by Marco Taradash
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Marco Taradash is a journalist. He has been a member of the Radical Party for almost twenty years. He is also one of the founder members of the International Antiprohibitionist League, a member of the European Parliament, and the Secretary of CoRA, the Radical Antiprohibitionist Organization.
"So much the worse" for the war on drugs continues to be "so much the better" for the prohibition policy on drugs. The growth in the crime business is accompanied by an increase in political business. We have to understand that the prohibitionist system will not break down because of its inefficiency, or its perversity, or the terribly high price society has to pay because of it. The only form of determinism upheld today, however aberrant it might be, is the following: the actual failure of the prohibitionist policy on drugs fosters the bureaucratic success of this same policy. Prohibition, like nuclear reactors fuelled by plutonium, is self-fertilizing. Consequently, strong political pressure has to constantly be exerted on governments, on parliamentarians, and on public opinion in order to reverse the actual tendency to augment repressive powers, to increase prison sentences, and to diminish individual rights
Prohibitionism is a diabolical form of legalization
Democracy and freedom are at stake, nothing more. As Jean Baudrillard wrote (apropos of "drugged information" in wartime): "What do you really have against drugs? Nothing. It's just that the disappointment of people as a whole is overwhelming when the spell is broken - as it was when the scandal of the Timisoara corpses broke, and as it is when people become aware of the subterfuge of war. The scandal is no longer an open attack on moral valus, but an attack launched on the fundamental principles of life". Prohibitionism creates deceptive images and false syllogisms that take in society. The following is a classic example; organized crime threatens the safety of citizens, it is necessary to fight criminals, drug-traffickers are the worst kind of criminals, therefore there is a need for prohibitionism. It is a logic totally unsuited to the facts, and a society that has a short memory and doesn't keep pace with events accepts official statements without question. But the reality is different, the opp
osite in fact. Prohibitionism creates a market, and this prohibition market is uncontrolled, free, and monopolized by criminals who are allied to delinquents, occasional pushers who run the retail market. "Prohibitionism is a diabolical form of legalization" wrote Albert Hofman, the scientist who invented LSD.
All international reports confirm that organized crime has triumphed over repression. The latest UN report (published on 15 January 1992) denounces - as previous reports did - the power that criminal organizations have over society in innumerable countries, and their increasingly more alarming influence on the finacial world in all the northern capitals. We can also expect a few surprises with respect to 1990. In fact, we should see a big development in the international banned drugs market in 1992.
Coca is being substituted by poppies
How is the drug-trafficking industry changing? Now, there are drug-dealing networks even in Africa and, for the first time, many African countries find themselves having to deal with the problem of drug-addiction. There has been a realignment of power within the cartels of Central America: the violent leaders of the Medellin cartel have been ousted by those of the Cali cartel which is more sophisticated, more technologically-advanced, and less bloodthirsty. Thanks to their dedicated efforts, the Columbian "business managers" have finally been able to work the miracle that the millions of dollars and other investments from the UN were unable to bring about: the substitution of crops. In fact, instead of growing coca the farmers now plant poppies (or maybe they simply grow both). There is a very simple economic reason behind this: a kilo of cocaine yields about US$20,000 on the US market, and a kilo of heroin yields six times as much.The farmer is content because a kilo of opium poppy will earn him
500,000 pesos on the illegal market, while a kilo of potatoes will only earn him 4,000 pesos on the legal market.
Central Europe: a "breeding ground" for drugs
Former Communist countries in Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union have been flooded with mafia capital. A process is underway, which the European governments cannot or do not want to stop, which could result in Central Europe becoming a "breeding ground" for drugs, corruption and violence in the European Community, in the same way that Central America is for the United States. Poland is already producing 14% of the amphetamines sold on the world market. Eastern Europe is helpless to stop the hordes of cocaine traffickers that are pouring in, and while there is often a 100% increase in drug shipments seized at the frontiers, 90% of the drugs escape all forms of control.
