VIENNA: UN REAFFIRMS PROHIBITIONIST PATH

Cracks Appear in the Consensus As Clamor for Change Grows

The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (UNCND) midterm
meeting in Vienna to review the ten-year anti-drug strategy adopted in
1998 has come to an end, with the UN narcocrats reaffirming the
prohibitionist path laid out in a series of UN treaties beginning in
1961. Taking their cue from the country & western song, "Who Are You
Going to Believe -- Me or Your Lying Eyes?" the UN anti-drug agencies
concluded that all is well and the world is firmly on the way to
meeting the UN goal of substantially reducing all drug crops and
eliminating drug use by 2008. Still, for the first time, the global
prohibitionists encountered significant opposition, not only from drug
reformers (or the "legalizer" crowd, as the UN puts it), but from
within the governments of some of the countries it has criticized for
undertaking even timid half-steps to reform the drug laws, and even
within its own ranks.

Despite the presence of internal dissent, hard reform lobbying by
European and international non-governmental organizations and street
protests, the 145 national delegations in attendance ended the
conference on April 18 by reaffirming their commitment to
prohibitionist policies based on those of the United States and
adopting resolutions designed to heighten anti-drug repressive measures.

In their Joint Statement, the delegates also expressed concern over
"threats posed by continuing links between illicit drug trafficking
and terrorism and other... criminal activities, such as trafficking in
human beings."

They also explicitly noted the challenge they face from reformers,
with the UNCND expressing "grave concern about policies and activities
in favor of the legalization of illicit narcotic drugs and
psychotropic substances that were not in accordance with the
international drug control treaties and that might jeopardize the
international drug control regime."

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, sounded
a similar theme in his address to delegates two days earlier.

Noting the presence of dissenters both within and without the
conference hall, Costa welcomed "their presence as we are always happy
to help them understand that laissez faire in self-destruction is not
a solution."

And so did the head of the US delegation, Under Secretary of State for
Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky. "We must resist calls for lenient
drug consumption policies," she told delegates. "We know that these
policies fail to sustain our important efforts as represented by the
international narcotics conventions."

The prohibitionists were emboldened by the delivery of a purported 1.3
million signatures supporting drug prohibition gathered and presented
by Swedish arch-prohibitionists the Hasselas Nordic Network
(http://www.hnnsweden.com). Who the purported signatories are remains
a mystery, though, as the Hasselas web page promising to list them
contains only the message that "the list of signatories will be
updated monthly."

But while Costa and the delegates painted a rosy picture of success,
even he had to admit that much "unfinished business" remains.

Overall coca production is down, he said, while noting that it is on
the increase in Bolivia and Peru. Opium production is down, he said,
while noting that it is on the increase in Afghanistan. Cocaine
consumption is decreasing in the United States and Western Europe, he
said, while noting it is increasing in Russia and along trafficking
routes.

And cannabis consumption and production not only remains intractable,
he complained, it is "by stealth infiltrating our minds and our
society in terms of acceptance." Worse yet in Costa's view, it is
increasingly viewed as a soft drug. And then there Costa's new "Public
Enemy #1," synthetics such as MDMA (ecstasy) and methamphetamines.
"The stuff is produced everywhere in the world, in hard-to-detect
mom-and-pop shops, and also in mafia-run undertakings capable of
producing millions of doses," he said.

But while Costa, the UNCND and prohibitionists worldwide pronounced
themselves satisfied with intensifying current repressive policies,
the clamor for change was louder than ever before.

Even as the narcocrats and ministers met, drug war critics launched a
public assault on prohibition.

"The war on drugs cannot be won because it is a war on human nature,"
Sir Keith Morris, former British Ambassador to Colombia, told an April
17 news conference called to highlight opposition to current policies
and demand the revision or repeal of international drug treaties
during a meeting in Vienna of UN anti-drugs agencies. "History shows
that no society ever existed which was 'drug-free.'"

Joining Morris at the press event was Marco Cappato, an Italian member
of the European Parliament, coordinator of Parliamentarians for
Anti-Prohibitionist Action, and official of the International
Anti-Prohibitionist League (IAL), an affiliate of the Transnational
Radical Party. "In the five years since the UN launched its war on
drugs, the numbers show the use of all the major drugs has
increased... as well as drug-related deaths from overdose and
HIV/AIDS," said Cappato. Prohibition only benefited terrorists and
organized crime, Cappato said, adding that a European Parliament vote
calling for more civilized drug policies in the EU lost by only one
vote. Cappato's IAL released a Counter Report to the UN's World Drug
Report, shedding light on the data behindg INCB's claimed successes.

