I think that the article written by George Shultz, ex-Secretary of the United States should have exploded like a bomb-shell in the international debate on drugs. In fact, Shultz is a man of order, not a "radical". It explains how his attempts to fight drugs with repressive interventions failed. This brings us to the necessary conclusion: the criminal market must be separated from that of drugs. How? With the legalisation of drugs.

But, despite the fact that the article was published in the 'Wall Street Journal' and 'La Stampa', nothing happened. No politician or newspaper took up the debate. Is the Information doped ? Here's the article:

"Shultz: drugs cannot be restrained.

(George Shultz, ex-Secretary to the U.S., has returned to teach at the Stanford Business School. Recently, he held a discourse on his struggle against drugs during the presidencies of Nixon and Reagan, and on the prospects of the Bush plan. Following is a summary, taken from the Wall Street Journal)

From "La Stampa", Thursday, 2 November 1989

A couple of years ago, efforts to banish drugs in the Bahamas struck me in a particular manner. In the course of the year we had confiscated about five billion dollars worth of cocaine. However, I do not know how much passed through our hands. Nobody possesses an accurate estimate. Nevertheless, the gross national product of Bahamas is presumably between one and two billion dollars. Thus you have an idea of the influence our drug market has there and in other places.

It gives me much pleasure to see the amount of emphasis being placed on the drug problem. I think that the efforts - to establish contacts with people who take drugs and help them; and if they cannot be cured, to atleast try and limit their number; to discourage the drastic use of drugs on the part of occassional users through education; to block the distribution of drugs amongst youth - are of extreme importance. But I must say that, in my opinion, the conceptual base of the present anti-drugs programme is weak and will thus not work. Its conceptual base - an approach of criminal justice - is the same that I drew up in the past, during the Nixon administration, when I was the administrative director and secretary of the treasury with customs jurisdiction. We set up a extensive programme and put in all our efforts into it. We did the same during the Reagan administration as well. Our international forces were the largest ever undertaken.

You have in front of you a person whose procession of cars was attacked by drug traffickers in Bolivia: I am thus a veteran in this war against drugs. What we now have in front of us is essentially the same programme, but with more resources at our disposal to implement it. These efforts tend to create a market where the prices by far exceeds its costs. In fact, with these incentives, demand creates its own offer and a criminal organisation around this. I feel therefore that we will not attain any results until we are in a position to separate the criminality of drug trafficking and the incentives for such criminality. Frankly speaking, I feel that the only way to carry out this programme is that of making available to drug addicts, drugs in determinate areas with a price that nears the cost. When this happens, the incentives for criminals will disappear, including, I believe, the incentive that motivates the pusher to take advantage of children and drug them, to create a market. They will no longer h

ave that incentive, because they will no longer have a market. For this reason, I believe that the conceptual base of the anti-drugs programme should be thought through again.

If what I am saying to you is interesting, read a courageous and informative article on this problem in the September issue of Science, written by Ethan Nadelmann. We would need to atleast consider and examine ways of a controlled legalisation on drugs. I find it a difficult theme to undertake.

Sometimes I advance these ideas to parties, and people soon begin avoiding me. They do not even wish to speak to me. I know I am speaking to the winds, if I do what we are doing now. But I feel that if someone does not take up the issue now, the next time, when these anti-drug programmes are presented again, everybody will be afraid of speaking about the problem. No politician will want to say what I have just said, not even for a minute."