What a disastrous situation! If this were a normal war, the generals and strategists would have been discharged for unworthy conduct and ineptitude a long while ago. But the "war on drugs" is not fought according to the usual political codes. Whatever happens, the governments don't budge an inch; it is as if the effectiveness of the laws laws should continue to provoke undesirable consequences. The moral fervor of the anti-drug "warriors" actually masks some questionable strategies: the governments' answer to this is to set up more and more new bodies to control and repress drugs, in order to justify their constantly establishing new and bigger budgets. "Warriors" everywhere are promoted to important positions in public life, and and they have no scruples about influencing the mass media with selected information and pressure of all kinds. Thus, the defeats sustained on the battlefield serve only to strengthen the instruments of war.
An international anti-drug Ku-Klux-Klan
We have to face reality: a new financial-repressive-administrative structure has been created, which consumes and squanders money at the same incredible rate as the military-industrial complexes that have heavily conditioned the political choices of the great, and also the smaller, western powers, and "colonized" dozens of governments in developing countries, since the beginning of the Fifties. In recent years, the prohibitionist policy has caused a sort of international anti-drug Ku-Klux-Klan to come into being, which operates world wide and is founded on an ideology that negates liberal and democratic humanism, and reintroduces values and instruments - mass imprisonment, advocation of the death penalty, military invasion - that society as a whole has already rejected. This ideology, and the powers it implies, is deeply-rooted in state governments and supernational organizations, and uses the" war on drugs" as a cover.
In many countries, these authoritarian , tunnel-vision politics are accompanied by the merciless exploitation of the suffering of addicts and their families. Heads of government declare: we are banning drugs for their good, and we are also building new prisons, and more lazarettos for AIDS victims, for their good. As proof of the positive effects of prohibitionism, those who have survived, the redeemed drug-addicts, are proudly shown off on TV at peak viewing time. While those who die from overdoses, the victims of the fighting and shoot-outs between gangs of pushers, and the AIDS victims, are society's orphans. The "accounts" of prohibitionism only list the "assets". Society is saddled with the "liabilities": it is promiscuity, consumerism that is to blame, or drugs tout court. Whoever maintains that it is not crime, or AIDS, that is responsible but the drug laws themselves, is excluded from political debate, even if they are called Milton Friedman, George Schultz, William Buckley or "The Economist
" and are, in other words, men and newspapers of the Establishment, and not leaders of the hippie revolution.
The end of a taboo
Even so, there is a sign that the action taken by the antiprohibitionists is beginning to produce results: a committee of enqiry set up by the European Parliament, and appointed to investigate drug-trafficking and the spread of organized crime in the European Community, has finally succeeded in breaking the hold that the prohibitionist ideology had over current drugs policies. It is no longer forbidden to mention - or discuss - the legalization of drugs in the Institutions. The final report compiled by the Committee of Enquiry into Organized Crime Linked to Drug-Trafficking has brought the monopoly that the prohibitionist policy held over drugs to an end. We hope this will be the first step in preventing the State from being invaded by criminal organizations, and government power from invading the lives of citizens. For nine months - from February thru November 1991 - this European parliamentary committee (of which the writer was Vice-Chairman, appointed by the Green Group) questioned the leaders of the
"war": the Chiefs of the National Anti-Drug Departments, customs officials, the most important officials of the drug-control divisions of the UN, Interpol, and the various joint European departments. The commission also heard "front-line" judges, sociologists, economists, and criminologists. Many of the people interviewed questioned the validity of the prohibitionist system, and they all pointed out its limits. It appears to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to combat criminal organizations that are now more powerful than ever before, that often resort to corruption rather than violence, and which (unlike any other crime phenomenon) systematically infiltrate the political world, public institutions, and the legal economy.
The final result was that the 15 members approved a decidedly innovative document, with 9 in favour and 6 against (in favour, the Socialist Group - the Italian representative was absent - the left-wing parties, the Greens) which was completely contrary to the predictions, and put the rapporteur (the Irish Christian Democrat Patrick Cooney) and the right-wing parties in a minority. This document lays the foundations for the radical reform of drug policies adopted up until now, and was approved with disturbing unanimity by national parliaments and supernational organizations. The document also sets forth proposals to combat money laundering, to reduce the dangers inherent in the elimination of internal borders, and to bring about greater collaboration between the police and legal systems of the Twelve.
