by Jimmy Carter
The New York Times
BLUF. The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America's "war on drugs," which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.
Much more at The New York Times
Comments
Actually, one of the things that the NYT story leaves out is that meth use--one of the most destructive, addictive substances out there--has dropped by more than half. Conjecture on my part, but it seems reasonable to me to assume that this is due in some part--probably large part--to wider availability of less destructive drugs, such as marijuana and adderall.
People destroy themselves. Drugs are just one of the tools they use. And they are going to insist on doing so even if you don't want them to. In fact they move heaven and earth to get to that drug and normally outsmart those who would stop them. The big thing is though, those that want the drugs and use them for self-destruction, aren't worth saving. We are better off without them because persons with inclinations like that will never contribute what it costs to save them.
Global campaign againsts prohibited drugs must be maintained and strictly implemented. As these drugs can destroy a person's normal functioning, within himself, and towards people around him. I have heard of a news regarding Mexican drug war. Class was ended Tues in the Garita area of Acapulco, México, after Mexican police found five severed, rotting heads in a sack outside a primary school. According to BBC News, threatening notes were also discovered by authorities. It is uncertain currently whether the dismembered heads at the school - and five headless bodies found elsewhere in Garita - are connected to extortion terrors against instructors. Source of article: <a title="Severed heads found outside Mexican primary school" href="http://www.newsytype.com/12048-severed-heads-mexico/">Severed heads found outside Mexican primary school</a>. Incident such this is no longer a stranger to these citizens and press but still, this is not a healthy environment to live in. Children's education is compromised because of incident like this.
Stopping the war on drugs is not about deciding that drugs are okay. It's about the plain fact that the war on drugs <i>is not working.</i> It is not preventing anyone who wants to use or abuse illegal substances from doing so. It's failing to have its intended effect, and its side effects are ruinous.
I'm not sure where the idea comes from that countries in Europe are starting to repeal decriminalization. Portugal, the gold standard for decriminalization, seems in no hurry to revert, mainly because decriminalization has worked wonders for their society.
Yep. Never met any serious druggies who didn't smoke like a chimney and (admit) to drinking like a fish (Former prison librarian); The "War" on drugs is as much a misguided folly as Iraq, and as unlikely to achieve the desired result. Certainly the US should legalize Weed.
Larger questions about how we structure our society (USA) need to be addressed; Are they druggies because they have adictive personalities, or because they are bored and THERE ARE NO JOBS FOR THEM. Certainly not a factory job that will let them start a family and buy that big screen TV, boat, etc.
I don't really don't know the right answer, but like many of you I have seen the negative impact of our drug war on our foreign relations (we are fighting our social problem in their countries), and at the same time have seen the negative effects of drugs in our country up close and personal. Our response/war isn't working, and the effects of drugs (especially the newer drugs like Meth) are as bad as our government claims they are. The article captured the negative effects of our drug war, I think the quote on 11% of CA's budget going to sustain its prison population (up from 3% 30 years ago) is telling. This obviously isn't sustainable or desirable. I think the only country in the world that has more people in jail than the land of the free is China.
The treatment programs that Mr. Carter endorses have a terrible track record, so I am not sure that is a viable course of action. Although if we get the government out of it, perhaps someone can make them work. Quitting the so called drug war altogether seems a bit dangerous at this point. Maybe reduce our actions overseas and focus on the homefront, because it is apparent the billions we're spending on the efforts overseas isn't reducing availability and it is only hurting our global status and the stability of the nations we wage those wars in. I guess if there is a wicked problem, this is it.
I think the most relevant fact is, and I am quoting John Lapham on June 17, 2011 at 11:22 AM
"Alcohol producers including Diageo and Anheuser Busch InBev have said they recognize the importance of industry self-regulation to address alcohol abuse and promote curbs on drunk drinking and illegal underage drinking.
But the brewer SABMiller has warned that policy measures like minimum pricing and high excise taxes on alcohol could cause more public health harm than good by leading more people to drink homemade or illegally produced alcohol."
By continuing to force these substances to be traded on the black market, we are encouraging greedy people to sell contaminated chemicals to unwitting buyers. If these sellers had to maintain the same protocols of safety and purity as vitamin manufacturers many people would be saved from poisons and death. Is America the Land of the Free? I believe it is. Let people be free to use chemicals, just as they are free to eat fast food, with the same forms of regulation, but no more.
Between fighting this problem, and just giving up on the whole thing and allowing junior to shoot up heroin and snort 'rails' before going to school, I think I will choose fighting the problem.
For the simple reason that we have already gone down the path of drug legalization or ending prohibition for a specific drug, and it's horrific consequences are dealt with every year.
I am also not a fan of taxing this stuff to regulate it, for the reason that if people do not want to pay for the product, they will make it. And when people go down the path of making drugs, then the health consequences increase because of a lack of quality control. Not to mention that someone's meth lab is an extreme risk to their neighbors.
Besides, is it more moral for the state to bless drug use and tax it? To actually create revenue based on it's population's addiction. I already have a problem with the state earning revenue off of alcohol addiction. And why would a state fight alcohol addiction, if alcohol sales was a cash cow? Things to think about....
