Cover Story in Foreign Policy Magazine: Making the Case for Ending Drug War

The current cover of the influential magazine Foreign Policy provocatively asserts, "Legalize It; Why It's Time to Just Say No to Prohibition."

The article, penned by Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance (where I work), lays out the devastating consequences prohibition and offers solutions to help us heal from the unwinnable war.

Here is the summary from Foreign Policy:

The "war" on drugs cannot be won. But the United States continues to insist on failed prohibitionist policies that enrich international drug cartels, fuel narcoviolence, and do unnecessary harm to users, says Ethan Nadelmann in the article.

"Many cities, states, and even countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia are reminiscent of Chicago under Al Capone--times 50," Nadelmann says. "Legalization would radically change all that for the better."

Like the repeal of alcohol Prohibition in 1933 in the United States, legalization of drugs would eliminate the incentives that enrich criminals and corrupt public officials by bringing the market for drugs out into the open, he argues.

Abandoning the "war" on drugs would also end the government's cruel indifference for the lives of drug users by stripping the problem of addiction down to the health problem that it really is, Nadelmann argues.

"Zero tolerance policies deter some people, but they also dramatically increase the harms and costs for those who don't resist," he says. "Drugs become more potent, drug use becomes more hazardous, and people who use drugs are marginalized in ways that serve no one."

The better approach is for governments to concentrate on reducing the harm associated with drug use, Nadelmann argues. Such "harm reduction" programs include syringe-exchange programs, making antidotes to overdose readily available and allowing heroin addicts to obtain methadone from doctors and even pharmaceutical heroin from clinics.

He estimates that the United States could have saved millions of lives at home and abroad by dropping its resistance to syringe-exchange programs that prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

But despite its dismal record, Nadelmann argues the United States has dominated the drug control agencies of the United Nations and imposed an international drug prohibition regime modeled after its own punitive and moralistic approach.

"Looking to the United States as a role model for drug control is like looking to apartheid-era South Africa for how to deal with race," he says. "Rarely has one country so successfully promoted its own failed policies to the rest of the world."

The piece is opening up the debate. Ethan has done numerous TV and radio interviews including this thought provoking piece on the Fox Report with Sheppard Smith:

Comments

[Melis11577]

Methadone is now the #2 Killer Drug in the U.S. Methadone is more addictive then any other pain medication including heroin and because of it"s extremely long half life, cardio toxic risks, numerous fatal drug interactions, dosages based on tolerance, and small margin of error.


Every day 10.9 people die from Methadone (according to 2004 stats, not
including car accident deaths caused by drivers under the influence of Methadone)


We (the families of methadone victims) are requesting new laws surrounding who can prescribe Methadone, clinic rules and regulations as well as stiffer penalties for those caught selling their take home doses. The whole methadone maintenance system needs an overhauling. We cannot continue to allow a legal medication to be killing more people then the illegal drugs. Our government cannot be allowed to use tax dollars to fund their legal drug dealing operations.

Selling of take home doses must result in termination from methadone program permanently throughout the U.S. When presenting inebriated at clinic, clinic should also document such activity as well as prevent client from driving. Take home doses for all patients receiving methadone should be eliminated thus preventing the risk of diversion or precautions such as pill safe should be implemented.

Current statistics show that nearly 4000 people a year die from methadone. These deaths are mostly happening to pain management and detoxification patients" within the first 10 days of taking initial dose. Most of these deaths are related to methadone prescribed with other medications that react as additives with the methadone. Diversion of methadone is a serious problem because it lands this most deadly drug on streets. Statistics also state that methadone is contributing to more deaths nationwide then heroin and only second to cocaine deaths.

The potential of abuse, diversion, and overdose to new patients being prescribed methadone is overwhelming. The unique properties of methadone, it's long half life, and it's negative interaction with numerous drugs make it an optimal choice as a last result treatment for chronic pain and addiction.

Melissa Zuppardi
www.HARMD.org

[oldpotsmuggler]

OPERATION GROUPER (PART 2):


What having the DEA offer off loading services does do is allow for the confiscation of some pretty impressive quantities of contraband. Which, considering that there was just no shortage in 1980 of pot on the street, or in Colombia trying to get here, is a somewhat less beneficial result than might initially appear to be the case. That and the fact that having a huge portion of the drug interdiction machine chasing weed that was never going to get here anyway leads to the possibility that there was actually a net increase of pot in the hands of the smokers.

Oh, and we wouldn't want to overlook the fact that the operational head of Operation Grouper was arrested for large scale drug smuggling a little while after I was. It seems like living the life style may have formed a taste for things that a cop"s salary was just never going to pay for. And why the hell not go for it. Since he was a crooked cop, his sentence was less than anything that any of the Grouper guys got. Government corruption is usually handled pretty gently since the folks in the system never know when it might be their turn next.

(Whatever happened to criminal facilitation undercover operations using long term deep cover, and payed for outside of government appropriations? Did someone end up discovering that these things always end up hurting society more than helping? You have cops do nothing for over two years but break the law, fly on Lear Jets, and eat, drink, smoke, and snort the best and going back to the wife and kids in suburbia must be a bit of a challenge.)

[oldpotsmuggler]

OPERATION GROUPER:

"In 1981, Operation Grouper was conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard and 21 other federal, state, and local government agencies. It was one of the largest enforcement operations launched against marijuana traffickers from Colombia. The operation targeted 14 separate Florida, Louisiana, and Georgia-based trafficking organizations that were smuggling large-scale, multi-ton quantities of marijuana and millions of dosage units of methaqualone into the United States. For 22 months, nine DEA special agents operated undercover, some posing as off-loaders to a number of smuggling organizations. The smuggling network had negotiated deliveries to states as far away as Maine and New York. As a result of the operation, agents ultimately arrested 122 out of the 155 indicted subjects, and seized more than $1 billion worth of drugs, and $12 million worth of assets, including 30 vessels, two airplanes and $1 million in cash."

If you can't "off load", you can't smuggle. Smuggling is not getting contraband close to the U.S. It is getting the stuff into the country. Anything else is just a "wannabe".

(PART #1)