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.”
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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?
