UN PUSHES HARM REDUCTION MODEL

Critics of the war on drugs can take a small amount of comfort in the
United Nations' annual World Drug Report, which was released last week.

The 300-plus page document is a detailed evaluation of the global war
on drugs, assessing how much is being produced and by whom, who's
using it and what's being done to stop it.

The report also contains a lengthy defence of continuing the
century-long war, though the authors acknowledge that it's one that
can never be won.

"Oddly, of all the areas of international cooperation, drug control
is uniquely subject to calls that the struggle should be abandoned.

"Despite equally mixed results in international interventions, no one
advocates accepting poverty or war as inevitable," the authors argue,
missing the point that those things don't involve average citizens'
personal choice.

However, they also acknowledge the "serious and concerned group of
academics and civil society organizations who feel the present system
causes more harm than good."

That's why the UN advocates continued enforcement, but also calls for
more compassion.

The drug trade is fuelled by poverty and addiction.

Most of the people involved in cocaine production, for example, are dirt poor.

Most of the world's coca, the plant it comes from, is grown in
northwestern South America, where rural peasants live on as little as $2 a day.

For them, the drug trade is means of survival.

Likewise for farmers in Afghanistan, where more than 90% of the
world's opium poppies are grown.

The UN also asserts that the backbone of the illegal drug market is
the 40 million or so chronic addicts around the globe, who in too
many countries are treated like criminals for what is essentially a
health problem.

Among the report's recommendations is to find ways to find
alternatives for poverty-stricken farmers in drug-producing countries
and better, more easily accessible addiction treatment for drug consumers.

Punishing them simply won't work, it says.

"A common thread throughout the proposals is the need to integrate
the marginalized individuals, areas and nations that cultivate,
consume and distribute drugs," the authors say. "These people need to
be brought in, not pushed down."

The report contends that real criminals in the drug trade are the
middlemen - the cartels who distribute the illegal narcotics.

The people at the ends of the business chain are victims, and
governments and law enforcement must acknowledge this.

As the UN puts it, "it is incumbent on the international community to
ensure that no one is faced with impossible choices."