10 years - $1bn

Sep 13 2023 The Guardian

$1bn in aid has been used to support failed ‘war on drugs’ over past decade, says report

The NGO Harm Reduction International analysed data from the OECD, and found that the US and the EU have spend nearly $1bn on the global ‘war on drugs’, in ten years between 2012 and 2021. That is $1,000,000,000, and by any measure, it is a lot of money.

You can find the report here AID FOR THE WAR ON DRUGS.

This money was from the development aid budgets, and it supported drug control policies; i.e. training the police, surveillance, undercover policing, eradication, and such.

“When you think about development, you don’t really think about it being used for those kinds of activities – you think of poverty reduction, working towards development goals on health or education,” said Catherine Cook, sustainable financing lead at HRI, which monitors the impact of drug policies. “This money is actually being used to support punitive measures – so policing, prisons, essentially funding the ‘war on drugs’, even though we know the ‘war on drugs’ and punitive policies have repeatedly failed.”

A few enlightening details from the article:

92 lower-income countries were listed as having received aid for narcotics control, including Afghanistan, which received money to train police after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Globally in 2021 more aid was spent on supporting drugs policies, than on school feeding projects or labour rights.

The results, quoting from the report;

Mass incarceration and overpopulated prisons. Death sentences. Civilians killed during counter-narcotics operations by specialised police units. Poor farmers’ livelihoods destroyed by aerial spraying and other ‘forced eradication’ of crops they keep. Rights violated by forced treatment programmes, discrimination, and barriers to health care.

The Guardian piece ends with a quote from Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at the charity Transform Drug Policy Foundation, he said that it was clear that the “war on drugs” had failed. “Millions of tonnes of drugs are intercepted, endless prisons are filled with drug producers, traffickers, smugglers and sellers. And yet, for all of the increasing resources poured into this, drugs are cheaper, more available, more potent than they’ve ever been.”

*****

I have said this before, but it is worth repeating; we humans have always used mind altering substances, and we will keep using them in the future, they will not go away, as long as we are on this planet. Is it not time to face the facts and change perspective here?

Since 1971, the US has spent more than a trillion dollars on its war on drugs, that is $1,000,000,000,000.

How about spending some money on harm reduction?

Decriminalise?

Aug 22 2023 The BBC

Could decriminalisation solve Scotland's drug problem?

Scotland records largest fall in drug deaths but rate still 2.7 times UK average

Portugal has a population of more than 10 million, and had 74 drug deaths in 2021.

Scotland has a population of 5.5 million, and had 1,330 drug deaths in 2021. That is more than 100 a month, which is more than 3 a day, on average. (Statistics out today show 1,051 deaths in 2022.)

The difference? Portugal decriminalised personal drug use in 2001, and has concentrated on harm reduction. Scotland has not.

In addition to reducing drug deaths, the Portuguese approach has reduced cases of HIV, hepatitis B and C, and tuberculosis.

Decriminalisation does not solve all problems with drug use, or make drugs go away. Or get rid of the criminals who smuggle and sell them. But decriminalisation with treatment options, health interventions and support services, will reduce the harm drug use causes to users and to society. The policy is called harm reduction and that is what it does.

Decriminalisation is not a silver bullet, but it is a step in the right direction. Humans have used drugs, and will use drugs, it is high time to accept that. We regulate, and tax, tobacco and alcohol use, and cars for that matter, we try to reduce the harm they cause. Why not use that model as a basis for laws on drugs?

We cannot solve this overnight, but we should accept the facts and at least start moving in the right direction. It is far better to take some small steps in the right direction, than to stay put, or run fast to the wrong one.

This futile War on Drugs

Dec 20 2022 The Guardian

Even England’s police want to decriminalise hard drugs. Why won’t our posturing politicians listen

Quote from the piece:

“In every sense, the “war on drugs” initiated by Edward Heath’s government in the early 1970s has failed. British cannabis consumption is at its highest point since 2007, with one in 12 adults admitting to using the drug. Scotland has the highest rate of deaths from drug use in Europe. Meanwhile, the prosecution of arrested drug offenders is falling due to sheer overstretch. This is legalisation by stealth.”

The UK government apparently wants to take a hardline approach to drug offences: “three strikes and you’re out”.

How about accepting the reality that the ‘war on drugs’ has failed. The National Police Chiefs’ Council has decided to effectively decriminalise cannabis and cocaine. And instead of prosecuting users of hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy, officers will recommend addiction services. Not prosecution, but harm reduction.

The ‘war on drugs’ has been around for decades, and over the years, the ‘war’ has been fought way more than three ways; how about: “three strikes for the War on Drugs, you’re out!”

Why ‘war on drugs’?

Feb 19th 2022

Here are three books you should read, if you are interested in drugs, treatments and drug policy.

The latest one is The Urge by Carl Erik Fisher, and the link takes you to the review in The Guardian by David Nutt, the professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London and the former chair of the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Here a link to The Guardian bookshop, where you can buy the book.

Fisher is a psychiatrist and former addict, so he has experience and knows what he is talking about. And, I really do not need to add anything to Fisher’s view on the topic:

“Addiction is profoundly ordinary: a way of being with the pleasures and pains of life, and just one manifestation of the central human task of working with suffering. If addiction is part of humanity, then, it is not a problem to solve. We will not end addiction, but we must find ways of working with it: ways that are sometimes gentle, and sometimes vigorous, but never warlike, because it is futile to wage a war on our own nature.”

The other two books are by Martin Booth: Opium: A History and Cannabis: A History, both detailed, well researched and well written. No scaremongering, but clear-eyed factual history and information on the drugs and societies they were, and are, produced and used in.

(The links are to Amazon, but you can probably find them in other places as well, like real life bookshops.)

Medical cannabis

Jul 25 2021

A good piece in The Guardian about the use and research into medical cannabis.

Is medical cannabis really a magic bullet?

There is still stigma linked to recreational use, which means that more research and more education is needed. Anything can be misused, but it is not the substance which should be blamed, it is the people misusing the substance who are responsible.

Anyway, nothing is a magic bullet, but medical cannabis obviously works for a number of conditions, so we should fund more research and get the treatments to the people who need them and would benefit from them.

Prescription pills

Jan 10th 2021

One way the start an opioid epidemic.

I have a bad leg, old wound, had it for years. I have learned over the years to manage (mostly) without pain medication, but sometimes the pain gets bad and I need to take something.

Usually this is a result of a spiral, the bone starts to hurt, so I start limping, which makes my muscles hurt, which causes cramps, which makes the limping and the pain worse, and so on.

So, at some point I need to take something to break the spiral. Usually, I need just one pill and a good night’s sleep, that will reboot me. The bad thing is that I am totally out of it for a day or two.

I never liked taking strong medication, paradoxically because it really works; which means that apart from taking away the pain, my head is totally fuzzy for a few days, and I am absolutely totally useless for a while.

Anyway, a while ago my leg gets really bad, and I end up in a doctor’s office. A new doctor, so I explain the situation, and ask for a single pill to break the cycle.

The doctor goes through my history and wonders why I do not have a stash of pills, since the damage to my leg seems so serious.

Doctor: “I’ll give you Oxycodone”

Me: “No, that is too strong, Codeine is fine.”

Doctor: “Really, Oxycodone is much stronger.”

Me: “I know, but Codeine is fine, really. And I only need one pill.”

Doctor: “OK, Codeine it is. Is a packet of 100 enough?”

Me: “??? I just need the one.”

Doctor: “OK, I’ll give you a packet of 50.”

… I just needed one.