News & Analysis
Surprise! Britain Discovers the War on Drugs Doesn't Work
War on drugs has failed, say former heads of MI5, CPS and BBC ... The "war on drugs" has failed and should be abandoned in favour of evidence-based policies that treat addiction as a health problem, according to prominent public figures including former heads of MI5 and the Crown Prosecution Service. Drug availability and use has increased with up to 250 million people worldwide using narcotics such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin. – UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: This is a terrible war that is not doing anybody any good. We've just figured this out!
Free-Market Analysis: Bankruptcy has a way of concentrating minds, and Britain is near bankruptcy. The pound is not a reserve currency, so British elites cannot print endless amounts of notes secure in the knowledge that the world will be forced to absorb them for energy-purchasing purposes, as the almighty US Fed can. Accordingly, British leaders are suddenly discovering that endless warring of all types – affordable until the Anglo-American monetary system crashed in late 2007 – is increasingly less feasible. Enter a "war on drugs" rethink and a "meme rollback."
One would like to be charitable and offer up the notion that British political elites have suddenly – because it is rational – discovered that the war on drugs is illegitimate and counterproductive; but, no, the timing is too suspicious. Britain is struggling with deficits that approach those of the Europe's Southern PIGS; the situation is so grim that one of the most bellicose governments ever to have ruled the world has wacked its military expenditures by up to 50 percent.
And now enter the "peers" according to the royalist UK Telegraph, who have somehow been blessed with the collective insight that Britain's war on drugs is a waste of money and energy, and counterproductive besides. The Telegraph summarizes the damages: "Despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible. Vast amounts of money have been wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country. The increasing use of the most harmful drugs such as heroin has also led to enormous health problems."
The British peers and political pundits involved with this miraculous epiphany have formed a so-called All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform. They wish to use "scientific evidence" to redraw Britain's drug policies. (One shudders to think what has been in use until this point. Opinion? Prejudice? Ignorance?) The result, we are informed, may be a call to decriminalize drugs or at least to minimize penalties for recreational use.
The Telegraph article (excerpt above) adds that such sudden notions may receive a "sympathetic audience in Whitehall, where ministers and civil servants are trying to cut the numbers and cost of the prison population. The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, has already announced plans to help offenders kick drug habits rather than keeping them behind bars."
Sorry. It is hard to avoid cynicism. The sudden reasonableness of the British establishment as regards the war on drugs surely has to do with financial calculations. The Telegraph quotes the head of the new group, Baroness Meacher, as saying, "Criminalising drug users has been an expensive catastrophe for individuals and communities. In the UK the time has come for a review of our 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. I call on our Government to heed the advice of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that drug addiction should be recognised as a health problem and not punished."
Meacher points to Portugal as an example of a country that 10 years ago decriminalized drug use and has reaped the benefits: a very low drug addiction rate and a diminishing prison population as well. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson is quoted as saying, "I have no doubt that the present policy is a disaster. This is an important issue, which I have thought about for many years. But I still don't know what the right answer is – I have joined the APPG in the hope that it may help us to find the right [one]."
The Telegraph mentions that the group unveiling coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Thus we learn that in addition to all the other proto-authoritarian gambits for which the UN is responsible, this august body "paved the way for a war on drugs by describing addiction as a ‘serious evil.'" The upshot of UN rhetoric, in fact, was an effort to encourage Western governments to "limit production for medicinal and scientific uses only" and to "coordinate international action against traffickers."
But today is a new day. Britain has discovered that despite "vast resources" being spent on anti-drug programs, drug-use around the world has increased. Somehow the peers come up with the figure that 250 million people worldwide may have used marijuana, cocaine or heroin recently. The group also estimates that drug trafficking generates some US$400 billion for "criminals and terrorists." The group is working with something called the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust, review scientific evidence and come up with original thinking to "deal with the problem." Say, how about legalization?
One country where such thinking should be occurring – but is not so far – is the United States. Like Britain, the US has waged a determined war against drugs, only difference being the US "war" has been much bigger and managed to destabilize whole countries such as Mexico and Afghanistan. Libertarian writer Radley Balko, who has specialized in writing about the war on drugs, recently published a major article on the subject in Reason Magazine that was excerpted (of all places) in the conservative Washington Times.
Balko points out (as he has before) that the sheer firepower that US authorities are devoting to the war on drugs is startling and discouraging. SWAT teams and special paramilitary forces regularly pursue raids on civilians suspected of ingesting cocaine or marijuana, and the results, often, are tragic. Here's an excerpt from the article:
On Jan. 12, four days after the Tucson massacre, Sal and Anita Culosi settled a lawsuit against Fairfax County, Va., police Detective Deval Bullock. Five years earlier, Detective Bullock had fatally shot their son, 38-year-old optometrist Sal Culosi, during a SWAT raid on his home. The reason for the raid: Culosi was suspected of wagering on college football.
