Kofi Annan on Why It's Time to Legalize Drugs

The drug problem was studied years ago by the RAND corporation and the US Military - a pure cost-benefit analysis. They found that treatment and education are the most cost effective way to deal with the drug problem, and that prohibition was the most costly and ineffective means of dealing with it.<p>Therefore the government understands that the war on drugs is likely to be unsuccessful, and we have to ask ourselves, why do they persist with it? A few reasons present themselves: Ideological motivations, they just don&#x27;t like the drugs. The fact that if you terrify the population you can use that as means for greater political control and discipline. And the fact that Tobacco and Alcohol companies would likely suffer as a result of drug legalisation, like cannabis.<p>Lastly the CIA has been found to be involved in the drug trade on a vast scale. This is not a conspiracy, there are many well-documented books on this. They need large sums of untraceable money for clandestine operations, and drugs are an ideal source of this.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rand.org&#x2F;pubs&#x2F;monograph_reports&#x2F;MR331.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.rand.org&#x2F;pubs&#x2F;monograph_reports&#x2F;MR331.html</a><p>Noam Chomsky on the War on Drugs: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Q-JX0yXDlh8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Q-JX0yXDlh8</a>

Here&#x27;s what we have in Switzerland:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.premiereligne.ch&#x2F;quai9&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.premiereligne.ch&#x2F;quai9&#x2F;</a><p>(basically, a drug user&#x27;s paradise: a &quot;consumption space&quot; injection rooms, clean drugs available, medical attention and reanimation in case of overdose, therapy programs and support programs with the intention to help people quit drugs without stigmatizing them and pushing them to it).<p>It is immensely successful. Drug crime becoming nonexistent here. The number of drug users is also decreasing, as drugs are now decriminalized, uncool, readily available and coming with friendly doctors and therapists.

Portugal seems to be doing better from decriminalising (obviously not the same as legalisation).<p>Source: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;portugal-decriminalised-drugs-14-years-ago-and-now-hardly-anyone-dies-from-overdosing-10301780.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independent.co.uk&#x2F;news&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;portugal-decr...</a><p>Source: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tdpf.org.uk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;drug-decriminalisation-portugal-setting-record-straight" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tdpf.org.uk&#x2F;blog&#x2F;drug-decriminalisation-portugal-...</a><p>Wiki: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Drug_policy_of_Portugal" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Drug_policy_of_Portugal</a>

I&#x27;ve always thought that, in the US, that States could provide a perfect market testing platform for various social ideas.<p>You don&#x27;t want abortion? Make Kansas, say, a no abortion state.<p>Legalized drugs? Head your head to Colorado.<p>Socialism? Sure New Hampshire is almost there already anyway.<p>Well, you get the point. It&#x27;s been proven that actual markets almost always work as well if not better than diktat, so these &quot;experiments&quot; could be monitored and all the rest.<p>I mean, why not give something totally new a try?<p>What we have now is killing people and ruining their lives as I personally live through its failings everyday.

The best argument I know for legalizing drugs is the <i>market</i> argument. As long as demand exist (obvious, or nobody would care), supply will rise to meet it. Law enforcement tactics that see rising drug prices as a sign of success only make the market more profitable.<p>While many people engage in the popular delusion that people stop an activity when you pass laws banning, it&#x27;s patently obvious that banning drugs is about as successful <i>de facto</i> as banning abortions. This means the real question isn&#x27;t about the <i>existence</i> of a market for drugs.<p>Instead, laws that affect the market for drugs are about who is allowed to be the &quot;supply&quot; side of the equation. Obviously, some type of regulated market would be recommended if we want to have any amount of control over the market. Instead, we pass laws that ban legitimate businesses from entering this market, which is <i>by definition</i> a <i>choice</i> to turn the drug market over to criminals. By definition.<p>I suggest that <i>choosing</i> to give organized crime and violent gangs the profits from this high-value market. Usually, this is when prohibitionists claim that they can force the market to not exist by giving the supply side even <i>more</i> profit with ever stricter enforcement.

