The war on drugs (again)

 

“I believe that the war on drugs is a tragically misplaced use of resources – an immoral venture that produces far more suffering than it alleviates.

David Harsanyi.

Last week the home secretary Suella Braverman tweeted about new proposals to target organised crime, and I quote.

“We cannot let criminal gangs profit from devastation. Great work is being done to tackle organised crime, including by @GMPolice.

And I've announced a national crackdown. Take out the gangs; stop the drugs, violence and antisocial behaviour.

We have been here before, it's like every home secretary is so arrogant that they think they are the one who through being tough on crime and criminality that they can end crime and criminality, even Margaret Thatcher, the most hard faced PM to ever haunt No 10 had a crack at it and failed, but as history shows, this approach is nothing more than posturing, in the 50 odd years since the 1971 misuse of drugs act was introduced, the amount of people using drugs has risen, in 1971 when the bill was passed into law, under 10,000 people in the UK where using heroin, that number now stands at over 260,000, and by 2019, three million people admitted to using drugs, in England and Wales alone, including almost one million people who used cocaine.

These statistics show that not only does prohibition not work, but under prohibition, the amount of people using banned substances increased 25 times, not only that, but the social cost of these laws that are meant to protect the public, have been shown to cause more harm than the drugs themselves, the cost to sociotey comes in the form of violence, theft, and such a dramatic loss in the trust between the police and the communities they serve, its surprising any crime actually gets detected.

So why do we still continue to treat the issue of drugs in the same way even though there is mounting evidence that it doesn't work?

There are so many factors that prevent any effective legislation being passed to tackle the issue of drugs, firstly I would like you to keep one thing in mind, Problematic drug use, is NOT a criminal issue, it is a public health issue.

And until we can as a country admit that, we will keep running around in circles throwing band aids on a broken arm.

From a political point of view, the issue of drugs will take a brave and courageous politician who is willing to die on the hill of drug policy reform, simply because any politician who seriously tries to change the way we look at drugs and drug policy, will get roasted for being “the one who wants to get your kids hooked on drugs” in an age where the headline is as far as a lot of people get, its easy to destroy any meaningful attempt to change how we look at drugs.

We live in a world that is being destroyed by its own lie, the platform from which the modern day war on drugs was launched was one of convenience and racism, the man accredited with being the father of the war on drugs Harry J Anslinger, was a known white suprematist, and discovered that by creating a new enemy, he could harass communities that he felt were not fit to be seen as Americans, the word Marijuana wasn't commonly used as a name for cannabis, but its Mexican sounding name tied into the growing anti immigration sentiment in America at that time, and propaganda films such as the infamous “Reefer Madness” made claims about the dangerous drug that is going to be the destruction of youth, that were completely unfounded, with no legitimate scientific proof to support their claims.

Anslinger was so invested in gaslighting the world, he even convinced other countries to ban cannabis by threatening to remove America's support to countries that didn't tow the line, his plan worked and the War on Drugs was in high gear, and what followed was decades of crime, death, destabilising of whole countries, and a constant flow of people from poor communities into the industrial prison complex.

Criminality is the biggest concern when it comes to the drugs trade, from petty theft all the way up to mass murder, crime seems linked to drugs like peas and carrots, so it seems logical that to stop crime you must stop drugs by putting as many people associated with drugs in prison as possible right? Not quite, you see, people use drugs, there is a demand for drugs, and surprisingly, it is estimated that only 10% of drug users are problematic drug users, meaning their drug use has a negative effect on their or other peoples lives, so around 300,000 out of 67 million people are in one way or another driving crime rates through the roof, in reality, the problem lies not with people shoplifting to get a fix, the real problems surrounding drugs are driven by prohibition, and the way it influences the behaviour of people.

I hate comparisons between drugs and alcohol, it is, for the most part like comparing apples to oranges, but when it comes to the question of legality, it is the most effective way to get the point across, if you look at an alcoholic drinks company, they produce their product in a way that they can maximise their profits, while also trying not to fall foul of regulations and the law, those companies use marketing and promotions to make their beverage the choice of the end user, they distribute their goods via off-licences, bars pubs and clubs, and if at any point someone decides to steal their product, the police are called and worst case scenario, they receive a crime number, and claim their loss from the insurance company.

Now look at the business model of the drug dealers, a drug producer, making say cocaine, makes their product, in an illegal lab hidden from the eyes of the authorities that the couldn't bribe, or intimidate, and instead of using promotions to maximise profits, and make sure their product is the one everyone uses they will remove the competion, not with a merger, or by buying out other operations, but by completely destroying rival operations, they will torture, kidnap, rape and murder, in order to take control of the drugs market, and if a shipment of drugs is stolen, there is no insurance policy to cover that, and there is no police force that are going to go and get you your drugs back, well, not in an official capacity anyway. Also in order to maximise profits along the chain, drugs are often “cut” with other substances, form glucose to Fentanyl, there could be anything in the drugs that hit the streets in small deals compared to when it leaves the lab it was made in, there is no regulation, and the death toll of users reflects that.

The war on drugs is responsible for the deaths of millions of people, has broken communities, and scared whole countries, at some point the world has to wake up and ask how we can justify letting criminal gangs become rich and powerful, while we do the same old things that we have seen don't work, and not try a different approach, Pablo Escobar would probably still be smuggling stolen TV sets out of Columbia, had it not been for the huge profits available to him smuggling cocaine out of Columbia.

And its not just the effects on south American countries half way round the world, there is danger on our streets, and in our communities here in the UK, in recent years County lines, has become a buzz word for prohibitionists, kids as young as 12 are sent away from their homes to communities where they sell drugs for higher prices than they can fetch in the inner cities, these kids are put up in houses and with god knows who, and are in more danger than is fathomable, of course the official line from the government is that we must arrest our way out of this mess, but for every drug gang you send to prison, another one is waiting to take over their territory, often with deadly results, you see, even if you could throw every rug dealer in jail in a super sweep of the country, if you could take every gang leader out in a period of 24 hours, by the next day, new gangs will have popped up, and within the resulting power vacuum we will count the bodies of the guilty and innocent alike.

The world is slowly changing its attitude towards drugs, Portugal has seen significant improvements in the health and addiction rates of users, America has seen some benefits from legalising cannabis, and Germany are expected to be the first European country to legalise cannabis, while not perfect, these countries are at least trying to solve the problem, and the UK as a country is in a tremendous position where we can see how other countries have done it, and we could pick and chose what has worked and what hasn't, and be in a better position than any of them, but we have to recognise that the problem isn't what we thought it was, the reality is that the cure we thought was going to make us well, has been poisoning us all this time, but we mistook the symptoms of the poison, for the symptoms of the disease, so we need to find a new and better treatment.

Photo by RODNAE Productions: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-in-black-tank-top-sitting-on-the-bed-while-holding-a-glass-bottle-8139652/