TIME TO PROHIBIT DRUGS PROHIBITION

Nubia Legarda is a young woman from El Paso, Texas and Students for
Sensible Drug Policy member. Just one year ago, she gave evidence to
her city council urging them to pass a resolution on the violence in
the Mexican border city of Juarez, and to promote a national debate
over drug legalisation. While the resolution was initially passed, a
number of representatives changed their minds after receiving pressure
from the federal government, fearing that funding to the city would be
cut in the event it passed.

Nubia has been unable to visit family in Juarez out of fear for the
violence that is a daily feature of life there. She is just one of
millions of young people around the world whose lives have been caught
up in the war on drugs.

Last Thursday, people around the world lit candles to remember 16
young people who were murdered at a student house party in Juarez.
They were celebrating when gunmen drove up to their house and opened
fire on their victims. It is suspected they mistook the address for
that of a rival drugs gang.

Last week, the El Paso city council passed a resolution to condemn the
gang violence in Juarez, calling for a presidential summit on the drug
war. Deleted from that motion again was a paragraph calling for the
legalised regulation of cannabis by the US government. Clearly, the
elimination of a major source of income from the cartels through
regulation of sales would remove much of the profit incentive for
impoverished but unscrupulous individuals to risk their lives and
liberty by getting involved in a dangerous criminal empire, the
product of global drug prohibition.

The tragic irony of this situation is that while prohibitionist drug
laws are lauded as necessary to protect young people, they do the
exact opposite. Speaking as someone who has attended secondary school
in the past ten years, I can say it is an open secret that drugs are
on sale in every secondary school in, for instance, London. Drug
dealers do not ask for proof of ID. All the more concerning is that
young people here get caught up in the same criminal culture, because
of prohibition.

Opponents of anything other than the status quo will often claim that
the removal of criminal penalties for possession and the regulation of
the supply of currently criminalised drugs would "normalise" the use
of drugs among young people. This is in the face of evidence that
harsh drug laws do not lead to lower levels of use. After all, the
United States, which has the highest prison population per capita in
the world, the majority of whom are non-violent drug offenders, has
higher levels of drug use than the Netherlands, even with its famously
liberal drug laws.

Media hysteria, political posturing and lack of evidence lead the
debate on drugs. Unless we can address the issue from the perspective
of the welfare and rights of young people, drugs will continue to
blight and cost lives - both in the UK, in Mexico, and worldwide.