ENCOD BULLETIN ON DRUG POLICIES IN EUROPE NR. 47 JANUARY 2009

We did manage to focus the attention of the international drug policy forum (that is, all the functionaries, politicians, volunteers, experts, and citizens with an interest in drug policy) on the most important issues: Harm Reduction, Human Rights, and last but not least Regulation, after the Repeal of Prohibition.

The international situation is less stable than it has been for a long time, both economically and in the wider political sense. Will this prove to be helpful for our cause, or will it slow us down? The current economic crisis cannot fail to remind us of the 1930´s when US Liquor Prohibition was repealed. Certainly, this came about in part because of the economic necessities. Will we see this scenario replayed on a global scale in the UN drug policy theatre? Or has the global drug war become untouchable due to its pervasive corruptive power, and sacrosanct by its popular but false claim of moral righteousness?

We will probably get the beginning of the answer to these questions in March 2009 when the “Year of Reflection” on the results of UNGASS 1998 will come to a conclusion. Admittedly, UNODC’s own evaluation was partly honest: the objectives of UNGASS 1998 have not been met.

However, the triumphant conclusion of Costa’s evaluation, that the global drug problem has been “contained” by international drug control, is as shallow as it is false.

False, because this alleged containment has only occurred in a few of the highly developed countries, while elsewhere drug-prohibition-related problems continue to increase. Shallow, because there is no reason to see stabilizing of use levels, even where it did happen, as a consequence of whatever policy. After the introduction of a new intoxicant or euphoric drug, levels of use climb for some time, often many years, and then level off simply because the demand has been satisfied. Reaching a plateau is not a success of drug policy. It is a natural occurrence.

This is one of the changes that has taken place in the last few years in the argumentation, in the line of reasoning in the drug policy debate: the influence of repression on levels of drug use has definitively been exposed as a myth.

The same goes for another crucial argument: the acknowledgment that the health risks of drug use do not require prohibition, but regulation. This reversal of one of the core justifications of prohibition is spreading slowly but steadily. Together, these two insights are sufficient for many interested citizens to see the futility and harmfulness of drug prohibition.

The problem is that few politicians are ready to accept this debunking of drug prohibition mythology. Most politicians know that repression causes enormous harmful side effects, and they may be ready to understand that prohibition will not lead to control of the drug markets, but too many of them still see these policies as essential instruments for their political careers. The big question is how long it will still take before they fully grasp the inconvenient truth that drug prohibition no longer can be justified by reasonable argumentation.

This was clearly demonstrated this year by UNODC Director Costa’s failure to explain the low to average levels of cannabis use in the Netherlands. And at the recent Cannabis Tribunal in The Hague the arguments brought forward by Christian Democratic politicians were formally judged to be no more than feelings, impressions, moral convictions, and lacking argumentative value.

At the UN, as within the EU, it will continue to be an uphill battle. In our experiences in the individual European countries, we find enough support and progress to maintain the strength and conviction to continue this battle, but we should be prepared for serious disappointments. The balance of political power is in constant change all over the world, from Western domination to forms of cooperation between states in which regional powers will play larger roles.

With an expected change of policy in the USA this may lead to different options. China is slowly opening up for Harm Reduction, for instance, but that does not imply any improvement in the protection of civil rights of drug users. In the European Union, the struggle between proponents of more centralization or decentralization continues.

Even when the probable acceptance of the Lisbon treaty will effectively end individual countries’ juridical independency, power division between local, regional and national governments will continue to be [an area] of conflict. This is shown by the preference for pragmatic solutions such as the Cannabis Social Clubs in the Basque and Catalan regions, and by the open defiance of the Dutch national government’s plan to further restrict the coffeeshops by the majority of those city governments that actually have problems due to the semi-illegal status of cannabis.

In the coming year, ENCOD’s efforts will stay focussed on demonstrating the inconsistencies between policies and local realities, on pleading for understanding of these realities, and on strengthening the movement of people who dedicate themselves to promoting just and effective drug policies.

By Fredrick Polak (with the help of Peter Webster)

http://www.encod.org

P.S.

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