DRUG WAR CHARADE
Let's Trade This 'Zero Tolerance' Talk For A More Realistic
Harm-Reduction Approach

This week's meeting in Washington of drug czars from throughout the
Americas represents merely the latest charade in the ongoing war on
drugs. Year after year, decade after decade, governments announce
their latest drug control strategies, sign the latest bilateral and
multilateral agreements and proclaim that the light at the end of the
tunnel is brighter than ever.

Yes, say the Latin Americans, we will step up our efforts to reduce
the production and export of illicit drugs to consumers in other parts
of the world. Yes, say the North Americans, we will step up our
efforts to reduce the demand for illicit drugs in our countries.

Isn't anyone getting tired of the same old lines, the same old
strategies, the same old promises? How many more billions of dollars
do we want to pour down this sinkhole? How much more corruption can we
tolerate? How many more people must die? Who really wants to see U.S.
soldiers wandering around Latin America in search of anyone who might
have anything to do with coca or opium or marijuana?

What's needed are new strategies based upon honest and realistic
assumptions. Let's start by dropping the "zero tolerance" rhetoric and
policies and the illusory goal of drug-free societies. Accept that
drug use is here to stay and that we have no choice but to learn to
live with drugs so that they cause the least possible harm.

Recognize that many, perhaps most, "drug problems" in the Americas are
the results not of drug use per se but of our prohibitionist policies:
the violence, the corruption, the vast underground markets, the
diversion of ever increasing resources to criminal justice and
military agencies, the environmental harms of crop eradication
programs and unregulated illicit crop production, the enrichment and
empowerment of organized and unorganized criminals, and so much more.
Drug abuse presents serious challenges in all our societies, but our
prohibitionist approaches have proven remarkably ineffective, costly
and counterproductive.

Pointing to the harms that flow from our prohibitionist policies is
not the same as advocating drug legalization, however. The more
sensible and realistic approach today would be one based on the
principles of "harm reduction." It's a policy that seeks to reduce the
negative consequences of both drug use and drug prohibition,
acknowledging that both are likely to persist for the foreseeable future.

What does "harm reduction" mean in practice? First, that adults who
consume drugs without putting others in harm's way are not the
government's business, whether their drug is marijuana, coca, heroin,
ayahuasca, tobacco or alcohol. Second, that those who become addicted
to drugs merit compassion and treatment, not demonization and
incarceration. It makes no difference whether the drug is alcohol or
cocaine; the principle still stands. Third, that our criminal justice
resources are best directed not at nonviolent drug users and sellers
but at violent and other predatory criminals.

"Harm reduction" means designing policies that are likely to do more
good than harm, and trying to anticipate the consequences of new
policy initiatives. With a little foresight, the drug warriors of the
1980s might have realized that their dramatic escalation in
interdiction efforts would reduce marijuana exports from Latin America
and the Caribbean to North America while greatly increasing the
economic attractions of trafficking in cocaine--a much more compact
and hence easily smuggled and more lucrative product. With some
foresight today, drug policymakers might finally grasp that their
relentless efforts to eradicate coca crops have little impact on the
availability, price or use of cocaine anywhere in the world--but do
perpetuate a destructive cycle of environmental harm. Better perhaps
to acknowledge the special role of coca in some Latin American
countries and develop policies and markets based upon coca's great
potential as a relatively benign substance.

"Harm reduction" requires governments to keep public health precepts
and objectives front and center in its drug control policies, and to
banish the racist and xenophobic impulses that stirred prohibitionist
sentiments and laws earlier in this century. Drug prohibition in the
Americas was driven by both elitist contempt for the Indians in Latin
America and comparable fears and contempt for darker skinned
immigrants and citizens in North America. Similar sentiments can be
detected beneath the surface of contemporary drug wars. They are not a
legitimate basis of public policy.

"Harm reduction" means keeping our priorities in order. "fighting
drugs" does not justify transforming civil societies into civil war
zones, or empowering military forces and paramilitary squads, or
putting human rights on the back burner and the rule of law in a
closet. Crusades have no place in democratic societies, yet that is
what the drug war has become.

Our advice to the drug czars meeting here this week: Be honest and
realistic in your discussions. Forget about legalization, but don't
forget to consider options for reducing the harm of both drug use and
drug prohibition.