close reading of the conventions shows that they did allow for a more flexible approach with respect to some minor drug infractions. However, over the years they became a hammer, enforcing a strict criminal justice model and preventing individual nations from adopting public health approaches (or any other alternative approaches).[39] The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), set up by the 1961 convention, has always taken a particularly hard line, endorsing repressive drug policies. The Global Commission on Drug Policy says that “the U.N. drug control system continues to act largely as a straitjacket…. For most of the last century, it has been the U.S. government that has led calls for the development and maintenance of repressive drug policies.”[40] The commission goes on to say that there is “strong institutional resistance” to new ideas within the United Nations.
Only very recently has the international community, represented by the United Nations, started to soften its tone. This is partly because it has begun to admit that the science does not support its punitive approach. For years its representatives tried to massage the message to support its law-and-order stance. For example, in 2002, a scandal erupted at the United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP). The executive director had edited the World Drug Report 2000 to make it appear as if the ODCCP’s policy of suppression by law enforcement was successfully driving illegal drug use down. Research showed that this was not the case. The Global Commission on Drug Policy has said that public leaders need to admit what they know privately: “That 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.”[41]
Yet in 2012, the United Nations report on drugs and crime (World Drug Report 2012) was still making a mighty effort to reconcile its preferred conclusions with the facts on the ground.[42] It repeatedly asserted, against the evidence, that increased enforcement was driving drug production and use down, that illegal drugs were more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, and that most people supported the drug war. It referred to drug “epidemics.” These assertions were offered as justification for continued interdiction and more stringent law enforcement. Unfortunately, they too did not accord with the science and statistics.
The U.N. did admit that traffickers are quick to adapt to increased law enforcement by changing the routes and methods they use to bring drugs north. Western Africa is a new route to Europe, while organized crime is beginning to use containers and airplanes in response to the crackdown on Caribbean and Central American sea and land routes. European markets have also shifted from Colombia to Bolivia and Peru for their supply of cocaine.
Other organizations and nations dedicated to the War on Drugs also do not address the fact that drug lords are always one step ahead of law enforcement, and always will be. There is simply so much money to be made from the illicit market that organized crime can afford equipment and technology that are out of the reach of the average enforcement budget. And traffickers are agile in moving to places where the law has not yet reached, or where it can be readily corrupted.
The U.N. report went on to say that drug use has stabilized worldwide over the past decade, including in Canada, and that marijuana use in the United States has dropped 50 percent from its peak in 1979. After lengthy discussions of marijuana, cocaine, and the opioids, the report admitted that, except for marijuana, the most prevalent type of illegal drug use is none of these. It is, in fact, the non-medical use of (legal) pharmaceuticals.
The report discussed the “direct” costs of illegal drug use (losses in productivity, costs of health care, crime committed by users to obtain the price of their drugs, costs of drug treatment). However, it paid scant attention to the costs of organized crime violence, adulterated and dangerous products, the spread of disease, and other costs that are directly attributable to criminalization and the black market that it creates.
The report predicted the success of the drug war in the future. At the same time, in a baffling display of inconsistency and incoherence, it estimated that the total number of drug users could increase by 25 percent by 2050 (an implicit admission that the enforcement model will not succeed in driving the percentages down). Then it agreed that few people who use an illicit drug one time ever progress to frequent or regular (monthly) use.
If this seems like a collection of self-contradictory statements, it is. Having created confusion around the issue of worldwide drug use, the report then made passing reference to what it called the “unintended effects” of drug control: black markets, organized crime, replacement or displacement of the markets to other regions, and so on. But these kinds of “unintended consequences” are wholly predictable. They are the results, not of the use of drugs, but of the criminalization of those drugs. They are also, by all accounts, responsible for the most extensive harms that are created. The report, however, did not deal seriously with these consequences of prohibition.
There are notable international efforts to shift the discussion away from the law enforcement model and toward a variety of alternatives. For example, there are teams of scientists working on HIV/AIDS who are encouraging a public health approach. In 2010, the XVIII International AIDS Conference (chaired by Canadian Dr. Julio Montaner) adopted the Vienna Declaration.[43] It sought “to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies.” It recommended redirecting enforcement budgets to programs of “evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.” The declaration was signed by former presidents of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Canada has refused to sign the Vienna Declaration.
In another significant recent development, the Global Commission on Drug Policy declared in its 2011 report that the War on Drugs had failed, and recommended a new approach.[44] The Global Commission states as its purpose: “to bring to the international level an informed, science-based discussion about humane and effective ways to reduce the harm caused by drugs to people and societies.”
The commission is a significant organization because its membership comprises a number of luminaries whose opinions are sought after and respected around the world. Among these are former heads of state César Gaviria (Colombia), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), George Papandreou (Greece),[45] and Ruth Dreifuss (Switzerland). Louise Arbour, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, is also a commissioner. So are George P. Shultz, former secretary of state for the United States, and Paul Volcker, former chair of the United States Federal Reserve. Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations, was a founding commissioner, as was entrepreneur Richard Branson.
The recommendations of the Global Commission’s 2011 report (and subsequent reports dealing with the effects of the drug war on epidemics of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C) are thoughtful and based upon the best evidence available. They do not rule out any option, including full legalization. Encouraging experimentation by governments with different models of legal regulation of drugs, the commission says, “It is unhelpful to ignore those who argue for a taxed and regulated market for currently illicit drugs. This is a policy option that should be explored with the same rigor as any other.”[46]
In a remarkable turnaround, the Executive Summary of the World Drug Report 2013 has also admitted that “the international drug control system is floundering.”[47] This report is the closest that the United Nations has come to admitting that the law enforcement system is inadequate to the task. Since the driving force behind much of the international prohibition effort has been the United States, it is helpful to identify the origins of the War on Drugs and its development there, as well as to trace its influence upon other western and Latin American countries.
Chapter Two
A Declaration of War Leads to a Shambles
The United States, Originator of the War on Drugs
In the 1960s, young people began to use marijuana openly
