law enforcement.
"The article mentioned 120 deaths nationwide over the past three years attributed to OxyContin abuse. However, when experts examine the coroners' records in those cases, very few of those deaths can be definitively attributed to OxyContin abuse. Compare this to the over 6,000,000 prescriptions for OxyContin written last year. Since opioid prescriptions must be written monthly, those 6,000,000+ prescriptions represent over 500,000 patients prescribed this medication last year. An average of 40 deaths per year, even if true, represents a miniscule percentage (0.008%) of the prescriptions dispensed. To allow the illegal activities of so few individuals to deny a valuable medication to those who so need it smacks of throwing the baby out with the bath water."
Robert Twillman, Ph.D.
President, Kansas Pain Initiative
Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
University of Kansas School of Medicine
Kansas City, Kansas
The government cannot EVER win this drug war, so now they have turned on the captured audience of physicians and the suffering/dying. People are dying from under-treated chronic pain which is a legitimate nuero degenerative disease.
The Pain Relief Network is prepating to sue the federal government at the Supreme Court with their "Constitutional Claim on Behalf of Americans in Pain." Effectively striking down the CSA. Support your constitutional rights, support the end of the drug war, support the Pain Relief Network.
Remember our wounded Veterans, our elderly, our AIDS patients, our children dying of cancer and every other pain group. And please remember we are all but a car crash or catastrophic diagnosis away from being a despized citizen because we need these medications/drugs.
The War on Drugs is a price support mechanism. If you read about clandestine organizations like the CIA and their involvement in illegal drug trade, then you will understand that the money derived from illegal drugs is a funding source for clandestine activities that do not enjoy congressional oversight.
Judge Bonner, the former head of the DEA stated that the CIA was dealing drugs:
"In 1993, CBS 60 Minutes broadcast The CIA’s Cocaine. The former head of the DEA, Judge Robert Bonner, told correspondent Mike Wallace that the CIA had an unauthorized operation to bring drugs into the U.S. “If this has not been approved by DEA or an appropriate law-enforcement authority in the United States,” Bonner said, “then it’s illegal. It’s called drug trafficking.”
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3745.shtml
Remember the Iran Contra days of the late 1980's? Oliver North was declared persona non grata by Oscar Arias of Honduras because of his drug related activities. I believe North's diary entry actually mentions coca paste deliveries. The funny thing about Iran Contra is that the main stream press never mentioned that the planes coming back to the United States from Central America were loaded with cocaine.
If you want to learn more about the connection between the CIA and illegal drugs, then please visit Daniel Hopsicker's website:
www.madcowprod.com
and look at this video trailer:
http://www.madcowprod.com/nadlvideo.html
The War on Drugs is a price support mechanism. If you read about clandestine organizations like the CIA and their involvement in illegal drug trade, then you will understand that the money derived from illegal drugs is a funding source for clandestine activities that do not enjoy congressional oversight.
Judge Bonner, the former head of the DEA stated that the CIA was dealing drugs:
"In 1993, CBS 60 Minutes broadcast The CIA’s Cocaine. The former head of the DEA, Judge Robert Bonner, told correspondent Mike Wallace that the CIA had an unauthorized operation to bring drugs into the U.S. “If this has not been approved by DEA or an appropriate law-enforcement authority in the United States,” Bonner said, “then it’s illegal. It’s called drug trafficking.”
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3745.shtml
Remember the Iran Contra days of the late 1980's? Oliver North was declared persona non grata by Oscar Arias of Honduras because of his drug related activities. I believe North's diary entry actually mentions coca paste deliveries. The funny thing about Iran Contra is that the main stream press never mentioned that the planes coming back to the United States from Central America were loaded with cocaine.
If you want to learn more about the connection between the CIA and illegal drugs, then please visit Daniel Hopsicker's website:
www.madcowprod.com
and look at this video trailer:
http://www.madcowprod.com/nadlvideo.html
I would like to add some info to MCURB' s message. Oscar Arias is not from Honduras, he is the current president and former president of Costa Rica. He was
given the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Contra war in Nicaragua. He was president of Costa Rica during the Iran/Contra ordeal.
Costa Rica allowed the US to build a runway to land the Contra supply planes in its
northwestern province of Guanacaste. This runway is just a mile or two from the Nicaraguan border with Costa Rica and now has been converted into an international
airport known as the Daniel Orbeter airport.
After the US began using the runway to supply the Contra's, President Arias and the
Costa Rican legislature began hearing rumors that the CIA planes were being loaded
with cocaine before returning to the US (LA, California area where some very large
crack cocaine dealers, now imprisoned, have stated that their very large supply of cocaine came from a Contra).
"The legislature concluded that the Nicaraguan Contra resupply network in Costa Rica that North coordinated from the White House doubled as a drug smuggling
operation" (this is from AM Costa Rica archives, available online as an English
language Costa Rican newspaper, titled "Arias government will begin facing divisions" published March 8, 2006).
The article further states:
"Arias also was the Costa Rican president who kicked the U.S. ambassador and the
U.S. station chief out of the country. That was in July 1989 when Arias issued a
directive barring Oliver North, President Ronald Reagan's counter-terrorism
coordinator, and others from Costa Rica forever. He took the step after the
Asamblea Legislativa voted overwhelmingly for the measure."
"In addition to North, those barred from entering the country were Maj. Gen. Richard Secord; John Poindexter, the former national security adviser; Lewis
Arthur Tambs, then the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica; and the former C.I.A.
director in Costa Rica, Joseph Fernandez."
Of further note to US citizens, a Pulitizer Prize winning American author wrote
of these things and mysteriously "committed suicide" after returning to the US.
(the case was very similar the the DC madam's suicide).
If these things haven't interested you yet, consider censorship of the US press.
The article further states:
"The presidential action (barring these people from Costa Rica forever) was not
widely publicized in the United States".
I'll bet that very few Americans have ever heard any of this.