A Global Argument for Drug Legalization

Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Debate

"The World Drug PERCEPTION Problem: Countering Prejudices About People Who Use Drugs"

By: Mario Vargas Llosa
Feb 2, 2018
To read the full report use this hyperlink

The Global Drug Policy Commission, chaired by the former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and which now has as director Ruth Dreifuss, former president of Switzerland, is made up of politicians, international officials, scientists and intellectuals from various countries of the world and has carried out since 2011 a valuable campaign in favor of a more sensible and realistic policy in the domain of drug trafficking and the consumption of narcotics than that of mere police and judicial repression.

In the seven reports the Commission has published since it was created, based on rigorous statistics and sociological and clinical research, they have unequivocally shown the futility of combating the scourge of drug use with prohibitions and persecutions, despite the billions of dollars spent on it.

Instead of reducing the consumption of drugs in the world, drug use has increased dramatically, as well as the criminal violence associated with their illegal production and distribution. Worldwide, but mainly in Latin America, drug trafficking mafias are a plague that cause tens of thousands of deaths and are, above all, a source of corruption that break down institutions, infect political life, degrade democracies and promote dictatorships, where, for example in Venezuela, a good number of civilian and military leaders of the regime are accused of directing drug trafficking.

At first, the work of the Commission was concentrated in Latin America but now it has spread to the whole world. The last report, which I have just read, is dedicated to combating, with persuasive arguments, the general negative and criminal perception that governments promote of all drug users.

Nearly without exception, drug users are presented as human waste, prone to crime due to their addiction and , therefore, living threats to the order and security of societies. Those who have prepared this work have done a careful research from which they draw very different conclusions.

To begin, the reasons for which "psychoactive substances" are consumed are very diverse; and in a great number of cases, perfectly justified, used correctly as medicine for  health conditions. On the other hand, among the available variety of drugs there is a very large range regarding the consequences they have on the body, from heroin, with tremendously harmful effects, to marijuana, which does less harm to users than alcohol.

All the reports of the Commission are accompanied by small testimonies of people of very diverse conditions and circumstance, which points to how obvious and  absurd to speak of "drug addicts" in general,  due to the fact that this word suggests  moral degradation and social dangerousness .

There is an abysmal difference between the case of Nicolás Manbode, from Mauritius, who started smoking marijuana at the age of 16, went on to inject heroin at 18 and went to jail at 21, where he contracted hepatitis and AIDS to the case of a Portuguese woman named Teresa, who does not drink alcohol, but has a habit of  taking amphetamines, ecstasy, LSD and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Teresa complains that since Portugal has decriminalized drug use the risk of buying those substances in the street has increased due to not knowing with what the mixtures are cut with by the sellers.

A very interesting case is that of Wini, mother of Guillermo, in Chile. Her son, born in 2001, at five months began to have convulsions that cut off his breathing. At two years of age the doctors diagnosed the child with epilepsy. All treatments, including brain surgery, were useless. In 2013, Wini began reading medical articles about marijuana and, thanks to a foundation, she was able to obtain some marijuana oil extract.

Since Guillermo began taking it, the seizures subsided-from about ten daily  to one or two a day-and sometimes stopped altogether. Given the complications in obtaining that oil, Mrs. Wini began to cultivate marijuana in her garden, something that, although not illegal in Chile, scandalized her family. The doctor who treated Guillermo, skeptical at first, was convinced of the beneficial effects of the marijuana oil and came to write an article about the positive therapy that he had in the treatment of epilepsy.

In Latin America, the drug trafficking mafias are a plague that cause tens of thousands of deaths and are a source of corruption that degrades democracies.

According to the report, the social and moral stigmas that fall on people who use drugs make it much difficult for them to get clean; the prejudice that looms over them is assumed by the victims themselves, and this self-blame aggravates the need to self medicate and they go back to using,  resulting in a vicious cycle. One of the most eloquent statistics in this report is that proportionately more people get clean from drug addiction in societies that are more open and tolerant of their consumption than in those where systematic repression is the prevailing policy.

Although the reasons given by the Global Drug Policy Commission to call for the cessation of the prejudices and clichés that accompany any type of drug addiction are convincing, I am afraid that the 

only way they will give way will be the decriminalization of narcotics and drug addiction treatment.

Repression replaces a policy of prevention and tolerance. Of course, legalization entails dangers.

Therefore, it is important that it be accompanied by active campaigns that, as has happened with tobacco, inform citizens of the risks they represent, and have in place  effective rehabilitation policies. The advantages of all this are already visible in the societies that have been adopting more realistic measures in the face of this problem. In fact, legalization would end a lot of crime that is the worst of the calamities generated by drugs.

Ca DFG and US and W inspectors plus volunteers clean up massive amounts of garbage at a Nor Cal illegal Cartel grow site. Among substances removed: toxic pesticides , fertilizers, rodenticides, gasoline, diesel fuel, propane cylinders and miles of plastic all which often end up in the nearest water sources, killing wildlife and draining the watersheds dry for spawning fish. Cartel grows sites are easily identified by the types of foodstuffs / beverage bottles etc left behind. Often they are found on private or Public lands and signs of poaching are usually evident. (deer, bear, squirrel, turkey, upland game birds etc) photo courtesy of : The Redheaded Blackbelt

In countries like Mexico, the struggle of the powerful cartels that dispute territories leaves dozens of deaths every month, pollutes political life with a corruption that degrades democracy and fills social life with anxiety and blood. The country allows criminals to amass dizzying fortunes like that of the famous Pablo Escobar, the murderer and Colombian narco who is now the hero of films and TV serials that the whole world applauds.

One of the arguments that usually fight the idea of ​​legalization is that, when it takes place, as happened for example with marijuana in Holland, a pioneer in this domain, this  usually becomes a magnet that attracts drug users from everywhere. However, that happens because the places where that freedom is practiced are very few and far between in the world. In any case, that has been proven a passing phenomenon.

I was recently in Uruguay and asked what effect the new policy undertaken by the Government on marijuana had so far. The answers I got were varied, but, in general, legalization does not seem to have stimulated consumption. On the contrary, some told me that, as the prohibition taboo disappeared, for many young people the prestige of using cannabis had diminished.

Little by little, there are more and more people around the world who, as promoted by the Global Drug Policy Commission, believe that the best way to combat drugs and its criminal consequences is decriminalization. One of the biggest obstacles, no doubt, as Milton Friedman prophesied many years ago, that today thousands of people live to fight against decriminalization.