Obama's Choice: Sane U.N. Drug Policy or the Same Old Failed War-on-Drugs Routine?

Cross-posted from AlterNet:

Everyone knows that Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States last Tuesday, Jan. 20. As an advocate for sound, sane drug policy and HIV prevention, I hope that his inauguration will mark a change to an administration that chooses science over dogma.

By contrast, practically no one knows about the Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting that will take place in Vienna, Austria, six weeks from now, March 12-13. This meeting of United Nations member states will review the results of the1998 U.N. General Assembly Special Session on drugs that set the framework for the last decade's international drug policy. They will then release a political declaration that will set the framework for the next decade -- and, by implication, the course for the global response to the HIV epidemic as it affects drug users.

It is imperative that the new Obama administration act quickly to ensure that the U.S. delegation to this upcoming UNGASS review reflect Obama's publicly stated position that he, per the official White House site, "supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of [HIV] infection among drug users."

Otherwise, our new president will miss a vital early opportunity to lead us back into an era of evidence-based policy.

Our current U.S. delegation is primarily made up of State Department bureaucrats soldiering in the war on drugs. They promote policies that have had dramatic negative consequences (intended and unintended) on the lives of drug users, their families and their communities but very little impact on reducing drug supply, consumption or cultivation.

By making drug use as dangerous as possible, the United States has facilitated the spread of HIV and viral hepatitis, has allowed death from overdose to remain unchecked and has created a prison system unlike anything since the Soviet gulags. At the same time, U.S. commitment to providing effective drug treatment on demand is virtually nonexistent. Moreover, in critical negotiations in international settings, Team USA is rabidly hostile toward harm reduction and syringe exchange at a time when Australia, Canada, Iran and most European Union countries embrace them as important drug policy tools.

The UNGASS review presents an opportunity for the Obama administration not only to lose these Bush-era ideologues, but also to join with other nations to create a genuinely balanced and useful blueprint for international drug policy.

We should follow the example of other U.N. member states, including some countries in the Caribbean as well as the U.K., and the Netherlands, and expand the U.S. contingent to include members of civil society -- people with a distinct viewpoint who can engage in the proceedings and represent the views of drug users.

After all, countries around the world, including the United States, have long understood the importance of including people living with HIV/AIDS at U.N. meetings. Yet, when it comes to making U.N. drug policy, the current U.S. framework renders the most affected community, individuals who use drugs, silent. It will be easier to design effective solutions with input from all affected parties.

In July 2008, over 300 representatives from civil society came together under the auspices of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to provide input into the UNGASS review at a meeting called Beyond 2008. The resulting declaration was designed to partially mirror that being produced by the formal government review process. This consensus-based document, while imperfect, directs governments to address global drug problems in a proportional fashion and redress the imbalance caused by focusing on the supply side of drug policy.

(Try getting consensus in a group that includes the Drug Free America Foundation, National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and the American Civil Liberties Union! And that's just part of the U.S. contingent.)

The only government that was arrogant enough to meddle in the formative process was (surprise) the United States. But despite all that preparation -- and three days of meetings -- the Beyond 2008 Declaration is destined to be sidelined at the UNGASS review meeting, as there is no clear indication from the Commission on Narcotic Drugs that the views of civil society will be included in the March meeting.

Who benefits from keeping the voice of civil society out of the UNGASS review process? The United States and Russia, primarily, as they both maintain positions that civil society opposes. The United States wants to keep syringe exchange and harm reduction off of the agenda; the Russians want to continue to demonize methadone.

In a letter co-sponsored with our allies at Physicians for Human Rights and co-signed by more than 60 public health and human rights organizations, the Harm Reduction Coalition has asked the Obama administration to immediately appoint a more progressive U.S. delegation to the UNGASS review process -- one that reflects the president's stance on syringe exchange and puts civil society at the table where it belongs.

The time has come to return to drug policy based on best medical practices, to recognize the human rights of drug users and to produce a political declaration that will shift the focus of international drug policy toward a public-health-based approach that will aid rather than hurt drug users.

