ENDING THE 'WAR ON DRUGS'

Vancouver in British Columbia, Ciudad Juarez in northern Mexico and
Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan are unlikely cousins. But
together these three places and their ilk have wrought a remarkable
change in one of the world's most important debates over the past two years.

For decades, the idea of legalizing narcotics was supported by only a
small minority. But as global markets in illicit drugs have expanded
exponentially since the early 1990s, policy makers and law
enforcement agencies alike have been overwhelmed by the challenge
posed by the prohibition of a long list of drugs. Markets have spread
to places that for decades had no significant drug problem, like
China and Indonesia, while the numbers of addicts in countries like
Iran have grown hugely.

Two significant developments are contributing to the sudden surge in
calls for reconsidering prohibition. The first is that drugs are now
damaging long-term Western security interests, especially in
Afghanistan and Mexico. The second is that production is migrating
away from its traditional homes like Colombia and the Golden Triangle
and moving into the heart of Western consumer areas like Canada, the
Netherlands and Britain.

The problem is becoming so dramatic that elder statesmen, senior law
enforcement officers, intellectuals and philanthropists the world
over are speaking out loud and clear: The "War on Drugs" is a
disastrous policy that achieves none of its aims and inflicts huge
damage on global security and governance wherever it is prosecuted.

They argue that state regulation of the drug market would reduce the
health and social risks posed by narcotics and generate huge tax
revenues, which could be hypothecated to absorb any costs. At the
moment, the vast profits from the illegal drug trade go into the
pockets of organized crime syndicates and terrorist groups.

The most urgent appeals for a rethink have emanated from South
America, where respected figures like the former president of Brazil,
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, have highlighted how the war on drugs has
done nothing to stop the trade in illegal narcotics but has resulted
in tens of thousands of deaths and the perpetuation of ruthless gang
cultures in the most deprived areas of the continent.

Diego Gambetta, an Oxford University criminologist and one of the
world's greatest authorities on the Sicilian Mafia, has spoken out
forcefully for an end to the war on drugs. In the United States, the
most effective group demanding change is Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition, or LEAP, which is made up of current and former police
officers, including erstwhile operatives of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Commentators in Europe and America have highlighted how prohibition
is responsible for the thousands killed in Mexico's cocaine wars. The
United States is being drawn into the violence as Mexican cartels
purchase most of their weapons in Texas and other states.

Most critically, the Taliban in Afghanistan is waging an effective
battle against NATO forces because opium's inflated value, caused by
prohibition, enables the insurgents to purchase hundreds of millions
of dollars of weaponry every year. Worse, the Kabul government that
NATO is propping up is itself riddled with corruption fueled by the
lucrative narcotics trade.

Moreover, is the world going to do nothing as Colombian and
Venezuelan cartels use their immense financial muscle to corrupt and
destroy fragile West African states like Sierra Leone and Liberia by
turning them into a springboard for cocaine exports to Europe? The
cartels already have swept aside stable governance in Guinea Bissau.

There has been no concerted attempt by the Obama administration or
other Western governments to counter the growing sentiment in favor
of drug law reform, although the president himself is on record as
opposing legalization.

I have spoken to countless politicians who agree in private that, as
one of them put it, "in 100 years we may look back and ask what on
earth were we doing by prohibiting narcotics?" But they remain
hesitant to articulate this in public for fear of the opprobrium it will bring.

Supporters of legalization have all but won the moral and
intellectual debate, but they now face the most difficult argument of
all -- the political one. That is unlikely to be won in Washington,
where prohibition continues to enjoy powerful support. But we are
seeing an erosion of the drug-war consensus in countries like
Argentina, Mexico, Portugal and Switzerland -- where drugs either
have been decriminalized or de facto legalized.

Canada faces special pressure -- not only is it one of the world's
major producers of cannabis, but it also has been identified by the
U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime as one of the manufacturing centers
of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy and methamphetamines, supplying
users in the United States and as far away as Australia.

Vancouver has become a global hub, exporting marijuana and
methamphetamines while importing cocaine destined for the United
States and the local market. Drug-related killings have proliferated
during the past 18 months, provoking a sense of crisis. The campaign
for marijuana legalization continues to grow there, garnering support
from politicians around the country.

After 80 years of war on drugs, consumers have easier access to a
greater variety of these products than ever. Prices continue to drop
while the profits of narco-traffickers go up. But -- given the
developments in South America, Europe and Canada -- we are perhaps
for the first time seeing the emergence of a coalition determined to
challenge a policy that generates unimaginable misery year in and year out.