MR GEORGE SOROS: SPONSOR OF OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE LETTER URGES UN TO
RECONSIDER DRUG WAR

The global war on drugs "is causing more harm than drug abuse itself", the
UN Secretary-General has been warned by international judges, senior
politicians and other dignitaries.

In a letter being delivered today to Mr Kofi Annan, on the eve of the
opening of a UN General Assembly session on drugs, the group calls for an
end to anti-drugs policies which have cost billions of pounds but achieved
little.

"Persisting in our current policies will only result in more drugs abuse,
more empowerment of drug markets and criminals, and more disease and
suffering," the letter reads.

Among the thousands of international signatories are the former UN
secretary-general, Mr Javier Perez de Cuellar; the former prime minister of
the Netherlands, Mr Andreas Van Agt; the European Commissioner for
Humanitarian Affairs, Mrs Emma Bonino; the former presidents of Bolivia and
Colombia; writers Ariel Dorfman and Dario Fo; and philosopher Ivan Illich.

The Irish signatories include Prof Ivana Bacik, criminal law professor at
Trinity College Dublin; Mr Tim Murphy, law lecturer at UCC; legalise
cannabis campaigner Mr Olaf Paul Tyransen; and journalist Mr Vincent Browne.

The signing of what will be the largest international call for a
reappraisal of drugs policies has been co-ordinated by the Lindesmith
Centre, a project of the Open Society Institute sponsored by the
international financier, Mr George Soros.

The letter says the UN has a legitimate and important role to play in
combating the harms associated with drugs, "but only if it is willing to
ask and address tough questions about the success or failure of its efforts".

It asks bluntly what drug war policies have achieved to date.

"Every decade the United Nations adopts new international conventions,
focused largely on criminalisation and punishment, that restrict the
ability of individual nations to devise effective solutions to local drug
problems. Every year governments enact more punitive and costly drug
control measures. Every day politicians endorse harsher new drug war
strategies.

"UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug
industry at $400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly 8 per cent of total
international trade. This industry has empowered organised criminals,
corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal security, stimulated
violence and distorted both economic markets and moral values. These are
the consequences not of drug use per se, but of decades of failed and
futile drug war policies."

It says that in many parts of the world "drug war policies impede public
health efforts to stem the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other infectious
diseases. Human rights are violated, environmental assaults perpetrated and
prisons inundated with hundreds of thousands of drug-law violators.

"Scarce resources better expended on health, education and economic
development are squandered on ever more expensive interdiction efforts.
Realistic proposals to reduce drug-related crime, disease and death are
abandoned in favour of rhetorical proposals to create drug-free societies".

In a separate statement, the Lindesmith Centre compared favourably the
Dutch approach to drugs to the US's repressive policies. It said fewer
people smoked marijuana or used heroin in the Netherlands despite spending
less on drug enforcement.

The centre, established in 1994, has called for a move towards
harm-reduction policies like syringe exchanges, although it has stopped
short of urging the decriminalisation of drugs.

The letter concludes by calling on Mr Annan to initiate "a truly open and
honest dialogue . . . one in which fear, prejudice and punitive
prohibitions yield to common sense, science, public health and human rights".

© Copyright: The Irish Times

Checked-by: Richard Lake