Comments

[ProgressiveVoice]

Mr. Clear is correct in suggesting that the US delegation should include some actual drug users. I regularly use both pot and meth - responsibly - and could testify to the fact that every crack down on meth resulted in higher quality and lower prices.

In Oregon, it also moved production from the state to Mexico and opened the door for the Mexican Mafia to come in and take over distribution.

[camper65]

Please tell me that you don't really believe that the U.N. is going to accomplish something? Please?!

[glockman]

When will we quit trying to control morality and realize the war on drugs is a dismal failure? There is no other reason than the idiotic belief that we can make people live better lives by controlling their access to illicit drugs. The sooner we legalize all drugs in this country, the better off we'll be.

[JacqueItch]

Yes, and I think that there is also a note of caution here.
I came from the drug culture of the '60s where the drugs weren't so much escapist as they were experimental and consciousness raising.

But I recognize that there is a clear difference between drugs which change the way you perceive the world, and drugs which can kill you if the dosage is too much.
Some drugs are dangerous, and possibly should still be kept as much as possible from widespread availability, such as heroin and crack cocaine. The only way this can be done effectively is to declare them res non grata and to block them from importation. Seizing the drugs may also involve some punitive action to those who are importing them, such as exil.
I don't know if we can simply de-legalize and not have floodgates opened . . .?
If anything, penalities which deter may be the ones which fit the act, not the outlandish punishments we have now.

But to stop prosecuting end users makes total sense. And to educate people about drugs makes sense. And to take money being used to prosecute and put it into detox centers makes sense. Total de-legalization I am not so sure about.

[midpointpolitico]

Here! Here! Treatment is so obviously the answer, yet we continue to punish sick people. As a long time advocate for treatment on demand it is my hope that somebody in a position to make a difference reads your post and acts on your ideas.

[strick9]

Another reason for prohibition of marijuana is the pharmaceutical lobbies. They haven’t any way to turn a profit on it if people can produce their own. As for other drugs decriminalization would remove the profit and stop the wars to control its distribution, bring their use out of the shadows, and enable medical professionals to treat addiction.

[doriath22]

Ganja belongs in the same category as tobacco or caffeine. The primary reason it is illegal in this country is the end of alcohol prohibition in 1933. Harry Anslinger's agency would have been put out of work without a new enemy (After all, they were Federal employees, and this was during the depression)

[biskitdaddy]

Drink all the alcohol you want and destroy your liver, legally; smoke all the cigars and cigarettes you want and destroy your lungs, legally; take 8, 10, 12 prescription drugs simultaneously and overdose, legally; but don't you dare smoke weed or you'll end up in prison!

[spaceknife]

Drug abuse is a social as well as a medical problem and any attemps to make it a law enforcement problem is doomed to failure.

If you really want to do something to improve the situation, depenalise that's it

[glockman]

I don't have a problem with law enforcement intervention as long as it's not for criminal prosecution. Many times it is law enforcement that has front line contact with drug abuse. What is needed is to de-criminalize drug use and offer alternatives for officers who come into contact with the problem, i'e. more drug treatment centers/programs.

[sheisme]

The war on drugs is not equal across this nation. Why are folks in California allowed to grow marijuana and become millionaires (and smoke their product), while the poor Harlem resident, midwestern, or Texan spend years in prison for merely smoking that same pot? I have seen several recent documentaries in which the white California growers are somewhat "celebrated" or chuckled at, as they attend pot growing college and amass fortunes while the DEA targets Mexicans or minorities doing the same thing. What is the difference? Violence and guns? If that is the case, prosecute the violence. Better yet, regulate and tax this billion dollar industry. I wonder where is the IRA is at in Humboldt and Mendocino counties and why they aren't auditing these folks.

[sunnybunny]

Too many powerful forces have too much money at stake or it would have been done a long time ago. But then maybe I shouldn't be so negative, maybe we just needed smarter, stronger people in charge. If they can fix the health care thing this will probably be simple. It would sure make it better for the common individual. But I doubt it is high on their list of priorities.

