The third way: Moving beyond an unwinnable war

Jeffrey Dhywood
Investigative writer
Author of
“World War-D:
The Case against
prohibitionism, roadmap
to controlled re-
legalization“

jd@world-war-d.com
www.world-war-d.com

©Jeffrey Dhywood - www.world-war-d.com 1

The Third Way:
Moving beyond an unwinnable war

It is impossible to properly address an issue that is not fully understood
and few issues are as mired in confusion, misconceptions,
preconceptions, prejudice and taboos as the issue of “drugs”.

Goal:
• Dispel the confusion and misconceptions surrounding illegal drugs
• Put aside ideological and moralistic preconceptions
•Separate facts from propaganda.
• Bring common sense and sanity to the drug policy debate
• Devise practical, realistic and sensible solutions.


Dispelling myths and bringing some
clarity to the “drug” issue
• What are “drugs”? What exactly are we talking about?
• What is the “drug problem” and why is it a problem in the first
place?
• Where did the “drug problem” come from?
• What is the rationale of prohibition?
• What is the “War on Drugs”? Why was it started? What did it
accomplish?
• Are there alternatives to the current policies, and if so, what are
these?
• When we talk about “legalization”, what exactly do we mean?
• Should we talk about “legalization” or “regulation”?
• What is the best way to deal with “drug-trafficking” and “drug
violence”?
• What exactly do we want to accomplish?

What are we talking about?

“Drugs” in the “War on Drugs”
and the “drug problem”


Two problems in one
The problematic of illegal drugs stems from
their dual status:
• Drugs, meant as psychoactive substances
• Illicit substances, object of prohibition.

In illegal drugs, there are two intertwined but
very distinct issues: “illegal” and “drugs”, each
with their own sets of derived issues and
associated harms.

What are drugs?

Definition of drug from the medical dictionary:
1. A chemical substance that affects the processes
of the mind or body.
2. Any chemical compound used in the diagnosis,
treatment, or prevention of disease or other
abnormal condition.
3. A substance used recreationally for its effects on
the central nervous system, such as a narcotic.
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/drug.


The “drugs” in the “War on Drugs”
are the “Psychoactive substances”
that are illegal.

“Psychoactive substances” have mind-altering properties. They
include:
• alcohol,
• tobacco and
• Psycho-pharmaceuticals
• as well as mild stimulant such as coffee, tea, caffeinated
drinks, mate or coca leaves.


Diagram of Psychoactive substances


ILLEGAL


Drugs and crime
• Acquisitive crime (shoplifting, burglaries, robberies,
prostitution)
• Street gangs: control most of the street-level drug dealing
• Drug cartels: deep links to organized crime, right-wing
militias, left-wing guerillas, terrorism and even rogue
governments. Involved in several coups over the past 30
years.
The mass incarceration of drug offenders has turned the
prison system into a highly efficient training and recruiting
system for street gangs and drug cartels, offering gateways
from street gangs to drug cartels for the most “talented”
alumni.


Organized crime and narco-trafficking

19

Deep roots into society of
Narco-trafficking & organized crime
Narco-trafficking provides huge resources to organized crime, allowing it to
establish deep roots into the society.

Narco-trafficking heavy reliance on corruption for its operation further
deepens its roots into society.

Money-laundering and organized crime’s involvement into cash-intensive
activities extend its reach even further. Narco-culture has become the
dominant culture in some parts of the world.

The longer narco-trafficking is allowed to flourish, the deeper the roots it
grows into society, the harder it becomes to eradicate it.

Alcohol prohibition lasted only 13 years, but it took the US, the most powerful
country on earth, more than 50 years to somewhat curb the power of the
mafias.

