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Looking at the Effects of Bill Clinton’s Signature Drug War Project
By Phillip S. Smith, Drug War Chronicle
The United States has been trying to suppress Colombian coca production and cocaine trafficking since at least the time of Ronald Reagan, but the contemporary phase of US intervention in Colombia in the name of the war on drugs celebrated its 10th anniversary this week. As Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) security analyst Adam Isaacson pointed out Wednesday in a cogent essay, “Colombia: Don’t Call It A Model,” it was on July 13, 2000, that President Bill Clinton signed into law a $1.3 billion package of mainly military assistance known as Plan Colombia.
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British Medical Journal On Harm Reduction
Strict laws on the criminalisation of drug use and drug users are fuelling the spread of HIV and other serious harms associated with the criminal market and should be reviewed, say experts. In this video, epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani and other leading commentators describe which countries are leading the way in tackling HIV infection among injecting drug users.
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By Stephen Rolles, senior policy analyst
Stephen Rolles argues that we need to end the criminalisation of drugs and instead set up regulatory models that will control drug markets and reduce the health and social harms caused by current policy
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Poll commissioned by LDDPR demonstrates public are ready for drugs discussion
Three other drugs: Magic Mushrooms, Amphetamines, and Mephedrone show a majority in favour of legalisation and regulation, whilst 3 in 10 people would prefer the state regulate rather than prohibit heroin supply. These poll results demonstrate that the public is ready for a mature, open discussion of alternative approaches to drug policy and that there is no need for politicians to fear a backlash should they express doubts about the wisdom of our current approach.
Rather than just ask whether each drug should be “legalised”, the poll gave brief descriptions of three regulatory options and asked the public to pick which they thought most tolerable for each of a series of drugs. The options were:
Light regulation (drugs sold like tobacco and alcohol are now)
Strict government control and regulation (an example of how government could heavily regulate a legal market in an attempt to minimise harm)
and Prohibition (the current status of illegal drugs).
Figures below supporting legal regulation add the percentages for “light regulation” and “strict government control and regulation”
Headline results include:
• 70% support for legal regulation of cannabis, with 1 in 3 of those polled feeling that it should be sold in a similar way to alcohol and tobacco.
• More people supporting legal regulation than prohibition for 3 other drugs: Magic Mushrooms (52% to 34%), Amphetamines (49% to 40%), and the recently banned “legal high” Mephedrone (41% to 39%).
• 39% support for the legal regulation of ecstasy sales, 36% support for regulation of cocaine, and 30% of respondents supported the legal regulation of heroin.
• For alcohol and tobacco over 1 in 4 respondents supported strict government control and regulation and 8% expressed a desire for tobacco to be prohibited.
• Very little variation in opinion dependent on which political party respondents support.
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The Adam Smith Institute Blog
The decriminalization of drugs has the potential to save the British taxpayer money, and simultaneously improve the security and health of the general public.
By Karthik Reddy, Guest blogger
Faced with the dire need to restore discipline to British public finances and a rising rate of reoffending among prisoners, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke announced yesterday broad changes to the way in which the government administers criminal justice. The prison population of England and Wales recently surpassed 85,000 inmates this year, a historically unparalleled number that is expected to continue to grow even further in coming years. As a proportion of their populations, England and Wales lock up nearly 150 of every 100,000 residents, a number that represents one of the highest rates of incarceration in Western Europe.
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As support for the Vienna Declaration grows we will be profiling signatories and members of our writing committee here and in our blog. Check back regularly for updates and to learn more about who is supporting evidence-based drug policy, and why.
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By Alice Huffman, President of the California NAACP
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” said the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967 when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. At the time, he was roundly criticized by friend and foe alike for speaking out on an issue considered outside the purview of civil rights’ leaders. Dr. King understood better than most at the time the true cost of war — in lives lost, in futures squandered, in dreams deferred and in misspent resources. Eventually, a majority of Americans came to agree with him about the war in Vietnam but he did not live long enough to see the shift in public opinion. His moral courage lay in speaking out in the face of disagreement, caring more about his integrity than popularity.
As leaders of the California NAACP, it is our mission to eradicate injustice and continue the fight for civil rights and social justice wherever and whenever we can. We are therefore compelled to speak out against another war, the so called “war on drugs.” To be clear, this is not a war on the drug lords and violent cartels, this is a war that disproportionately affects young men and women and the latest tool for imposing Jim Crow justice on poor African-Americans.
We reject the oft-repeated but deceptive argument that there are only two choices for addressing drugs — heavy handed law enforcement or total permissiveness. Substance abuse and addiction are American problems that affect every socioeconomic group, and meaningful public health and safety strategies are needed to address it. However, law enforcement strategies that target poor Blacks and Latinos and cause them to bear the burden and shame of arrest, prosecution and conviction for marijuana offenses must stop.
The report released this week by the Drug Policy Alliance confirmed that marijuana law enforcement in California disproportionately targets our youth. Despite consistent evidence that Black youth use marijuana at lower rates than Whites, in every one of the 25 largest counties in California, Blacks are arrested for marijuana possession at higher rates than Whites, typically at double, triple, or even quadruple the rate of Whites.
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The Drug Policy Alliance has released a report that documents widespread race-based disparities in the enforcement of low-level marijuana possession laws in California. The report finds that African Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at double, triple or even quadruple the rate of whites. Read the report (PDF).