Later the same month, Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo settled his civil rights lawsuit against Prince George's County, Md., and its police department. In 2008, a SWAT team from that department raided Mr. Calvo's home after intercepting a package of marijuana that had been sent there. Police broke down Mr. Calvo's door, fatally shot his two Labrador retrievers and held Mr. Calvo and his mother-in-law handcuffed and at gunpoint for hours before realizing they were innocent. The drugs were supposed to have been intercepted by drug smugglers before they arrived at the mayor's home ...
Official government violence against nonviolent Americans and residents occurs daily. And for the past 30 years, it has been increasing at an alarming rate. From the early 1980s to the mid-2000s, University of Eastern Kentucky criminologist Peter Kraska has conducted an annual survey on the use of SWAT teams in the United States. Until the late 1970s, SWAT teams generally were used in emergency situations, but beginning in the early 1980s, that changed. Police departments began using SWAT teams to serve drug warrants. Mr. Kraska found that the number of SWAT deployments in America increased from 3,000 per year in the early 1980s to about 50,000 by the mid-2000s. That's about 135 SWAT raids per day. The vast majority was for drug warrants ...
The massive increase in SWAT tactics during the past 30 years has been driven by several factors. The first ... is the martial rhetoric of the "drug war," which public officials utter daily ... The second factor driving the increasing use of SWAT teams is a federal policy that allows local police departments to procure surplus equipment from the Pentagon for free or at a fraction of its cost. Millions of pieces of equipment designed for war are now deployed to crack down on neighborhood poker games, illicit massage parlors, even businesses operating on outdated permits. Doctors accused of overprescribing pain medication have faced SWAT teams, as have Buddhist monks who overstayed their visas.
In my own research, I've found 46 examples over the past quarter-century in which a SWAT raid led to the death of a person who hadn't committed any crime, much less a violent one. These include people killed when a SWAT team raided the wrong house and bystanders caught in the crossfire when a SWAT team raided the right house. I've found another 25 cases in which a nonviolent offender someone suspected of violating laws against gambling, marijuana or the like was killed.
Mexico, bordering the US and most influenced by US policies, has adopted drug war rhetoric and militant opposition to recreational drug use. The result is gradually turning Mexico into a kind of failed state, where millions have had their lives upended by narco-terror. Such are the "victories" of the drug war and its endless illogical prosecution by US (and Mexican) authorities.
Conclusion: There will come a time when America's top heavy intelligence-industrial complex and penal-industrial complex with all its tragedy and waste will finally become insupportable. That time is closer now than in the 20th century, but so long as America's central bankers can create money-from-nothing and rely on the world to absorb it, the financial crisis that has so concentrated the minds of the British political elite will not occur in the US. Until it does, the incarcerations, murders and authoritarian destablizations of whole countries will continue. One is tempted to suggest that the inevitable deepening of the US financial crisis cannot come soon enough.
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Posted by Ray on 04/15/11 03:43 PM
I'm British and this news story was barely reported in the mainstream news, even the BBC. The British gov is wholly committed to prohibition because they are terrified of the tabloids who ultimately dictate policies on crime. I don't see this changing much anytime soon.
In fact, I think the war on drugs will intensify over the coming years. America is almost the worst in the world when it comes to media blowjobs, and when the violence in mexico becomes more severe, expect Obama to get down on his knees before fox news and send in the army, apaches and ground troops that O'Rielly and Hannity will so ardently demand.
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Posted by Yang on 03/26/11 10:16 AM
@The Ultimate Sagging Mattress
I hope you understand that by insisting on us having reached the end of history in which the American world wars will never end you're only helping the enemy. Sure 'they' would never volountarily give up control, but the enemies are not Gods and you would do well not to paint them as such.
Your mindset is self-defeating, the mindset of a slave who imagines purely idealistic notions of freedom never to be attained by man, so basically we shouldn't even bother and just accept our serfdom to the elite and hope that someday the 'heavenly bodies' will come to our rescue...
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Posted by Chris F on 03/26/11 10:06 AM
With all the misallocation of resources thanks to a fiat dollar, in my view, the collapse cannot come soon enough. While the pain will be unimaginable, the current insanity is unsustainable. Most people won't change until they are forced to.