Geopolitics of drug trafficking
deep links to organized crime, right-wing militias, left-wing guerillas,
terrorism, covert operations, secret services, rogue governments.
Involved in several coups over the past 30 years, fuelling violence in
wider national and regional conflicts (Afghanistan, Pakistan, West
Africa: Mali, Guinea Bissau, Burma
Many affected countries, such as Colombia, Afghanistan and Burma,
have long histories of internal and regional conflict. However, drug
money has played a major role in motivating and arming separatist
and insurgent groups, and domestic and international terror groups,
blurring the distinction between them and criminal gangs. In the
longer term, violence can traumatise populations for generations, in
particular fostering a culture of violence among young people.


Producing & transiting countries
Products and services Drug traffickers see
are paid in kind Market opportunities

Emergence of a Growing substance
local marketplace abuse problem

Spread of violence for control
Of local marketplaces


The double balloon effect
Crackdown in one region displaces Crackdown on a substance displaces
drug production and trafficking to use and abuse to other substances.
another, further spreading the
1970s: Heroin (US, EU)
plague of narco-trafficking,
corruption, destabilization, 1980s: Cocaine (US, EU)
violence and substance abuse.
1990s: Amphetamines
(US, EU, Asia)
2000s: Heroin (Eastern EU, Central
Asia) – ATS (US, Europe, Asia)
2010s: Psycho-pharmaceuticals (US)
heroin (Eastern EU, Central Asia,
Africa) – ATS/amphetamines (EU,
Africa, Asia), cocaine (EU, Africa, Asia,
Latin America)

Understanding the illegal drug
marketplace


Prohibition promotes addiction and
facilitates initiation
Experimental Casual
Initiation Use – 50% Use – 20%

Users in accelerating pattern of use often go through a
“honeymoon” period and become proselyte and therefore accelerating
contagious. They frequently resort to drug dealing to Pattern of use
subsidize their pattern of use, supplying initiates, 10%
experimental and casual users, which also gives them
easier access to the substances and leaves them even
more exposed at a time of highest vulnerability. Abuse/Addiction
< 5%
Abusers & addicts are the main initiators & suppliers

The vast majority of users never go beyond casual use

Structure of the illegal drugs marketplace
Broad overlap between the soft drugs and hard drugs marketplaces
Retail dealers often are heavy users who subsidize their own use

65 + Past Month use of illicit Drug
55-59 in US by Age Category -2010

45-49 MJ
35-39 cocaine
26-29 all
24
22

Transition from casual
20

to problem use
Transition from
18 soft to hard drugs

16 Retail dealers of hard drugs
Dealers of soft drugs 14 Are the main initiators.
often carry ecstasy and
hallucinogens. 12
MJ street dealers generally
offer hard drugs as well. 0 10 20 30
The illegal marketplace supply chain incentivizes the transition from soft drugs to hard drugs
and from casual use to problem use. Children & youths are most at risk.
26
©Jeffrey Dhywood - www.world-war-d.com

The illegal drug marketplace:
A network marketing system

• All transactions, especially at the highest levels, are done through
connections
• At every level, people only know their direct supplier and their
direct customers
• Those at the top make a lot of money
• Those at the bottom barely survive, often merely subsidizing their
own use. They are the weakest link in the supply chain.
• Retailers are the main users; they are the initiators of new users
and supply casual users


(Hard drugs)


• Organized crime controls most of the wholesale
of illegal drugs, especially hard drugs.
• Informal networks consists of independents
producers and/or traders. Informal networks
control a larger part of the marijuana
trade, especially in the US and Canada. They
control most of the market of psychedelics.
• Abusers and addicts represent only 10% of the
users, but 90% of the consumption.

What is the rationale behind
prohibition?
Is there a logic to this madness?