[canarypapers]

The closest the U.S. has ever come to waging a "war on drugs" has been to seize control of the illegal drug market. This is what funds our covert wars around the world. Look at the opium fields in Laos during the Vietnam War. Look at the cocaine trade in Nicaragua (under Reagan-Bush) and in Colombia (Clinton & Bush, Jr.). Look at the opium fields in Afghanistan (Bush, Jr.) and you not only find the CIA's fingerprints, but also some pseudo "war on drugs" (e.g. Plan Colombia). Drug money buys awesome loyalty.

Here on the home front ( where most of these drugs are destined to be sold) drug money = pure liquid capital that flows through the U.S. stockmarket and banking industry. Cocaine and heroin are more powerful forces in U.S. politics and the economy than most people know. Decriminalization would be the deathknell of this lucrative industry.

Regarding rehabilitation and needle-exchanges and a kinder, gentler government....

Oh, ha ha. The corporate prison system is big business (just ask Dick Cheney) and drug users are their biggest clients. So why in godsname would any politician who values his campaign coffers, want to shoot himself or herself in the foot by speaking against this status quo? It would only be political suicide.

The day when human decenty turn a profit is the day you'll see Congress tripping over themselves to give a d*amn about drug users and HIV patients, potential and otherwise.

[legalgirl]

It is axiomatic that if you take the profit out of the crime, the crime will disappear, just as it did when alcohol prohibition was eliminated.

Obviously, treatment for addiction, obsessive/­compulsive­, borderline and/or other neurotic personality disorders is a medical issue.

Uncouple these problems by legalizing and properly regulating, and I would suggest marketing and merchandising, undoubtedly generating profits (and tax revenues) of the legal kind, and make on-demand treatment available to anyone who wants it.

[Heartlight3]

Wasn't the legalization of marijuana the issue that received the most votes on Change.org? There were a lot of issues and a lot of votes on there and the fact that that one received the most votes seems to indicate that people think it's time to change a policy that is not working.

[Oldchef]

Yes, most of us regular people see that the "war on drugs" is and has been a dismal failure at stopping drug use, and most of us realize that it should be a medical rather than a law enforcement problem, but, as others have said here, there's a segment of the government that's dependent on the drug "war" money for their very existence. DEA and other agencies find it much easier to arrest and prosecute pot smokers than to target violent cocaine and heroin smugglers. Few pot smokers are going to shoot at them, are generally non-violent types compared to cocaine traffickers. Since so many government types are making money from the drug war, through salaries for agents, bribes from big smugglers, bankers laundering the money, etc. to listen to us voters. We had one day of publicity on Change.org and total silence from the administration's people about it. Obama promised a science-based approach to drug policy, but we sure don't see it yet. They're ignoring stuff they don't want to deal with.

[CynicalSez]

Y'know, now is the perfect time for Obama to end the war on marijuana and tax it as a new source of revenue and jobs. There could be the new legal cottage industries of growing and selling it. It could be required that all involved in the industry register and operate in a legal and tax-paying manner or face large fines when caught. In fact all abuses such as smoking on the job or road could be subject to large fines. This would also eliminate any reason to import it and thus keep the jobs at home while letting homeland security groups focus on bad guys instead of pot smugglers. Finally, it would not matter one fritter on an Obama re-election in four years since his success or failure in getting the economy running right again will completely be the determining factor.

[MarkInEugene]

I think we should experiment with a new direction from the failed US drug enforcement policies because it has kept the dark seedy underworld of drug cartels, dealers, and thieves thriving in this country.

Our behavior as a society is irrational. Alcohol can be extremely intoxicating and far more dangerous than marijuana. My reasons for wanting marijuana legalized is not so that I can use it. I am sick and tired of this failed War On Drugs and the constant terrible news out of Columbia and the vicious crime committed by cartels. It's time we pulled the rug out from under the entire rotten mess.

What we have now is far worse than anthing we'd have after legalizing marijuana.

[Martymar74]

I strongly believe that the U.S. making money off the cartels by aiding and shipping drugs into this country. CIA is involved in this and the war on drugs is the biggest sham perpetrated against the American taxpayer. Puritanical values of middle American has driven this "fight," but now that meth has hit these rural areas hard, I think we now all have a common interest in getting real on the drugs issue.

[camper65]

Try not to run out of aluminum foil, eh?