The dealers, not the consumers
This document provides a dramatic alternative, and raises a question that has been "banned" up until now: "It is necessary to determine - if this is possible - whether a significant increase in the effectiveness of repression will considerably reduce drug-trafficking, or even eliminate it altogether, or if it might not be wiser to consider other counter measures". We must - the document specifies - verify the actual costs and benefits of the drug policies adopted up until now: the European Community must determine the negative effects that the failure of the policy of repression and the subsequent spread of crime and deliquency, the overloaded law courts, the deaths from AIDS, the risk of overdose amongst drug-addicts and corruption in the economic and political world, has had on the individual and society as a whole. The battle against drugs "must not be waged against the consumer or the small-time pushers, but against international dealers and drug-traffickers". At the same time it is necessary, in or
der to combat money laundering, to "study suitable methods to prevent the accumulation of such profits via the regulation of the sale of banned drugs".
Developing a new policy
The Commission therefore requests that a new policy be developed, and also defines the necessary criteria. An example of the concrete and directly applicable reforms would be "the possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use is not to be considered a crime". We must also "avoid turning the drug-addict into a delinquent and thus compromise any possibility of rehabilitation". If the occasional drug user is to be spared going to prison, the law must no longer prevent assistance being given to addicts: "it is necessary to adopt a practical attitude and reduce the risks connected with drug abuse (harm reduction)". In order to reduce the risk of death by overdose, the spreading of the HIV virus and drug-related crimes, we propose the controlled distribution of drugs, the free distribution of syringes, and the use of substitute drugs such as methadone and temgesic.
We are receiving a great deal of encouragement from the one and only democratic institution in the European Community. The "European Cities at the Centre of Illegal Drug-Trafficking" movement is gathering strength, and this is also important. In November 1990 at Frankfurt, these cities signed a document which was fundamental in countering the effects of prohibitionism, and they are divulging new drug therapies that have already been successfully applied on their home ground. However, it is still an uphill climb: the European Parliament (which has yet to examine the report of the Committe of Inquiry in its plenary session) has no direct powers, and the European cities are meeting with incredibly strong resistance at government level. The truth is that governments and mafias - often for opposing reasons, and always because of mutual interests - are doing their utmost to counter the new trend.
What concrete action can we take?
In order to take any action at all, we must first strengthen the transnational Radical Party. The building, and defence, of the world democratic institions of the future depends very much on the success of the antiprohibitionist drug policy - even though not many people are aware of this. What kind of concrete action can we take? Above all, the RP must once again begin to collaborate with the International Antiprohibitionist League, the movement founded in Rome on the RP's initiative in April 1989. Today, the League has a great deal of scope for new intiatives and, together with the RP, could become an important driving force and connecting point for all the different associations that are working to reform the drug laws. Such as the groups that are experimenting with health policies inspired by "harm reduction". The efforts of the English and the Dutch in this area show how a policy that respects the dignity and rights of the addict can, by eliminating, or reducing, death by overdose or AIDS, be an eff
ective substitute for the repressive "drug-free" strategy that aims solely at abstinence. Other organizations have criticized the economic, military and geopolitical aspects of prohibitionism with extraordinary insight. Still others (like the Drug Policy Foundation in the US) are mounting a continuous information offensive that, in some way, counteracts the lack of official information.
There is an urgent need to pool the knowledge and experience of all these movements and to speed up, where possible, the creation of regional antiprohibitionist organizations capable of transforming the antiprohibitionist credos into political action - also nonviolent - and actual bills. If we are going to undertake a program of action such as this, we must mobilize ourselves internationally, on different fronts. There is certainly not a lack of mid-term objectives or ideas: abolishing all prison sentences for anyone who makes personal use of drugs; substitution of a "harm reduction" policy for a "drug-free" policy; regulation of the hashish and marijuana markets in order to take them out of the hands of the criminal organizations; development of policies defining deadlines and methods for legalizing drugs, in order to fight crime and corruption; mounting of campaigns favouring "glasnost" in the inter-governmental bodies which operate without any democratic control and aggravate the "war on drugs",
starting with the UN.
