THE FRASER INSTITUTE: SURRENDER, THE WAR ON DRUGS IS LOST

The war on drugs is lost. We should run up the white flag and make
accommodation with the enemy. Anything other than a defeatist attitude
flies in the face of reality. The war on drugs is the longest war fought by
either Canada or the United States. There have been no successful advances.
If anything, the front line has been retreating over the decades of this
prolonged battle - for every step forward, two steps back. No new
technologies or ideas are available to turn the battle around. For the
United States, if not for Canada, this may be the most expensive war in
history. It's typically been a low level war. Costs in any year would be
well below those for a real war, but added up over the decades, the sum
would be astronomical. The cost in lives, again more in the United States
than Canada, has been horrendous.

I know of no one who has totaled the numbers of deaths from the war on
drugs - fatal overdoses, HIV, other health problems, street fights,
criminal turf battles, and murdered police and civilians. This total might
well be comparable to the number of American deaths in World War II.
Proponents of a dramatic change in drug policy usually focus on
pathological results in Canada and the United States. But there are larger
reasons for ethical policy makers to change course.

The devastation wreaked in poor nations in Latin America and, to a lesser
extent, Asia and the Middle East is the greatest tragedy of the war on
drugs. The poorest peasants of these nations get it every which way. One
day, it might be government herbicide spraying or a government military
operation, both perhaps sponsored by the United States.

Another day, it may a raid by the Marxist guerillas who want to control
drug money to fight for revolution, or maybe a raid by the right-wing
militias, who want drug money to fight against the revolution. And all
these groups have been corrupted by the war on drugs. Riches from drugs
have transformed Marxist revolutionaries and right-wing militias into
criminal gangs willing to victimize anyone or adopt any convenient ideology
to keep the drug money coming.

The same riches can transform governments into criminal organizations.
Police and military, or at least units of both, too often become little
more than independent drug gangs. The police and justice systems can become
protection rackets that extend right up to the top level of government.
Agriculture - the key industry in many developing nations - becomes yet
another casualty of the drug war. So what would surrender in the drug war
look like? It won't be unconditional. There will remain restrictions on
drug use, and some drugs may remain banned altogether.

The options are wide, from harm reduction to medicalization to
decriminalization to legalization. Very simply, harm reduction would change
the focus from policing to mitigating the negative effects of drug use
through policies that, for example, focus on addiction treatment.
Medicalization would allow addicts to get drugs with a prescription from a
doctor.

Decriminalization would remove possession of drugs, but not necessarily
trafficking, from the criminal code. Possession might be subject to fines,
however. Legalization is what its name implies, though heavy taxes,
restrictions and regulations might be applied to drugs as they are now to
alcohol.

Any change of domestic drug policy should be married to supply policies to
undercut criminal gangs in drug growing and transshipment nations. Perhaps,
the United States and Canada could develop domestic sources of supply or
allow legal drug imports.

With so many potentially successful alternatives to the failed drug war, it
would be criminal for policy makers not to take notice. The war on drugs is
destroying lives in developed world, and lives and nations in the
developing world.