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  • Breaking the Taboo ©2012  

Fully legalise and regulate the drugs market

As long as drugs are illegal and in demand, there will be crime, corruption, and violence resulting from the illegal trade. So there is an argument that legalizing drugs will make drugs safer, because governments rather than criminals will have control over the market. There are no examples of a fully legal and regulated market because this is prohibited by the UN Conventions on Drugs, but there are some test cases that we can look at.

The main worry is that legalizing drugs will cause a huge increase in drug use and the harms associated with it. In the Netherlands it is in practice legal to buy and sell small quantities of cannabis from coffee shops, yet they have a lower rate of cannabis use than many neighbouring countries, which rely much more heavily on police enforcement and prohibition.

A bigger test case is the tobacco market. Tobacco is a highly addictive and harmful drug, yet it is treated as a legal and regulated commodity. In recent years, western governments focused on reducing the demand for tobacco (rather than eradicating the supply, which is the normal method in the War on Drugs) by restricting its use (age limits, potency limits, and location of use limits) and putting emphasis on education and awareness. The results have been staggering: in the US the use of tobacco has declined by over 50%.

End the prohibition of marijuana

Although marijuana is illegal according to the UN Conventions on Drugs, it is recognised to have many beneficial medical applications in the treatment of many diseases such as cancer, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis. And now governments are starting to acknowledge these benefits. Canada, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Spain, Israel, Italy, Finland, and Portugal have all begun to entertain varying levels of decriminalization for medical usage. And in the US, despite federal law maintaining the prohibition of marijuana, 18 states such as California have changed their state laws to decriminalize marijuana for medical purposes.

And in 2012 both Colorado and Washington state both voted to regulate marijuana for recreational use also. This is the first time since the War on Drugs began that there will be a legally taxed and regulated marijuana market anywhere in the world.

Treat drug abuse as a health issue

Harm reduction is a public health approach to the drug problem. It accepts that there has never been, and never will be, a drug-free society, and therefore trying to eradicate use through police enforcement just creates more harms. Instead governments should take a public heath approach and focus on:

1) Using accurate, fact-based drug education
2) Preventing drug-related illness and injury
3) Offering effective drug treatment for problematic use

There are many examples of harm reduction measures with proven success like user rooms, heroin substitution, and heroin prescription programmes. Switzerland has been a pioneer of harm reduction and they were able to reduce the number of drug users with HIV by 50% in 10 years while also dramatically reducing heroin addiction nationwide.

Fully decriminalise all drugs

In July 2001, Portugal became the first European country to fully decriminalise all drugs, meaning that there would be no criminal punishment for the possession of drugs alone. The theory is that drug addicts should be treated as patients needing help rather than criminals deserving punishment.

Portugal has attracted a huge amount of international attention and debate over the past decade. The most fundamental lesson that can be learned from Portugal is that despite the liberalizing of the laws, drug use has not shot up dramatically as most critics predicted. In fact, drug use has gone down within the key age group of 15-24 year olds. In addition, the saving from police enforcement and the investment in treatment has helped reduce drug abuse and drug related harms.

And now the model is spreading with countries like the Czech Republic, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain following Portugal’s example.

Give heroin addicts clean needles

Needle exchange is the harm reduction policy of providing injecting drug addicts with clean needles, in order to minimise the risk of drug users spreading diseases like HIV through contaminated needles. The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Medical Association (AMA) have both supporter needle exchange as a way to reduce the spread of HIV without exacerbating injecting drug use in society.

The Center for Disease Control estimates that every HIV infection prevented through a needle exchange program saves an estimated $178,000. And the drug users entering these programs will be offered further treatment to overcome their addiction and protect their health.

And now the model is spreading with countries like the Czech Republic, Argentina, Mexico, Ecuador, and Spain following Portugal’s example.