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Posted by Ol' Grey Ghost on 03/24/11 10:33 PM
@ Wayne
"However, your question did give me the opportunity to elucidate
the process for the benefit of other readers who (may) not know. I 'assume' that most of the readers come to learn. I know that I do."
Education is the weapon of those who seek peace amongst mankind. Indoctrination is the tool of those who seek control.
Keep up the great work...
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Posted by Wayne on 03/24/11 05:33 AM
@Adrian W.
"What is amazing is watching commercials for Big Pharma "Wonder Drugs". How great they are!Click to view linkes the inevitable side effects, sometimes appearing to do more damage than good for the patient. Shouldn't that and Big Pharma be the real criminals in the "war on drugs"?...."
Remember the House Rules! He has got the gold makes the rules! And with profit margins of over 1000%, Big Pharma has got the Gold! Why do you think the FDA always gives them a pass?
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Posted by Adrian W. on 03/24/11 04:57 AM
What is amazing is watching commercials for Big Pharma "Wonder Drugs". How great they are!Click to view linkes the inevitable side effects, sometimes appearing to do more damage than good for the patient. Shouldn't that and Big Pharma be the real criminals in the "war on drugs"?.....
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Posted by Zenbillionaire on 03/23/11 09:49 PM
@ Earl
"The drug war has accomplished the opposite of what the intelligentsia claims"
Who are they anyway? The guy you didn't like in chem lab? He's been making money off the drug war since he started working for Glaxo...
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Posted by Wayne on 03/23/11 05:04 PM
@Ol' Grey Ghost
""I'm presuming that your question is rhetorical!"
If you presumed that why did you respond to it so well? ;)"
I doubt that I wrote anything you don't already know.
However, your question did give me the opportunity to elucidate
the process for the benefit of other readers who many not know.
I "assume" that most of the readers come to learn. I know that I do.
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Posted by Earl on 03/23/11 12:53 PM
The war on drugs has been propped up in America by the meme of protection of children and society, however this is obviously nonsense. None of the objectives of the so-called war have ever been realized no one wanting drugs has ever been prevented from obtaining drugs including children.
Moreover the idea that enriching criminals serves as a model for law enforcement is patently absurd. The public has been led to believe that the war is necessary to decrease crime, which is reinforced by news stories of gang wars and the war between the drug cartels in Mexico. The drug war has accomplished the opposite of what the intelligentsia claims it would achieve.
The drug war is a classic example of the delusions of the powers that be and is also an excellent vehicle for usurping the Constitution. The powers that be cannot control the situation because it is one of supply and demand, which can be altered but not supplanted. What they hope we miss is what is implied in the putative war on drugs, which is that it better for people to die needlessly rather than to allow people to consume drugs.
There are also several insidious consequences of the drug war such as the corruption of law enforcement and the propensity of addicts to hide addiction rather than seek help.
Of course the intelligentsia does not see these as problems and will continue to tell us of the dangers of drug use. The real danger is overbearing government and the idea that we can have a drug free society at any cost. Whether we like it or not people consume drugs and the government force cannot alter the laws of economics. Of course the intelligentsia in the government is quite arrogant probably thinks that the government can also repeal the law of gravity.
The drug war is not winnable but is presented to the public as a necessity to preserve stability in society. The industrial-penal complex and the drug dealers oppose legalization because of the profits each enjoy. We will never prevent people from consuming drugs and we learned this long ago during the prohibition era. Of course the power elite successfully convinced Americans to sacrifice their right at the alter of security of the society. America will cease the war for monetary reasons rather than practical ones after we have spent over a trillion dollars on this so-called war with no end in sight.
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Posted by Ol' Grey Ghost on 03/23/11 12:12 PM
@ Wayne
"I'm presuming that your question is rhetorical!"
If you presumed that why did you respond to it so well? ;)
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Posted by 4irw4y on 03/23/11 04:05 AM
...somebody, just give'em a puff, maybe they will stop war.
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Posted by Wayne on 03/23/11 12:07 AM
@Ol' Grey Ghost
"I'm old enough to remember when seat belts were an option one had to request from the auto manufacturer as the manufacturers didn't like to put them in their automobiles because that implied that the vehicles were inherently dangerous if one were to be involved in some kind of a crash (gee, really?).
Then the government came along and in its infinite wisdom (all hail Leviathan) ordered the manufacturers to install them or else which led to an increase in the cost of the automobiles which the customers had to absorb.
The battle cry at the time was, "they can make them put them in the cars but they can't make us wear them!" We all know how that turned out.
Do you wonder if there is any connection between this and the "War on (some) Drugs" or the "War on Ugly Guns" or the "War on Vitamins" or..."