Harm potential and legal status
“While there is a clear rationale for a separate legal
status for medications, the rationale for the
distinction between substances that are under
international control and those that are not is
more problematic. The substances which are
included in the international conventions reflect
historical understandings in particular cultural
settings about what should be viewed as uniquely
dangerous or alien.”
2004 WHO report “Neuroscience Of Psychoactive Substance Use And Dependence”
http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/psychoactives/en/index.html


There are no clear relationships between the legal status of a
substance and its intrinsic harm potential, the personal and
societal harm it may inflict independently of its legal status

32

Global Health Risks Chart
chart from the Global Health Risks report compares the top global health concerns
using the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) – Illicit drugs is number 18

Illicit drugs are a relatively minor
Illicit drugs
global health risk

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalHealthRisks_report_part2.pdf 33

Preventable deaths in the world
cause deaths affected population morbidity within the
or users affected population
(per 1,000)
Malnutrition 6,000,000 1,000,000,000 6.00
Tobacco 6,000,000 1,000,000,000 6.00
Unintentional injuries (accidents) 3,340,000
Road traffic accidents 1,260,000
Drowning (excluding floods, boating
and water transport) 450,000
Poisoning 315,000
Falls 283,000
Fire 238,000
Overweight 3,000,000 1,500,000,000 2.00
Alcohol 2,500,000 2,000,000,000 1.25
Unsafe sex 2,444,000
Intentional injuries / violence 1,659,000
Suicides 815,000
Homicides 520,000
Adverse drug reactions 1,500,000
illegal drugs 245,000 200,000,000 1.20

7,000
Preventable deaths in the world (in 1,000s)
Unintentional injuries: 3,340,000
6,000 Road
Other traffic
accidents, accidents,
794,000
Fire, 238, 1,260,000
5,000 000

Intentional injuries - 1,659,000

Illegal drugs are a relatively minor
Falls, 283
,000
poisoning Drowning
4,000 , 315,000 , 450,000
Others, 3

cause of preventable death
24,000
Suicides,
3,000 homicides 815,000
, 520,000

2,000

1,000

-
malnutrition tobacco Unintentional overweight alcohol unsafe sex Intentional Adverse drug illegal drugs
injuries injuries reactions


Casualties related to illegal drugs
The vast majority of deaths related to illegal drug use comes from injecting drug
use and fall under 2 major causes:
• Overdoses (mostly accidental and due of wide variation in concentration of illicit
drugs)
• HIV-AIDS caused by hazardous administration practices, a direct consequence of
prohibition.
Narco-violence: 100,000+/year (Mexico and Central America: 45,000/year)
Most of the harm caused by illegal drugs
derives from their illegal status.
The World Health Organization (WHO), estimates deaths related to illicit drug use worldwide at
245,000 (overdoses, suicides and AIDS, hepatitis B and hepatitis C).
Victims of narco violence are not included in this total.


Why?
Why has a relatively minor social and lifestyle issue been so
vilified?
Why have so much attention and so many resources been
thrown at this relatively minor issue while other more
prominent causes of death receive far lower attention and
far fewer resources?
Why so much inflexibility?
Has prohibition really reduced the spread of substance abuse?
Would substance abuse be much worse without prohibition?
If so, was it worth the huge price paid for it?
Is the drug problem a relatively minor problem that has been
blown out of proportion with catastrophic consequences?


Caricatures of the prohibitionist
propaganda
The prohibitionist propaganda systematically displays
the dangers of drug use with harrowing cases

But then, why is alcohol shown
This way instead of this way?


Their drug use didn’t destroy their careers

A drug conviction would certainly have

The accession of not one but three illegal drug users in a row to the US
presidency constitutes an existential challenge to the prohibitionist
regime.
The fact that some of the most successful people of our time, be it in
business, finances, politics, entertainment or the arts, are current or
former substance users is a fundamental refutation of its premises and
a stinging rebuttal of its rationale.
A criminal law that is broken at least once by 50% of the adult
population and that is broken on a regular basis by 20% of the same
adult population is a broken law, a fatally flawed law.
How can a democratic government justify a law that is consistently
broken by a substantial minority of the population?
What we are witnessing here is a massive case of civil disobedience not
seen since alcohol prohibition in the 1930 in the US.
On what basis can a democratic system justify the stigmatization and
discrimination of a strong minority of as much as 20% of its population?

