Their "War on Drugs" May Soon Be Over

I was pleasantly surprised the other day to read an editorial in the usually staid, prim and proper The Hindu announcing the fact that the "War on Drugs" has totally failed, and that "new thinking" on the subject is required - and the editors go on to offer that new thinking, which is "decriminalisation." Hooray! Finally, everyone is on my side, it seems. I am no longer alone in this. The editorial begins thus:

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, a group that includes former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and several former Latin American presidents, is expected to announce soon that the “war on drugs” has been a failure. The Mexican government states that since President Felipe Calderón took office in 2006 and implemented a crackdown, trafficking has been a factor in 35,000 deaths, and drug-related corruption is out of control. In the United States, which has the world's highest levels of use, the NGO Drug Policy Alliance estimates that official bodies spend $51 billion a year fighting drugs. 

It then concludes as follows:

Fortunately, a broad consensus across ideological lines is emerging in the form of decriminalisation, which makes drug use an administrative violation but treats trafficking as a criminal offence. In Portugal, the only European Union state to legislate to this effect, it has been assessed as an undisputed success. Drug use and drug-related deaths and diseases have declined over the last decade, and the use of harm-reduction services has increased greatly. Several Latin American countries — which have been ravaged by the drug trade — as well as some EU states and a few regional governments elsewhere have got good results from de facto decriminalisation. The strategy may, however, encounter resistance from powerful vested interests, including police and other security forces, politicians fearful of public disapproval, and drug cartels. The Global Commission's statement will be awaited with interest, as it could signal an overdue change in the world's attitude to drugs.

I wait to hear what this Global Commission has to say.

Till then, "excuse me while I light my spliff."