Cappato and Morris were joined by a plethora of reform groups in the
International Coalition of NGOs for Just and Effective Drug Policies
(http://www.encod.org), as well as think tanks like George Soros' Open
Society Institute, the European Drug Policy Fund, and the
Holland-based Transnational Institute in launching attacks both on
prohibitionism and on the UN's continuing commitment to its current
prohibitionist path. "This strategy has failed," the European Drug
Policy Fund said in a statement. "Far from making progress toward the
goal of a 'drug-free world by 2008,' drug consumption is in effect on
the rise in both industrial and developing countries, as are
drug-related crime and other social ill-effects. After years of
continuous setbacks, and with billions of dollars spent on destroying
crops and putting people in jail, it is now time to look at more
promising alternatives," the statement said.

"The outcomes of this 46th CND session and the midterm review are most
disappointing," pronounced the Transnational Institute, accusing
delegations of failing to engage in honest analysis of the results of
current policy. "The result is a distorted picture of virtual progress
in order to justify staying on the same course.

The illusion is kept alive that reality will somehow fall into line
with wishful thinking."

Britain's Transform Drug Policy Institute also expressed its
disappointment. "This meeting has clearly been a missed opportunity,"
said Institute spokesman Steve Rolles. "What should be a gathering of
experts to facilitate the development of effective responses to the
global drug problem has instead become a futile restatement of
counterproductive policies and unrealistic pledges.

As the world drug problem continues to spiral out of control, we are
forced to watch the ludicrous spectacle of the CND self-righteously
proclaiming that everything is getting better," he said. "The UN drug
control agencies and UN drug treaties are aligned to US 'war on drugs'
ideology that has been complete disaster everywhere it has been tried.

UN drug agencies are so extreme that they are now even condemning
'lenient' countries, including the UK, for developing health based
harm reduction policies, despite compelling evidence that such
interventions are highly effective.

It is bizarre that the UK, hardly a cheerleader for the drug policy
revolution, is being singled out for criticism on the basis of a minor
legislative tweak to cannabis policing."

But the UN's "bizarre" attack on even marginal drug reforms may be a
blessing in disguise for reformers. "The International Narcotics
Control Board [part of the UN narcocracy] has discredited itself by
condemning the democratic path some countries have taken," concluded
the Transnational Institute. "The legitimacy of the Board itself is at
stake.

Instead of trying to accommodate the pragmatic and evidence-based
policy developments, the INCB is taking a collision course with
several countries.

Policy differences have always existed, but now the divergence has led
to cracks in the Vienna consensus."

The attack on British cannabis decrim did just, that according to an
ENCOD report on the conference. The British delegation to the
conference conducted a "robust defense" of British cannabis policy,
with leader Bob Ainsworth laying out the scientific basis for
reclassifying cannabis downward and objecting strongly to earlier
"alarmist" comments by INCB president Phillip Emafo. Emafo would not
reply, ENCOD reported, except to reiterate his objections.

Meanwhile, the INCB was raising German hackles for criticizing
Germany's use of safe injection rooms.

Marion Caspers-Merk, the German parliamentary secretary of state for
drugs, not only strongly argued that Germany's interpretation of the
UN conventions allowed for such practices, but also issued a press
statement calling for a balanced, realistic and flexible international
drug policy.

Such events have begun to cause dissent even within the ranks of the
INCB, ENCOD reported.

According to the NGO group, members of the INCB council
expressed such dissent by attending meetings of the alternative summit
organized by ENCOD and others, as well as refusing to publicly back
anti-harm reduction statements made by Emafo. Dissent also surfaced in a
document prepared by the Legal Affairs Section of the UN Office on Drugs
and Crime, which criticized the conventions' lack of flexibility to allow
for harm reduction measures such as safe injection rooms. [Ed: It may be
only the INCB's interpretation of the conventions that lacks the
flexibility to accommodate harm reduction policies; a number of countries
and many experts have disputed INCB's contention that the treaties preclude
them.]

The dissent also took to the streets, as several thousand
anti-prohibitionist protesters marched across the Danube, releasing
hundreds of balloons filled with cannabis, coca and poppy seeds,
before settling into the alternative conference at Vienna University.

Ministers and delegates were unswayed this year, but if the dissenters
failed to change global drug policy in Vienna, they have at least
moved into the mainstream. With a host of European governments
increasingly sympathetic to a revised drug policy, with pressure
mounting for similar change in Latin America, and with at least some
of the UN narcocracy started to pay attention to the rising clamor,
Vienna 2003 may well mark the end of the uncontested reign of the
global prohibitionists.

For further information, visit:

http://www.antiprohibitionist.org http://www.vienna2003.org
http://www.encod.org http://www.tdpi.org.uk http://www.tni.org/drugs