Prohibition is the worst possible
form of control

Prohibition was the wrong answer to a real issue.
• It gives control of the prohibited substances to
organized crime with catastrophic consequences.
• It spreads violence and corruption and increases
exponentially the harm of drug use.
Prohibition cannot work in a market economy.
Organized societies should be able to do a better
job than organized crime at managing and
controlling potentially dangerous substances.

Regulation of legal psychoactives

Learning from the 3 existing
models – their strengths, their
flaws and limitations


Alcohol


Alcohol

• Highly normative, social lubricant of Western
civilization, consistently glamorized.
• Super-powerful Lobby strongly opposed to any
reform
• Taxation totally inadequate to social costs
• Little restriction on use and marketing
• Limited campaigns of education & prevention
• Rapid growth of consumption in emerging
countries


WHO conclusions on Alcohol
regulations
Few places use effective policy measures to prevent death, disease
and injury from alcohol use. Many countries have weak alcohol
policies and prevention programs.

Since 1999, restrictions on alcohol marketing and on drunk–driving
have increased, but there are no clear trends on most preventive
measures.

Most useful and cost-effective strategies:
(1) Regulating the marketing and availability of alcoholic beverages (in
particular to younger people);
(2) Drunk-driving laws;
(3) Demand-reduction for alcohol through taxation;
(4) Accessible and affordable treatment for alcohol dependence.

Tobacco
•A model of successful restriction of a powerful lobby
without throwing anybody into jail.
•Spectacular reduction of use in a growing number of
countries. US prevalence of use decreased from over
50% in 1950 to less than 20% in 2010.
•Reduced normativity, deglamorized.
•Restrictions on marketing and use in public spaces;
education and prevention campaigns
•High level of taxation, even if probably still
insufficient to cover societal costs in most countries.
•Use still rising in emerging countries due to lax regulations and
powerful tobacco lobby in some countries.

Psycho-pharmaceuticals
Neuroscience: the Holy Grail of the medicalization of
normalcy.
A super-powerful lobby subsidized by health insurance in
most countries
Emergence of cosmetic psycho-pharmacology: the use of
medicine to enhance physical, cognitive or mental
performance raise the issue of the legitimacy of
recreational or sybaritic use.
Rapid increase of the world market for psycho-
pharmaceuticals from $19 billion in 1997 to $137 billion
in 2010 with projections for $300 billion by 2018.
Abuse of psycho-pharmaceuticals now surpasses abuse
of illicit drugs in many countries, affecting primarily
children and the elderly.

The third way
Controlled legalization


What do we want to accomplish?

Reduce crime & Reduce the harm
crime-related caused by
harm substance abuse

These two goals
are compatible
and non-exclusive


The challenges of effective regulation
• Decriminalization leaves control to organized crime.
Only controlled legalization can reclaim control of
production and trade of the currently illegal drugs.
• We must learn from the 3 existing models of legalized
psychoactives drugs (alcohol, tobacco and psycho-
pharmaceuticals) to improve on these models and
avoid their pitfalls and limitations.
• Keeping at bay powerful commercial interests: The
main threat to effective control in a legal market is not
from black market interests but of the legal industry
influencing politics over time to increase availability
and, in turn, profitability.


Model optimization
The illegal drugs problem does not have a unique solution, but
rather a continuum of possible outcomes under varying
conditions. The one-size-fits-all prohibitionist approach
doesn’t work. Drug policy reform must be a dynamic
process, with a regulatory model that is adaptable to local
conditions and can evolve over time as new circumstances
demand.
Pragmatism and practicality rather than principled moralism
should be the leading guideline of policy-making.
The objective of drug policy reform should be to create an
optimized regulatory model that reclaims the control of
illegal drugs from organized crime, creating and
implementing practical and efficient mechanisms to
manage and minimize societal costs.

3 major objectives of drug policy reform
Violence and crime reduction: A properly controlled marketplace can
reduce, dismantle and possibly eliminate the illegal drug
market, which in turn will reduce the presence and influence of
organized crime and reduce drug-related violence.

