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CAN the "War on Drugs" ever be won? History is not encouraging -- nor
is the latest United Nations report on the state of hostilities.

The lessons are particularly depressing for Afghanistan and for the
role that Britain has shouldered there. The best news is that use of
heroin and cocaine is dropping in the US and some other countries.
But their place has been taken by pharmaceutical and prescription
drugs, made in developed countries, traded over the Internet and
delivered by post.

The most threatening "pandemic", warns Hamid Ghodse, President of the
International Narcotics Control Board (ICRB), is of "crystal meth",
an addictive drug popular among clubbers and gay men.

There are not many success stories in this "war", as US politicians
call it, an expensive assault stretching back over more than 30 years.

Only five stand out. Most opium production has been driven out of
Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, and cocaine from Bolivia and Peru. That's
about it, however, for all the billions of dollars spent. It is right
to ask whether the tactics are wrong.

That is the central question posed by this year's survey from the
ICRB. The Board has the job of reporting to the UN on countries'
compliance with drug control treaties.

It is at the lower end of influence of UN agencies and boards, it can
probably be said. Countries' policies are firmly rooted in national
politics; the Board disapproved of Britain's decision to downgrade
the seriousness of cannabis, with zero discernible impact.

But its annual report does provide a good, tough assessment of trends
in the world's use of banned substances -- and of which policies work
or fail. If the US displays first the pattern which Europe tends to
follow, then there are a few encouraging signs. The report notes a
decline in the use of cannabis, cocaine and Ecstasy in the US,
"particularly among adolescents and youth".

But it adds that this "is partly counteracted by an increase in the
abuse of prescription drugs, in particular painkillers, among young
adults" -- and of crystal meth. The use of Internet-based pharmacies
is soaring, it says. The overall use of drugs in the US is still very
high. A little under 8 per cent of people aged 12 and over have used
drugs in the past month.

Any hope in the report is eclipsed by the pessmism on the old problem
of illegal crops in poor and lawless countries.

In Afghanistan, the report notes, opium production in 2005 was
thought to be about 4,100 tons, "only 100 tons less than the record
harvest of 2004". It says that opium is "among the greatest threats
to establishment of the rule of law and effective governance" and
that it generates over half the Afghan national income.

No one could argue with that, least of all Britain, which has just
committed thousands of troops to Helmand province, the heart of the
Afghan heroin factory. The controversy lies in what to do.

The Board will not make itself popular -- or more influential -- with
its advice. It criticises the "simplistic model" of "crop
substitution", the aim of anti-drug efforts for 30 years (and of
Britain's policy in Afghanistan). This is the hope that if you give
farmers an alternative crop, which yields at least as much income,
then they will give up the illegal one.

"Unfortunately, experience has shown that this narrow and mechanical
approach has not been very effective", it says.

That is true. But the Board's recommendation is too vague for the
real world of budgets and troops. It wants to see "alternative
development" of the country to provide "holistic legitimate
alternatives to people". The drug war should be fought "in the
context of sustainable development efforts and within the framework
of a comprehensive solution."

Countries will rightly object to this, not just because of the
jargon, but because it gives no guidance on where to start. Yes,
development will help wean farmers off illegal crops. But as the
taste for prescription drugs in Western Europe and the US has shown,
development does not stop people using drugs -- or making them.

Report of the ICRB for 2005 available at www.incb.org