The War On Drugs

Both methods have their logical standing points that validate their application but it seems that until both processes are further refined drug related problems will continue to exist. The government's approach of viewing drugs as a criminal offence in the society. Unfortunately, the government's approach with the war on drugs isn't a miracle cure for the drug diseases. The government has legislative power and thus they have incorporated it in to the war against drugs by making the use, trafficking and production of specific substances a criminal offence. This method forces drugs to become a black market operation meaning illegal elements control access to drugs. It also means there is no official body that can assess drug quality and purity leading to a host of problems that we hear so much about in the news. Drug users can test their drugs to find out what substances they are sold but this method isn't perfectly reliable in displaying all the chemicals contained. Because of this users can never know if they have purchased what they intended to obtain and makes available the option for drug proprietors to sell other chemicals in their place. Also, while making drug use illegal will stop law-abiding citizens from a pursuit of illegal drugs it in turn interests a whole new rebellious audience.

Harm minimisation also has it's flaws. Information provided even if factual can be and often is portrayed in a fashion that entices interested parties to try drugs. It also relies heavily on people being self motivated enough to care about the effects of the drugs where as the war on drugs has legislation behind it making it a legal obligation to follow it's intentions.

Below are two case studies on the drugs problem approach:

Case Study 1 - America - 'Just Say No'

From the NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) Research Monographs:

* Tobacco kills about 390,000.

* Alcohol kills about 80,000.

* Sidestream smoke from tobacco kills about 50,000.

* Cocaine kills about 2,200.

* Heroin kills about 2,000.

* Aspirin kills about 2,000.

* Marijuana kills 0. There has never been a recorded death due to marijuana at any time in US history.

All illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 people per year, or about one percent of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco. Tobacco kills more people each year than all of the people killed by all of the illegal drugs in the last century.

In the US, the drug 'plague' consumes an estimated $75 billion every year and an estimated 50% of the people in prison are convicted for drug related crimes. Successive politicians and police chiefs have vowed to defeat drugs, exaggerating its strength and demonising addicts, using the media to induce fear about drugs.

Although America had launched a 'Just Say No' campaign, 8-10% of kids are currently or will become addicts. The national Monitoring the Future study in December 1998 showed that almost 40% of 10th graders have experimented with marijuana. The average age for a child to first experiment with marijuana is 13.

The billions spent to stop drug importing and trafficking had only managed to raised the prices of drugs in the black market. Scare tactics are used to educate youth instead of facts on drugs.

There are strong evidence that the war America is fighting in her own country against drugs has failed.

Here are my opinions: America needs to re-examine her drug laws and policies. Drugs should be viewed as a problem in society, not an offense. They should realize that the current drug control method is failing, and find a solution that would help the drug problem. The money should not be spent on enforcing drug laws but funding a variety of treatment options for drug addicts. Drug laws are biased and too harsh. More money are spent on prisons than on drug education, and it should change.

Case Study 2 - Holland - Don't Say 'No', Say 'Know':

In Holland, there is no war on drugs. They believe this is a social problem, not a criminal one. There are public clinics established by the state for drug addicts, which provides clean needles for injection and supervisation by nurses. Cannabis had also been legalized and sold in coffee shops in the large cities. Strangely, there are significantly fewer cannabis smokers in Holland compared to other countries.

Evidence and figures had shown that the harm minimization approach taken up by Holland is working effectively. Heroin was not an issue in the Netherlands. The number of addicts had been stable at around 25,000, for20 years. Compared to Britain by per head of population, Holland has a quarter of Britain's addicts. Children aged from 10 are given drug education. It aims to remove any sense of glamour but leaves the decision up to the individual.

A study in 1999 showed that less than one in 1,000 had tried heroin. The same year the European Drug Monitoring Center found 40 per cent of British children the same age had tried cannabis, and one in 50 had used heroin.

Quoting from Machel Vewer, a senior police detective who has spent the past decade working with addicts to The Observer: "There is no war on drugs in the Netherlands,' 'What's the point of making war on part of your own country? Drugs are here and they're always going to be. This is a social problem, not a criminal one, and the whole of society has to tackle it - not leave it to the police on their own. .... If you look at England, France, Spain, they all have drug problems. But Holland started thinking about how to deal with this much earlier. We're not deluded we can solve the problem entirely, but we can contain it, make it controllable. You are 20 years behind."

Reference: The Observer

Conclusion

In my opinion, harm minimisation seems the better option to apply to the problem of today's drug problems. I believe that if people were more informed accurately on drugs they will take the required precautions. If this policy was applied as a replacement to the war against drugs a lot of time and money could be saved, and many problems solved. Drug purity wouldn't be a problem as legal vendors would be permitted to sell these substances allowing for regulation and quality control. This also would remove drugs from being a criminal offence removing a large portion of criminal funding and activity. Awareness would also increase removing a large portion of the damaging effects of drugs. It would also allow the ability to only distribute a safe amount of drugs for each person and also stop the incompatible users from starting drugs use (for example mentally unstable and addicted people).

Bibliography:

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/

http://www.erowid.org/freedom/freedom.shtml

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/

Drug Use and Abuse: A Harm Minimization Approach

The Drug War Facts

http://www.ssdp.org/ - Student S

http://www.aclu.org/library/pbp19.html - An interesting briefing paper on drug phobitio by the American Civil Liberites Union

http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm - War on drugs clock

The D.E.A. website @ www.usdoj.gov/dea