There&#x27;s a strong parallel between drug policy and sex education policy. If you acknowledge that sex is a thing people are simply going to do and you give them the information they need to do it safely and throw in a free condom or two, STDs and unwanted pregnancies are kept under good control. If your policy is &quot;you don&#x27;t need education and condoms if you just don&#x27;t do it!&quot; then STDs and unwanted pregnancies soar.<p>In the case of drugs, it is clear that people will use them regardless. So the question for policymakers can&#x27;t be &quot;how do we stop people using drugs?&quot;, it has to be &quot;given that people will use drugs, how do we minimise the harm caused?&quot;<p>The other interesting parallel is ashtrays in aeroplane toilets. Supposedly they&#x27;re there because sometimes, despite the warnings and no-smoking signs, people light up in the loo anyway. It&#x27;s better for them to have an ashtray to put the cigarette out in than to try to improvise and possibly start a fire. In a situation where a planeload of passenger&#x27;s lives could be at stake, there&#x27;s no room for moral grandstanding - they&#x27;ve done the pragmatic thing and realised that when total prohibition cannot be enforced, you simply do what you can to minimise the damage.

New video on drug war by Kurzgesagt (excellent to get an overview): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;wJUXLqNHCaI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;wJUXLqNHCaI</a>

I love how all these world leaders always come out for drug legalization <i>after</i> they are out of power. Great timing.

One problem is that some people&#x27;s careers in law enforcement are built on the &quot;war on drugs&quot;. They need drugs to be illegal in order to justify the existence of their jobs and the meaning of their entire working lives so far.

legalize, standardize, regulate, tax, repeat. Why is this so difficult to understand?

&gt; By contrast, there has been a near tripling of American deaths from heroin overdoses between 2010 and 2013, even though the law and its severe punishments remain unchanged.<p>But why heroin usage has raised?<p>I have read an (very convincing) argument that heroin usage is increasing due to the marijuana legalization. And no, it&#x27;s not the typical &quot;marijuana is a door the heavier drugs&quot; thing, is merely supply and demand effect on the streets. Street dealers don&#x27;t really sell weed as they used to now that better and legal weed exist, so they went on heroin. Heroin got a lot cheaper and widely available due to it (Unfortunately, I lost the article link).<p>I&#x27;m not arguing in favor or against legalization (I&#x27;m in favor all the way), my complain is how one folded the debate is. Numbers are great and they are definitely needed, but they may trick you into thinking that everything has a simple cause and effect when reality is much more complicated.<p>One striking example how lazy is legislation is the case of safer chemicals such as LSD or MDMA versus designer drugs such as 25i (nbomb). In some places such designer drugs are even legal (bath salts anyone?) due to how slow or careless the legislation is. As for LSD it&#x27;s a long time in prison. The dealers are coerced to sell more dangerous substances.

We were taught both sides of the story in our &quot;drug diversion impact on public health&quot; classes. Decriminalisation opens opportunities up to reduce harm to the public through reduced drug-related crimes, safer injecting (of the hard stuff) and less blood-borne viruses spreading. Australia has its own version of decriminalization known as the &quot;harm minimisation policy&quot;. While all drug-related activities are illegal there, the judicial and healthcare systems are not so black and white about enforcing the laws.<p>Nonetheless, the other hand always wants its share. In the case of Australia, harm minimisation has reduced drug-related crimes, but the prevalence of drug use in the general population continues to rise, especially with regard to pills and amphetamines. Blood borne viruses are also on the rise, despite the ubiquity of safe injecting rooms in every major city and availability of &quot;sharps kits&quot; in every retail pharmacy.<p>Interestingly, the conservative party temporarily swayed from this stance and implemented a &quot;tough on drugs&quot; policy for part of the 90s[1]. It was dubbed to the wider public as a &quot;harm prevention&quot; measure i.e. protecting those yet to experiment with drugs and the wider community that didn&#x27;t use illicit drugs regularly. There was a significant reduction in every measure: drug use, drug crime and spread of blood-borne viruses. This policy did not cut safe injecting and drug use services, but increased police activity and ephemeral &quot;say no to drugs&quot; cut-through education programs. The policy was reversed in the early 2000s.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.unodc.org&#x2F;documents&#x2F;ungass2016&#x2F;Contributions&#x2F;Civil&#x2F;Dalgarno&#x2F;30Years_of_HarmMinimisation_FinalUNGASS.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.unodc.org&#x2F;documents&#x2F;ungass2016&#x2F;Contributions&#x2F;Civ...</a>

ALL drugs should be legal. At least in the sense that using is not a criminal offence. Once drugs are legalised, regulated, quality assured by the government, and of course taxed, a large proportion of crime will be eradicated. Why would I buy illegal dirty drugs when I can buy the cleaner official versions?

