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 totalled 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 the Second
World War.

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 guerrillas who want to control drug money to fight for the
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.

These are some of the options explored in a series of essays on the drug
war recently issued by the Fraser Institute and available for free on the
website, http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/publications/books/drug_papers/.

Any change of domestic drug policy should be married to supply policies to
undercut criminal gangs in drug-growing and trans-shipment 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 the developed world, and lives and nations in the
developing world.