At the Summit of the Americas in Colombia, Harper said: "I think what everyone believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach is not working, but it is not clear what we should do."
It was a surprising and refreshing admission, coming as it did from Stephen Harper, one of the hemisphere's most committed warriors in support of the war on drugs. Embedded in this admission of failure was a pleading for clarity about what to do next, and how to implement viable and effective solutions to the drug problem. This is why the recent release of the Global Commission on Drug Policy's report, titled "The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS: How the Criminalization of Drug Use Fuels the Global Pandemic" represents such a bombshell for Canada and other nations stuck in the fruitless, endless and self-perpetuating war on drugs.
The commission itself is made up of a who's who of international leaders including former U.S. Federal Reserve chair Paul Volcker, Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, and the former presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. Their report represents a damning indictment of the global war on drugs by laying bare its true cost and staggering level of failure.
As the report outlines, support for a global drug war has had a profound impact on the spread of HIV and associated AIDS deaths. In Russia, which has outlawed clinically proven addiction treatment options such as methadone, the number of HIV-positive individuals has soared from close to zero in 1994 to almost one million in 2009.
Not surprisingly, Russia's growing epidemic is concentrated among its increasing number of injection drug users. In Thailand, which sanctioned the extrajudicial killing of Thai drug users in a brutal drug war in 2003 and continues to take a staunchly "tough on crime" approach to drugs, it's estimated that fully 50 per cent of the country's thousands of injection drug users are now HIV-positive.
These horrifying statistics aren't the unfortunate side effects of an otherwise effective program to control drugs, and they're not isolated incidents. Despite deep international commitment to the war on drugs, it has failed on a colossal level. Even as drug enforcement funding has increased over the past two decades, the global drug supply has steadily increased. Meanwhile, countries that are primary consumers of drugs, such as Canada and the United States, have seen drug prices tumble to new lows while drug purity has increased dramatically.
These findings are just the tip of the iceberg. The commission's report carefully illustrates how the drug war has doomed hundreds of thousands to incarceration, persecution, and HIV infection despite its clear failures to affect drug supply. For that reason alone it should be required reading for Prime Minister Harper, as it offers him what he seems to be asking for: a clear set of steps to undo the damage of the failed status quo. And he doesn't have to look far to find solutions. In the report, the commissioners highlight the success of British Columbia, which aggressively advanced a public health approach to tackling drug harm, and as a result has seen the number of new HIV cases among injection drug users drop almost 90 per cent since 1996.
Unfortunately, instead of celebrating this made-in-Canada success, our federal government seems intent on alternately vilifying it and litigating against it while doubling down on a tough-on-crime approach. If these policy failures affected only Canadians, they would be damaging enough. What the commission's report outlines, though, is the way in which policies in drug consumer countries like Canada can devastate other regions.
In the case of Canada and the United States, our addiction to the war on drugs, coupled with an insatiable demand for drugs themselves, has proved a deadly cocktail for those countries unlucky enough to exist along the supply chain. In Mexico, for instance, an all-out drug war has claimed the lives of over 50,000 since its inception in 2006. Rather than stifle drug supply, it appears to have fueled it, as estimates suggest that Mexican heroin production has increased 340 per cent since the drug war was launched. The report clearly shows this is not a Mexican failure but a regional one, and that Canadians should recognize their own government's complicity in supporting enforcement policies that do untold damage far beyond our borders.
Prime Minister Harper's recognition of the futility of Canada's drug policies represents a potential turning point, and he should be supported in seeking a viable alternative to the broken status quo. In this regard, the commission's report provides him with the answers he needs to move towards effective drug policies. Though it confirms some of our worst fears about the impact of the war on drugs, the report also outlines evidence-based ways to overcome them. Let's hope our prime minister finds in it the path forward that he seeks.
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Michael R. Powers: Statistical Soothsaying
Without this "war on drugs" would to police be able to militarize so easily?
What Canada lacks is of course the leadership or inspiration to lead.
For PM Harper, a solution would require deviating from the American solution which would then show that as the failed policy it is, thus incurring the wrath of his friends friends south of the border.
A solution would also cut heavily into organized crime and that is not something they are likely to support and as much as I hate to say it they have influence federally and provincially.
How can a solution be found? I don’t really know but Canadians need get this issue into the re-election efforts of their elected representatives be it at the city level provincial of federal. The next administration needs a policy that maps out the path to reducing illegal drugs and the criminals this promotes in Canada so we can vote on it.
In a word, bluster
It's funny because ask Harper this question at home and he knows exactly what to do by passing the omnibus drug bill c-10. Why can't Harper stand true to his policies, it is evident that he says what will please everyone. South Americans are forced to alot more brutality of the drug war than Canadians so of course Harper poises his comment to improve relations with them.
lets see if he actually move towards a method that works, or if he cashes out on prison building contracts at home
This article is just too superficial...
I still don't get if the barefacedness of some individuals it's just innate or acquired, but i guess what the answer is.
It's a numbers game, there will always be a certain percentage of our population which will become addicted to something. People know how bad drinking is for them, but every second commercial is for beer or vodka. Everyone knows the harm smoking cigarettes cause, but you still see them sucking on their cancer sticks in -35 degree weather. Where is your outrage for these socially acceptable forms of drug use?
And so you are saying those soldiers who get addicted to morphine after suffering a loss of limb are selfish and have low self esteem?
How about the car accident victim who spends weeks in the hospital and gets addicted to percoset, are they selfish as well. I know you like to keep things in a little bubble to help you understand the world, but it is a much bigger place with a myriad of reasons for drug addiction. To label all users as selfish with low sellf esteem is ridiculous.
The reason people are dying, countries have made it so profittable that people will kill each other over it. I don't see too many gun fights between the owners of the corner liquor stores.
how to reduce demand without reducing satisfaction or causing stress?
learn TM tm.org
experience Bliss [ satchitananda] Bliss is the only experience which creates abundance of satisfaction ; only Bliss , absolute Bliss Consciousness , eliminates addictions without arousing feelings of opportunity costs and without causing stress
this is not a preaching ; its fact based on > 600 scientific studies with TM (tm) , 340 peer reviewed published studies
Follow the money.
With instant access to information on a global scale the politicians are aware that a growing segment of the population will no longer buy the lies they have pedaled since the 70s. When you can research statistical data, scientific study and precedent setting programs which all confirm that "The War on Drugs" is, not only a complete failure, but is in fact the very thing that systematically perpetuates the problem its really not that complicated.
To think/beilieve that this is not known in political circles in extremely nieve.
The system has become a financial juggernaut for so many profit motivated corporations and private interest groups that it is nearly political suicide to even consider ending it. Check out the campain contributions from alchohol and tobbacco in the US alone to the politicians who support and maintain the system.
The recent testimony on behalf of the head of DEA was enough for the entire system to lose all credibility. The head of the DEA cannot distinguish the difference between the health, societal and crime motivating implications of meth and marijuana?!
It can only be one of two things, complete incompetence top to bottom, or complete corruption top to bottom. Which is it?
Follow the money.