The war on drugs: prohibition revisited

The letter was remarkable for its wisdom, good sense, knowledge of the world, practicality and compassion. Even more distinguished were the hundreds of signatures accompanying the letter. They supplied only a portion of the many more who signed.

The signatories represent the best and the brightest, the leaders and innovators, the finest minds and deepest thinkers not only of the United States but of the world. Their range of accomplishment, interest, political/social/economic/religious affiliations cover the entire spectrum.

Among them are educators, physicians, statesmen, politicians (the latter two are not the same thing), business leaders, scientists, Nobel prize winners, Olympic gold medal winners, journalists, publishers, artists, writers, judges, lawyers, entertainers, police officers and chiefs, economists, criminologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, activists, and others, all of whom have looked hard at the business and use of illicit drugs and their consequences to the world.

Their conclusion can be summed up in one sentence from the letter to Annan: "We believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself."

The prescribed cure is worse than the consequences of the disease.

This has been obvious for some time.

The letter points out that "U.N. agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly 8 percent of total international trade. This industry has empowered organized criminals, corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal security, stimulated violence, and distorted both economic markets and moral values.

These are the consequences not of drug use per se, but of decades of failed and futile drug war policies."

The letter called on the Secretary General "to initiate a truly open and honest dialogue regarding the future of global war control policies—one in which fear, prejudice and punitive prohibitions yield to common sense, science, public health and human rights."

Those who signed this plea for common sense and wisdom to be included in human action include Walter Cronkite, Alan Cranston, Joycelyn Elders, Willie Brown, Stephen Jay Gould, Lani Guinier, Nicholas Katzenbach, Clairborne Pell, Laurance Rockefeller, George Shulz, George Soros, Andrew Weil, Jann Wenner, Oscar Arias, Gunter Grass, Ivan Illich, Anita Roddick, Javier Perez de Cuellar and many others.

None of these people can be described as radical, ignorant, naïve, nor living on the fringes of society.

Their letter emphasizes that "In many parts of the world, drug war politics impede public health efforts to stem the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other infectious diseases. Human rights are violated, environmental assaults perpetrated and prisons inundated with hundreds of thousands of drug law violators. Scarce resources better expended on health, education and economic development are squandered on ever more expensive interdiction efforts. Realistic proposals to reduce drug-related crime, disease and death are abandoned in favor of rhetorical proposals to create drug-free societies."

There are no drug-free societies. So far as I know, there has never been a drug-free society. The human condition being what it is, none are likely in the foreseeable future.

The personal use of the two primary socially accepted, non-prescription drugs prevalent in most modern societies, alcohol and nicotine, cause more death, illness, disease, heartache, social upheaval, personal disassociation and violence than all of the illegal drugs targeted by the war on drugs combined. There is also an engorgement of legal prescriptive drugs used in abundance by our society.

To point out the enormity of the business of producing, supplying and prescribing these legal drugs, as well as the large numbers of people who are addicted to them, is only to underscore a public reality with baleful consequences for society.

Even if the ‘war on drugs’ were somehow successful, which it cannot be, there will not be a drug-free society. This reality is a key point to any ‘open and honest dialogue’ regarding the threat that drugs pose to society.

Earlier in this century the United States experimented with prohibition. It, like the current war on drugs, failed spectacularly.