Learning to Live With Drugs

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.