Harm reduction: Safe and controlled legal access can reduce harm to
existing users, reduce drug related deaths, improve the health of
users/addicts, improve their social integration and reduce harm
caused by problematic users to their proximate environment and to
society at large.

Prevention: Proper control and prevention can minimize access to
minors, reducing or postponing initiation, which is a prerequisite for
long-term improvement of the substance abuse issue. It will
prevent moderate, responsible users from becoming problem users.


The 5 pillars of controlled legalization
• Legalize: reclaim control from organized crime
• Tax: Reduce or eliminate the financial burden placed on
taxpayers by the consequences of drug use and drug
prohibition.
• Control: Quality control, access control, marketing control
• Prevent: Reduce and postpone initiation; prevent soft
drugs users from moving to hard-drug use; prevent casual
users from falling into abuse.
• Treat: Reach out and early intervention on problem users
• Educate the public about the dangers of substance abuse


Basic structure of a regulated
marketplace
• Focus on problematic use, with a special emphasis on preventing it in the
first place, rather than trying to prevent all use of illicit drugs.

• A strict separation between distribution and retail channels of soft drugs
and hard drugs to minimize the transition from soft drugs to hard drugs.

• A strict separation between casual users and problem users of hard
drugs.

• Supervised maintenance for problematic users (heavy users and addicts)
of hard psychoactives. Such an approach offers many benefits that will be
detailed underneath, chief among them, a dramatic reduction of
initiation, which is the best warrant of long-term success.

• Protection of children and youths, with strong prohibition of underage
access and prevention of diversion, especially for hard drugs.

Step 1
Separate soft drugs from hard drugs
• Regains control of the largest segment of the illegal
drug marketplace.
• Establishes quality control, which eliminates
intoxication due to adulteration.
• Eliminates the marketplace-driven gateway effect from
soft drugs to hard drugs
• Allows focus on prevention of abuse
• Nudges hard-drugs users towards milder substances.
• Allows control of underage access

Considerations for soft drugs
legalization and control
Restrictions:
• Underage access (forbid sale, prevent diversion)
• Operating under the influence (driving, etc.)
• Zoning restrictions: proximity to schools, parks, sport
facilities and venues where children tend to congregate
• Marketing: Packaging, promotion, advertising, etc.
• Use in public places
• Opening hours
• Quantity per customer and/or per purchase
Establish purity, potency and active ingredients standards
Require health warnings on packaging and other
marketing material

Step 2 - Hard drugs management:
The health and harm-reduction approach

Subsidized access with supervised administration in
specialized premises for problem users:
• Establishes contact with vulnerable populations.
• Facilitates reinsertion of marginalized populations into
productive role in society.
• Eliminates acquisitive crime.
• Nudges abusers towards substitution and/or treatment.
• Eliminates hazardous administration practices and reduces
the spread of AIDS and other blood-borne infections.
• Reduces the social contagion of substance abuse
• Strict quality control eliminates intoxication and accidental
overdoses

Benefits of subsidized supervised
access on the illegal drug marketplace
• Removes the drug dealing necessity from problem
users
• Eliminates the social side of administration; reduces or
eliminates the contagiousness of substance
abuse, which in turn sharply reduces initiation.
• Eliminates a supply source for casual users.
• Removes the foot-soldiers from the illegal drugs
marketplace.
• Sharply reduces the illegal marketplace to the
hazardous casual user market and far more hazardous
initiates market.

Challenges of supervised access
• Issue of proper identification of problem users
and filtering out of casual users.
• Limited availability and/or excessive
restrictions, demands or pressure on problem
users may drive them away from the program
and back to the illegal marketplace.
• Risk of diversion by program operators and/or
users if the program is not properly controlled.
• Leaves program operators exposed to dangerous
and tempting substances.


