Drugs: Change the paradigm?

I had a job in Mexico City for a while where I’d be leaving the office just about 7 P.M., when the Federal Gazette was published.  I knew a couple of guys who made a pretty decent living as runners — picking up the copies as soon as they came out the door and heading for the major law firms (Judges would read at their leisure).  Until the Federal Gazette is published, a law is not in effect.  Several recent laws, mostly those pushed through Congress by the opposition, have yet to be published, including the new narcotics decriminazation bill.  Opposition deputies and senators are tired of waiting … and openly speculating  that President Calderón is putting off sending the bills to the Gazette  to avoid having the “war on drugs” seen in this election campaign as any more of a political failure for his party– and a human rights disaster — that it already is.  What effect the continued war will have on the 2012 Presidential elections is already becoming something to consider.

Jose Antonio Crespo is sometimes cited in the foreign press as a “political analyst” — which he is, as well as a historian of note, a professor, a TV talking head and  newspaper columnist.  My translation is from Friday’s nationally published column, which appeared in my local newspaper, El Debate de Sinaloa.

The odds are about a hundred to one against PAN making the “war on drugs” the focus of their campaign in 2012 – not because we will have won the war, but just the opposite:  it will be clear that the Felipe Calderón’s war is a monumental strategic failure.  How can we claim to be winning a war when criminals escape with the assistance of their guards?  When authorities announce the capture of small time dealers, hitmen, various “capos or even mayors –our first question is ‘how soon will they escape?’.  At the same time that the Federal Government showed no confidence in Michoacán Governor Leonel Godoy I in its recent operation in that state, it also requests Godoy’s cooperation. But, how to demand cooperation and coordination from those whom have been told they don’t inspire your confidence?  Every day the administration and its party come up with more and more justifications for violating the constitution, civil liberties and human rights for the sake of a war already lost.  The consumption of drugs, but the rights has not been reduced and democratic practices. It’s not drug consumption that has declined:  it is the security of not only soldiers and police, but of citizens (including more than one hundred minors) and journalists.  If PAN continues bragging about its bankrupt strategy for fighting the cartels, it’s because the majority of the public still supports it, or because in Mexico good intentions are rewards more than results… or because so many of us have [drunk the Kool-aid*] which sees the increase in violence and mounting death tool as evidence “we are winning”.  And in all probability, the opposition parties will make security and the fight against narcotics a campaign issue, which PAN will seek to avoid, as they now avoid speaking of the economic crisis.

While here we are trying to withdraw from a “war we cannot lose” but cannot win, contrary winds are blowing in from the United States, where officials are beginning to rethink the strategy that for years has driven that country’s war against drugs (and the social cost of which has been borne essentially by its neighbor to the south. The new White House “anti-drug czar”, Gil Kerilkowske, has said that the concept of a “war on drugs” is inadequate, because it’s not seen as a “war on a product” but on people: “We are not in war against people in this country” (Wall Street Journal). For that reason he proposes changing the direction of anti-narcotics policy, prioritizing addiction treatment and intensifying efforts to prevent consumption.  In part, this is due to the political strategy which now causes the saturation of the justice system and over-crowds the North American prisons.  That country has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the world, if not the highest (they have yet to learn our effective technique of handling the problem – allowing for periodic mass jail breaks to relieve the system and make room for new criminals).  According to the Time magazine, the United States spends 68 billions dollars on their prison system in which a third of the prisoners are being held for non-violent crimes related to drugs.  And the country spends another 150 billion dollars for police and court costs – almost 50 percent of the arrests tied to the production, sale or consumption of marijuana.  “.  One third of all prisoners are in their prison system, and one third part of the prisoners is briefed by nonviolent crimes related to the drug. And other 150 billions destine to police and courts, being who almost 50% of the arrests are tie with the production, sale or consumption of marijuana: “That is a very large amount of money, the majority federal funds that could be better spent on schools or infrastructure, or simply returned to the public”, the publication states.

Even before the economic crisis, several specialists had raised the issue that the financial costs of this war were untenable.  It is reported that support for legalizing the consumption of marijuana continues to grow.  Today, it is 40 percent, double what it was two decades ago.  In one form or another, thirteen separate federal agencies have given permission for marijuana use for therapeutic reasons (migraine, appetite loss, or depression among other serious ailments).  Even the Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has declared: “I believe that it is not hour of (to legalize), but is hour of a debate… I believe that we would have to very carefully study what other countries are doing, those that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect had in those countries” (8/V/09). He recognized the economic advantages seen in legalizing the consumption and sale of that single narcotic in California (the fifth largest economy in the world). 56 percent of Californians are in favor of the option of liberalizing the law, and collecting taxes, according to a Field Poll.  The Sacramento Bee, a major daily newspaper in that state, wrote in an editorial: “Two decades of the “war against drugs” have failed in its attempt to reduce the American illicit drug market. Instead, that effort has filled the prisons of the nation, while the constant drug market has nourished violence as much in this country as in Mexico. This is the context in which Americans… have to debate questions such as the marijuana legalization.” (7/V/09) And The Economist magazine, in its April issue, maintained that “the war against drugs has been a disaster, has created failed states in the developing world, while the addiction blooms in rich countries. Any way one looks at it… this fight has been anti-liberal, death-causing and without sense”. And it compares the present cartels with the alcohol gangsters of the twenties, only with more strength and a global reach.  And so it is.  There is agreement to advance the legalization of marijuana.  As consensus grows there to legalize marijuana, we will have fewer arguments here over continuing the irrational prohibitionist policy towards cannabis.