Problem solved.
Oh, wait. Problem not solved. Today, according to the Associated Press, “government statistics put the number of known addicts in China at 1.2 million, including 700,000 heroin users, more than two-thirds of them under the age of 35.” So, you know, that's worked really well.
Now, the UN is getting ready to meet again to determine drug policy for the next decade. The meeting, coordinated by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, will be held in Vienna from March 11 to 15. The last high level meeting on drug control? 1998, held under the motto "A Drug-Free World -- We Can Do It!"
Um. No. We can't do it. And, really, why would we want to?
Today, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime claims the drug market has “stabilized”, meaning roughly the same proportion of the world’s adult population still take illegal drugs as they did as a decade ago. That's about 200 million people, or about 5% of the world's adult population. (Accurate stats can be hard to come by.) There's no reason to think that the number is any smaller, or any larger than it's ever been.
Anyway, so what? Addiction itself is not the problem. Millions of people around the world are addicted to cigarettes and coffee, but they don't go on killing sprees to get them. With coke, pot, heroin and opium, it's a different story. The drug cartel war in Mexico killed more than 6,000 people last year and looks like it's getting worse. A turf war between drug gangs in Copenhagen is turning one of Europe’s safest cities into a shooting gallery. It's the same story in Afghanistan, in Columbia. Pretty much anywhere you go in the world, somebody is killing someone over drug money. And, of course, in the United States, where we spend some $40 billion a year trying to eliminate the supply of drugs, we arrest about 1.5 million of our citizens each year without having any real, discernible effect on drug violence. This is what the United Nations calls "stabilized"?
It's time to admit that War on Drugs is over. Drugs won.
Look, people who produce and supply drugs just want to make a living. People who use drugs want to ease pain, or just have a good time by altering their mood. Neither of these things are inherently evil. Neither will make otherwise law-abiding citizens turn to violent crime. It's the law (a law that says booze and Oxycontin are okay) that makes supplies scare and so, quite naturally, increases demand.
Legalization is not a perfect solution. With drugs cleaner, cheaper and easier to get, some people will use them more. (Then again, some might use them less because the illicit thrill is gone.) But drug abuse is, really, a mental health issue, not a matter for law enforcement. Anyway, we can't let the quest for a perfect solution get in the way of finding a good one. The drug war is a disaster; a well-meant, but misguided morality play that causes infinitely more problems than it solves. This madness must end. Everyone knows the old saying, "When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns"? Well, turn it around. When drugs are not outlawed, outlaws will no longer have drugs."