Step 3 -Establish a highly restricted
legal marketplace for casual users
• May not include the most harmful substances and the
most harmful modes of administration
• Strict quality control eliminates intoxication and
accidental overdoses
• Accessible to registered users only
• Require waiting period and clear warning to new users
• High level of taxation
• Restriction on purchase – maximum amount per purchase
and/or per month
• Restrictions and packaging can be designed to sharply
reduce diversion
• Strict control of access to minors

Benefits of restricted legal access for
casual users
• Postpone and reduce initiation
• Allows early detection of accelerating patterns of
use and problem use
• Allows early intervention
• Avoids marginalization of users
• Eliminates the last remnants of the illegal drugs
marketplace
• Protect children from becoming foot-soldiers and
cannon fodder of narco-trafficking.

Is restricted legal access for casual
users necessary?
While the general public and politicians are warming up to the idea of
legalizing soft drugs, especially in Western countries, there is generally a
strong resistance to the legalization of hard drugs.
The harm-reduction approach is gaining ground around the world and has
been endorsed by the WHO while UNODC is warming up to the concept.
The step 2 of our proposed roadmap, based on harm-reduction with
prescription maintenance, would eliminate over 90% of the hard drugs
market from the illegal marketplace, and remove most of its foot-soldiers
and retailers. This in turn would reduce the residual illegal marketplace to
casual users and initiates of hard drugs, a highly hazardous an unprofitable
market.
The legalization of soft drugs such as cannabis and the supervised subsidized
access of hard drugs to abusers might sufficiently weaken the illegal drug
trade to the point of essentially destroying it.
Therefore, step 3 of our roadmap, restricted legal access for casual
users, might be unnecessary.


Breaking down the illicit drug marketplace
SOFT DRUGS HARD DRUGS
Strictly separate channels Casual use Problem use
to discourage transition Prevent transition Controlled
from soft to hard drugs.
Adult use

from casual use to subsidized access
Strong restrictions on problem use. with supervised
promotion & marketing High barrier of administration
Transition from
access. casual to problem
Transition from
Some diversion to soft to hard drugs Eliminate diversion
underage
to underage &
is probably unavoidable Prevent diversion initiation
Underage

Prevention of underage use. Separating problem users from casual users
Strict prohibition of sale to allows early intervention in case of
minors. Efficient mechanisms
accelerating pattern of use. Controlled
to prevent diversion, especially
for hard drugs. subsidized access prevents initiation.

Prohibition v/s Controlled Legalization
Prohibition  coercion Controlled legalization  Nudging
Forced transformation of human nature Respect of individual rights & lifestyle choices as long
Totalitarianism: communism, fascism, prohibitionism as they do not intentionally endanger others
Propaganda, censorship, mass incarceration of Education, prevention, treatment
deviants
Provokes: Rebellion/Resistance/deviance Promotes: voluntary cooperation, participation
Exclusion: Inclusion:
Segregation, discrimination, persecution, demonization Reaches out to the most at-risk populations
Marginalizes the most at-risk populations Bring them to productive role in society
Turn them to crime careers
All actors of the supply chain are unknown, and The various agents of the supply chain are clearly
virtually the entire population must potentially be identifiable; relatively light control apparatus is
controlled, requiring an extremely heavy enforcement sufficient to ensure that they abide by the rules that
apparatus. govern them.
Quality control issues
No quality-control, unknown concentration and Known, quality-controlled products, safe
adulterants, unsafe administration: administration
intoxication through unknown adulterants Eliminates intoxication through unknown
Accidental overdoses adulterants
Epidemic spread of AIDS and other diseases Eliminates accidental overdose
related to unsanitary administration practices to Reduce spread of AIDS and other diseases related
users, their partners & their children to unsanitary administration practices


Legalization will not end
organized crime
But it will weaken it


Legalization and organized crime
Legalization will remove considerable resources from organized crime
and weaken it substantially, but it won’t destroy it.
While legalization will allow refocusing law enforcement efforts, it will
also refocus organized crime; the drug cartels will expand their
other activities – extortions, kidnapping, human trafficking, etc.
Such activities are far less profitable and far more dangerous than
narco-trafficking though, which will greatly reduce the profitability
and therefore the appeal of criminal careers.
Legalization will allow turning the tide, even if a long struggle will
remain to curb organized crime to manageable levels.
Countries such as Mexico will require deep structural changes to
eradicate systemic corruption and impunity.