Lots of money in law enforcement, prisons, etc.<p>Just like getting simple tax code, lots of accountants&#x2F;lawyers, etc.

I think if drugs themselves were legalized, non-violent drug offenders pardoned, and then former drug trafficking cartels treated legally as terrorist organizations - we would get somewhere. I really have no problem tight packing prisons if it&#x27;s full of violent thugs. The only problem is how this could potentially affect the second amendment - because the war on drugs would no longer be on unarmed drug users, it would be solely on violence. Using an umbrella term like terrorism to encompass the actions of cartel gang members could potentially lead to further racial divides. It&#x27;s tough. But legalize pot please, ha!

What about people that are involved in illegal drug industry after legalizing drugs? Most of them know only how to deal drugs, know only crime, they will need to find new way to make money and probably it will not be a legal one. So i don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s better that someone stay on corner and sell cocaine to people that WANT cocaine, without (in most cases) hurt anyone else in the process OR make that person steal, extort etc.

Forget questions of legality.<p>Stop and ask this question: Why do we as a society need more and more and MORE mind-altering substances to cope with life?<p>Seriously.<p>Is society headed in the right direction if almost everyone needs some type of external chemical influence just to get through the week?<p>I already have an answer.

he did not say this when he still had anything to say. he could have made a difference.

nitpick but important: it&#x27;s time to <i>decriminalize</i>, not <i>legalize</i>.<p>The distinction is that we need to maintain a government force to compel the non-use of drugs that cause public harm. We need to make drug-use punishable, on the level of littering, trespass, vandalism, and disturbing the peace.<p>We need to be able to confine people who lose control of themselves and cause public harm when they are high, or in service of their high, but that confinement should be treatment oriented, not punishment oriented.

It&#x27;s cowardly to display these opinions after you have left office. When he had any kind of power to do anything, he toed the line.

It will be interesting to see what happens when we reach a position where virtual drugs are possible, or virtual reality can be as addictive and detrimental to ones life as being addicted to chemicals.<p>Can you ban math(s)?

Decriminalising ganja will also boost textile industry.

No one loves freedom anymore.

What about the fact that drugs are incompatible with the lifestyle we want our society to have? Isn&#x27;t it better instead of legalizing them to find the root cause which is forcing these people to seek escapism from reality in psychoactive substances?<p>I don&#x27;t want to live in a society of drug addicts, I want to live among people of sound mind, body and spirit, who conduct themselves honestly and honourable among their peers.

It really is a difficult problem. Sweden legalized heroin in the 60s and it was a disaster. On the other hand, enforcement only has a moderate impact, but comes at a huge financial and social cost. And while I don&#x27;t support it, the only country with a measure of success seems to be Singapore, where you just hang anyone who has more than single dose in their possession. Maybe the grim reality is hanging a few hundred people a year would cause less social harm than letting drugs fester away at society taking how many thousands of lives a year, not to mention the countless lives destroyed by mass incarceration and the financial burden to society.

Is there evidence to show that legalizing drugs (I don&#x27;t mean e.g. tobacco here; I mean the far more dangerous ones) won&#x27;t significantly increase their consumption?<p>I ask because, unless there is, I&#x27;m afraid I do not understand why it would be rational to do so...

One thing I am surprised by is that it is almost never mentioned how China became drug free after Britain made China into the biggest dope user through the Opium wars.<p>They virtually got rid of opium usage in a relatively short time, and they did it without any sort of war on drugs approach.<p>They certainly fought the drug usage but they did not imprison or blame drug users. Rather than told abusers they were victims who needed help. They were given education to cope with addiction, jobs etc. Even drug dealers were, except the worst ones who were imprisoned.<p>It might have helped the narrative that they could blame Britain as the evil doer.<p>While not the same as legalization it does have some resemblance to the Portuguese approach where the focus is on helping people taken for abuse rather than punishing or imprisoning.

In the meanwhile NASA found a planet covered with marijuana. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;newswatch28.com&#x2F;nasa-discovers-new-planet-covered-with-marijuana&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;newswatch28.com&#x2F;nasa-discovers-new-planet-covered-wit...</a> Can these two agencies be in cahoots?