FAILURE OF GLOBAL WAR ON DRUGS NEEDS TO BE DEBATED

An international group with some respected membership is telling us
we've lost the war on drugs.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy says the global war on drugs has
failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies
around the world.

"Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to
articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: The
evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will
not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and
cannot, be won," its report said.

That's strong stuff. While we're not convinced that their conclusion
about the loss of the war on drugs is correct, we are sure that many
leaders and public figures do indeed believe that the war is lost.

And we'd welcome a full discussion of the war, its costs and some
alternatives to waging it.

The commission included former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, former cabinet secretary George Schultz, former presidents of
Mexico, Brazil and Colombia and British business mogul Richard
Branson. Notice that the political folks are all former this and
former that; incumbents in those positions aren't ready to throw in the towel.

And, indeed, the report was dismissed by the Obama administration and
the government of Mexico, now in a violent crackdown on drug cartels
that has resulted in deaths of 38,000 people in Mexico.

The report urges an end to criminalization of drug use, experiments
with legal models that would undermine organized crime and provision
of health and treatment services for drug users.

It raises many questions.

What would happen to drug-use statistics if use were decriminalized?
Would usage increase? What economic models might be employed to
undermine the criminal organizations responsible for growing,
distribution and delivery of drugs? Legal growing and taxation,
perhaps with tax revenues allocated for treatment services? Is it
possible to create and sustain legal supply channels that deliver
drugs at prices low enough - including taxes - to discourage criminal
organizations?

Consider what the war on drugs is costing us, has cost us. According
to an Associated Press article published a year ago, the U.S. was
spending $15.5 billion, $10 billion of that on interdiction and law
enforcement. Over 40 years, our government had spent $20 billion to
fight drug gangs in their home countries, $33 billion for
advertising, $49 billion for border enforcement, $121 billion to
arrest 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, 10 million for
possession of marijuana, and $450 billion for incarceration - just in
federal prisons.

But a government spokesman said statistics show declines in drug use
in the last 30 years, including a 46 percent drop in cocaine use
among young adults in the past five years.

We can t begin to square those disparate statistics.

But we're sure that there are good arguments on both sides.

We'd like to hear them debated.