After losing the war, can we win the peace?
To win the peace means to reduce crime and violence, which in turns requires a
reduction in the number of criminals. To that effect:
• Reduce the appeal and profitability of crime
• Separate hardcore criminals from low-level operatives, offering them economic
alternatives.
• Reinsertion of repented criminals into society
• Disarm and disband criminal organizations
Countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia or possibly Mexico may require “Peace
and Reconciliation” programs to overturn the sub-cultures of violence prevalent in
many segments of the society and promote a more peaceful and inclusive society.
Ultimately, the root causes of violence must be addressed: lack of
opportunities, poor education, poverty and inequality.


Can Mexico learn from Colombia?
Mexico Colombia
• 3,000 km border with US • 2,500 km away from the US
• Drug trafficking started in the • Drug trafficking started in the
1920s
1970s
• Deeply-rooted links between
organized crime and all levels • Deeply-rooted links between
of government organized
• Systemic and endemic crime, insurgencies, paramilita
corruption ry militias and all levels of
• Pervasive impunity – 1 in 10 government
crime is reported; 1 in 10
reported crime leads to • Systemic and endemic
conviction corruption
• Pervasive impunity

How to get there
The US has adopted over the past 20 years a de-facto piecemeal (and
somewhat erratic) approach to drug policy reform. Marijuana is now legal
for medical use in 18 states and fully legal in Washington and Colorado.
Such a piecemeal approach is probably not a realistic option in the
countries most affected by narco-violence, the transiting and producing
countries.
In order to be successful, legalization should be implemented by a coalition of
countries with the intent to pressure the major consuming countries, the
US and Europe, to reform their own drug policies.
Short of that, legalization through most of South America, including
Colombia, Central America and Mexico, would place the US in a quandary.
I have been advocating since 2011 the creation of a broad Latino American
coalition of the willing to reform, led by Colombia, Mexico and Guatemala.
President Perez Molina of Guatemala has been working diligently since taking
office in January 2012 towards a region-wide debate on legalization.
Mexico and Colombia are still warming up to the idea and have failed to
give their full support so far.


Conclusion
Controlled legalization is not a seal of approval on drug use.
Starting with junk food and tobacco, many things are legal while
being generally disapproved. Replacing the uncontrollable illegal
trade with a controlled marketplace is vastly different from
saying that it’s OK and safe to use illicit drugs.
Far from giving up and far from an endorsement, controlled
legalization would be finally growing up; being realistic instead
of being in denial; being in control instead of leaving control to
the underworld.
It would abolish the current regime of socialization of costs and
privatization of profits to criminal enterprises, depriving them of
their main source of income and making our world a safer place.


Addressing substance abuse holistically

Ideally, from a research and policy-making point
of view, substance abuse should be viewed in
its entirety rather than focusing solely or
mostly on illegal drugs.
It would be particularly instructive to study the
evolution of substance abuse and its
associated harm over the last century or even
longer.


Find out more
www.world-war-d.com
http://www.facebook.com/worldward
Twitter: @JDhywood

Jeffrey Dhywood
Investigative writer, author of
“World War-D:
The Case against prohibitionism, roadmap to
controlled re-legalization“

The third way: Moving beyond an unwinnable war

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Semelhante a The third way: Moving beyond an unwinnable war

Semelhante a The third way: Moving beyond an unwinnable war (14)

Mais de Jeffrey Dhywood

Mais de Jeffrey Dhywood (6)

Último

Último (20)

The third way: Moving beyond an unwinnable war