Johann Hari

Copyright 2003 Newspaper Publishing PLC
The Independent (London)

February 27, 2003, Thursday

SECTION: COMMENT; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 909 words

HEADLINE: THIS FANTASY WORLD OF DRUG PROHIBITION

BYLINE: JOHANN HARI

BODY:
The United Nations International Narcotic Control
Board (INCB) has attacked one of the few progressive
drugs reforms introduced by any British government
since the disastrous tide of prohibition began to roll
across the world in the 1960s. The downgrading of
cannabis - a drug which more than half of all British
citizens under the age of 30 have tried - from Class B
to Class C, earmarked for this Easter, was the barest
minimum that could be done in a country where even The
Daily Telegraph, Peter Lilley and The Economist
support legalisation. Yet the INCB has condemned it as
a move made by a government "intimidated by a vocal
minority that wants to legalise illicit drug use".
This "vocal minority" includes, according to a 2001
ICM poll, more than half of all British people when it
comes to cannabis.

The INCB is among the world's most hardline exponents
of drug prohibition. Whenever a country moves in the
direction of greater tolerance and reducing harm, the
INCB is there to beat it with a big stick. Despite its
disingenuous attempt yesterday to claim to speak on
behalf of African nations, it is effectively a puppet
of the United States, a nation whose drugs record
speaks for itself. The latest US Department of Health
found last year that despite endless "crackdowns" over
two decades, 87 million Americans have used illegal
drugs, and nearly a million regularly use the most
hardcore of all, crack cocaine.

The intellectual poverty of the prohibitionists is so
obvious that it no longer merits serious discussion.
They are not interested in evidence from the real
world; they are simply blinkered ideologues. Yet the
INCB still tries to enforce the catastrophic US model
across the globe. Any nation that tries to liberalise
even mildly finds itself, as Britain has, under
intense US/UN pressure.

Through the INCB, they oppose even the most basic
harm-reduction tactics, such as injecting rooms where
heroin addicts can inject under supervision in case
they overdose; needle exchanges (to avoid HIV
infection); heroin prescription (proven to reduce
property crimes, because addicts no longer need to
steal to fund their habit); and ecstasy testing in
clubs, combined with education about the drug (which
could save the lives of the few people who do die
using ecstasy).

As Danny Kushlick, director of the increasingly
influential Transform Drugs Policy Institute,
explains: "There is now a serious tension emerging
between the US approach to drugs - which is being
aggressively forced on the world - and the European
harm-reduction philosophy which is gradually emerging.
Portugal has effectively decriminalised personal
possession of all drugs; and in Spain and Italy,
personal possession is now only a civil offence."

At the moment, the European approach remains - just -
within the boundaries of the international
drug-control treaties, regulated by the UN, that were
set up in successive waves in 1961, 1971 and 1988.
Even these changes are achieved mostly by exploiting
clauses about medical necessity. For example, needle
exchanges, which test the ultra-prohibitionist spirit
of the treaties, are justified by the Dutch with
reference to the clauses about individual health. But
no European country can move towards full legalisation
of production and supply while remaining within the
treaties' constraints. Sooner or later, there will be
a blatant challenge to the treaties by a European
country that wants to travel this path, although
massive diplomatic pressure will be exerted to rein it
back.

The US-imposed constraints on South America are even
greater. In Colombia, 40 per cent of the national
economy is based on the international trade in drugs.
The distorting effect on the entire country is
immeasurable, with billions sloshing around in illegal
funds, corrupting both politics and the administration
of law. This is exacerbated by a US policy of mass-
spraying, with noxious herbicides, of fields suspected
to be used for cocaine-related crops. Tens of
thousands of acres of land belonging to
poverty-stricken small farmers have been destroyed,
the environmental damage is devastating, and yet the
policy is so ineffective that since it began the
cocaine yield from Colombia has trebled.

The idea that the drugs market can be stamped out is a
fantasy. A kilo of cocaine is worth pounds 1,000 in
Colombia, but, because of the massive inflationary
effects of prohibition, it is worth pounds 30,000 by
the time it reaches the streets of London. Wherever
there is a 3,000 per cent profit margin, people will
be prepared to take extraordinary risks. This market
will not die.

Legalising the supply and distribution networks of
drugs, however, would put the huge sums of money
generated by this industry into the hands of
legitimate businesses and - most importantly - through
taxation into the hands of governments that urgently
need more money for the provision of basic health and
education.

The INCB approach, in contrast, is a guarantee of
poverty in South America and mass property crime in
Britain. The Government has unflinchingly taken the
condemnation of this unaccountable body for even its
very moderate change. This should embolden it to
confront the prohibitionists again and move faster
towards the European model that will - one day soon -
replace the current anarchy and criminality of the
drugs world with regulation, legality and sanity.