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Alcohol
From the World Health Organization
The harmful use of alcohol is a global problem which compromises both individual and social development. It results in 2.5 million deaths each year. Alcohol is the worlds third largest risk factor for premature mortality, disability and loss of health; it is the leading risk factor in the Western Pacific and the Americas and the second largest in Europe. Alcohol is associated with many serious social and developmental issues, including violence, child neglect and abuse, and absenteeism in the workplace. It also causes harm far beyond the physical and psychological health of the drinker. It harms the well-being and health of people around the drinker. An intoxicated person can harm others or put them at risk of traffic accidents or violent behaviour, or negatively affect co-workers, relatives, friends or strangers. Thus, the impact of the harmful use of alcohol reaches deep into society.
Harmful drinking is a major determinant for neuropsychiatric disorders, such as alcohol use disorders and epilepsy and other noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cirrhosis of the liver and various cancers. The harmful use of alcohol is also associated with several infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). This is because alcohol consumption weakens the immune system and has a negative effect on patients adherence to antiretroviral treatment.
A significant proportion of the disease burden attributable to harmful drinking arises from unintentional and intentional injuries, including those due to road traffic accidents, violence, and suicides. Fatal injuries attributable to alcohol consumption tend to occur in relatively younger age groups.
http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/facts/alcohol/en/index.html
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Alcohol-Related Deaths Kill More Than AIDS, TB Or Violence, WHO Reports
Alcohol Deaths
05/25/11
Alcohol causes nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence, the World Health Organization warned on Friday.
Rising incomes have triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem in many developed countries, the United Nations agency said.
Yet alcohol control policies are weak and remain a low priority for most governments despite drinking's heavy toll on society from road accidents, violence, disease, child neglect and job absenteeism, it said.
Approximately 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol related causes, the WHO said in its "Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health."
"The harmful use of alcohol is especially fatal for younger age groups and alcohol is the world's leading risk factor for death among males aged 15-59," the report found.
In Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), every fifth death is due to harmful drinking, the highest rate.
Binge drinking, which often leads to risky behavior, is now prevalent in Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine, and rising elsewhere, according to the WHO.
"Worldwide, about 11 percent of drinkers have weekly heavy episodic drinking occasions, with men outnumbering women by four to one. Men consistently engage in hazardous drinking at much higher levels than women in all regions," the report said.
Health ministers from the WHO's 193 member states agreed last May to try to curb binge drinking and other growing forms of excessive alcohol use through higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and tighter marketing restrictions.
DISEASE AND INJURY
Alcohol is a causal factor in 60 types of diseases and injuries, according to WHO's first report on alcohol since 2004.
Its consumption has been linked to cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents, violence, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the colorectum, breast, larynx and liver.
"Six or seven years ago we didn't have strong evidence of a causal relationship between drinking and breast cancer. Now we do," Vladimir Poznyak, head of WHO's substance abuse unit who coordinated the report, told Reuters.
Alcohol consumption rates vary greatly, from high levels in developed countries, to the lowest in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and southern Asia, whose large Muslim populations often abstain from drinking.
Homemade or illegally produced alcohol -- falling outside governmental controls and tax nets -- accounts for nearly 30 percent of total worldwide adult consumption. Some is toxic.
In France and other European countries with high levels of adult per capita consumption, heavy episodic drinking is rather low, suggesting more regular but moderate drinking patterns.
Light to moderate drinking can have a beneficial impact on heart disease and stroke, according to the WHO. "However, the beneficial cardio-protective effect of drinking disappears with heavy drinking occasions," it said.
One of the most effective ways to curb drinking, especially among young people, is to raise taxes, the report said. Setting age limits for buying and consuming alcohol, and regulating alcohol levels in drivers, also reduce abuse if enforced.
Some countries restrict marketing of alcoholic beverages or on the industry's sponsorship of sporting events.
"Yet not enough countries use these and other effective policy options to prevent death, disease and injury attributable to alcohol consumption," the WHO said.
Alcohol producers including Diageo and Anheuser Busch InBev have said they recognize the importance of industry self-regulation to address alcohol abuse and promote curbs on drunk drinking and illegal underage drinking.
But the brewer SABMiller has warned that policy measures like minimum pricing and high excise taxes on alcohol could cause more public health harm than good by leading more people to drink homemade or illegally produced alcohol.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/11/alcohol-related-deaths-_n_8219…
Why do we want to go down a road that European states are now abandoning. European countries which innocently decriminalized drug use are now re-criminalizing it.
The government of Singapore called it correctly when they noted that drug dealers are executed there because drug dealers create an unemployable population which must be supported by others. In other words, drug dealers and drug users destroy economies.
Drug addicts tend to be unemployed due to the harmful effects of their drug use. Once unemployable they spiral downward into a life of crime or a life on public assistance while ordinary non-drug using citizens are burdened by these unemployable people.
Reagan's (and a democratic congress led by Tip O'Neil) War on Drugs, complete with mandatory sentencing guidelines and no early releases sent the US prison population skyrocketing from .5M to 3.5M. It attacks symptoms and avoids problems and is creating a problem that will ultimately explode in tragic ways.
I won't agree with President Carter on a lot, but I will endorse a call to end the War on Drugs.
Interesting perspective from former President Carter.
As an aside, we do probably have too many wars and strategies out there: Drug War, War on terror, Cyber War and strategies for everything: terror, COIN, drugs, homeland security and infrastructure protection, cyber, global warming, national security, national defense, national military, pandemic and strategic communications strategies, and I am sure there are others that I have forgot - we seem to produce a strategy document for everything. I wonder if the sum of all these strategies (assuming no redundancy or dual application of means and no conflicts among ways and means) would add up to a US Grand Strategy? :-) But for these to add up to a Grand Strategy I guess it would take prioritization because I think that is one of the common missing links when looking at all these strategies.