I'm presuming that your question is rhetorical!
However, an important fact is demonstrated here.
Once you have allowed/delegated/or just plain defaulted on your sovereign rights, in the door they come.
They have many names, and many justifications for taking over your
environment. What better way to control you without the direct use of force?
That would reveal their real agenda, so that is hidden until you are already powerless. So they keep droning the mantra of "We are going this for your own good!"
Omitted is the clarifying "in our opinion", for your opinion matters not to them.
Possibly the best name for them is Humanitarians With Guns.
And they will always surface given the correct conditions.
A trusting people who innocently create organizations to govern/supervise/advise them. After all, they sounded so well meaning.
Gentle, harmless, and well meaning is their facade. Control, and Death, is their real nature.
see link
Click to view link
The origin of bait and switch!
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Posted by Philip Mccormack on 03/22/11 09:50 PM
@ Tom Hyland By the way hemp in the 1870s was the widest grown crop in the world. Grows on poor soil, makes great paper and fuel for cars (methanol) two reasons why the corporations don't want it. By the way more oil spilling on the Lousiana coast tonight. Hemp also makes 1000s of other products.
Happy days. Philip
Click to view link
U Tube Great on Hemp, God's Plant
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Posted by Light Being on 03/22/11 09:18 PM
The CIA sold drugs for many years to covertly raise funds for its clandestine operations. The Iran-Contra Affair was the most famous example. No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose and marijuana has many medical applications( which is why the drug companies do not want it legalized) and hemp has many industrial applications. Politics over science. If the USA is so against drugs why is the Poppy crop in Afghanistan allowed to grow?
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Posted by Philip Mccormack on 03/22/11 07:26 PM
There is one really good way to take opium. Heat it in a large glass vat of bubbling water with pipes attached and inhale the vapour. No smoke, very minimal side effects, and when this happens in nice surroundings like pubs for alcohol then you will know there is no longer a war on drugs. The FBI will lose a major source of their money supply, other drug dealers will go on unemployment. Treating addiction as I have for many years means keeping addicts healthy; not one in a a hundred gets cured. The biggest factor as the very good post from Tom Hyland points out is the interference with profit for the power elite. I'm not holding my breath for change to take place in Britain, there is no obvious solution, just start the process, it will save the taxpayers billions and that is reason in itself. Happy days Philip. I for one will not be invited to sit on the panels making decisions.
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Posted by Ol' Grey Ghost on 03/22/11 07:20 PM
@ Zenbillionaire
"let's not forget the war on cheap high calorie food."
I left those last three ellipses just for you to add that. ;)
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Posted by Bluebird on 03/22/11 06:46 PM
Right you are, Zen. I did mention guns would be confiscated, but yes, they surely make you of the criminal class. :) I mentioned those items because of a rant I gave recently on a local news story in which a mother and her adult daughter were arrested for having them. And how did the police know they had them? They came to serve a warrant on the mother but the daughter came to the door and told them she was not home. So they searched the house instead! To be fair the mother was hiding inside, but they would not have known had they not illegally entered the house without the required SEARCH warrant and snooped. Arrested them both for having drug related items.
I have syringes- for giving my son insulin. I have a hemostat because when they inserted his mediport for giving chemo, they then sent him home from the hospital with a tube hanging from it. The nurse became hysterical when she learned the line was not going to be removed as he was seeing the oncologist the next day where it would be used, then removed. So she sent us home with the hemostat and instructions on clamping it off should some emergency arise.
And most of us keep a little cash on hand, just in case. So I guess that makes me a criminal also? :) The world has gone mad.
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Posted by Zenbillionaire on 03/22/11 06:30 PM
@ Ol' Grey Ghost
"the "War on Ugly Guns"
let's not forget the war on cheap high calorie food.
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Posted by Ol' Grey Ghost on 03/22/11 06:22 PM
@ Bionic Mosquito & Wayne
I'm old enough to remember when seat belts were an option one had to request from the auto manufacturer as the manufacturers didn't like to put them in their automobiles because that implied that the vehicles were inherently dangerous if one were to be involved in some kind of a crash (gee, really?).
Then the government came along and in its infinite wisdom (all hail Leviathan) ordered the manufacturers to install them or else which led to an increase in the cost of the automobiles which the customers had to absorb.
The battle cry at the time was, "they can make them put them in the cars but they can't make us wear them!" We all know how that turned out.
Do you wonder if there is any connection between this and the "War on (some) Drugs" or the "War on Ugly Guns" or the "War on Vitamins" or...
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