from Substance Website
legalization and prevention made some strides - even as violence, poverty and other social ills afflicted countries from Mexico to Greece
to Ukraine to China.
2014 was an eventful year for the international drug war.
Given that it consists mainly of violence, corruption, impoverishment, incarceration, addiction and other social harms, that is hardly good news, although a cynic might say that it makes for good drama.
The following 10 events were among the most dramatic. Not only did they make headlines but they reflect larger themes - the extent to which drug war issues intersect with economic policy, military funding, public health, natural resources and the like. Taken together, they also reveal why the policy of prohibition, which has given rise to a trillion-dollar industry run by terrorist cartels, fuels the very war it is allegedly intended to end.
Yet those looking for good news can find it in the growing consensus among global organizations and people in high places, especially in Latin America, that the entire 40-year-old enterprise is a boondoggle of historic proportions.
Most Americans agree: 82% of US adults, according to one poll, believe Washington is losing the drug war.
1. Top Political Leaders Call for Drug War's End
In May, the London School of Economics (LSE) published a report, "Ending the Drug Wars," signed by notables including five Nobel prize-winning economists, Britain's deputy prime minister and a former US Secretary of State.
A new global drug strategy ,
Four months later, the Global Commission on Drug Policy upped the ante.
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) and Ruth Dreifuss (Switzerland), and others called for,
On the one hand, these critiques draw crucial attention to the consequences of current drug policies.
On the other hand, suggesting that the drug war is a failure misses the point.
It's true the current model "has produced enormous negative outcomes" - but not for everyone. The US prison system is thriving, for example. And the "drug war" is often invoked to rationalize repressive measures stemming from conflicts over, say, land or resources.
That happened in Mexico in the 1990s, when Zedillo, now a Global Commission on Drug Policy member, was running the country.
If the aim is to identify the roots of prison booms and political violence worldwide, we need to ask:
2. Conflict in Ukraine Has Grim Consequences for Drug Users
Ukraine has been a regional leader in needle exchange and substitution therapy, while Russia's,
Russia's policy is criminal. But US public health legacy in Ukraine is hardly laudable.
Two decades ago, Washington,
The World Bank, the EU and USAID all helped administer this reform, and a 1998 USAID briefing indicated its,
This transfer exacerbated,
One outcome was,
The extent, then, to which Washington's policies shaped the present conflict can certainly be debated - but not ignored, if we aim to get to the root of the problem.
3. "El Chapo" Is Captured in Mexico
A swarm of Mexican soldiers and cops closed in on a beachfront apartment in Mazatlán on February 22.
Their target, Sinaloa Cartel boss and former Forbes list billionaire "El Chapo" Guzmán, surrendered easily. Not a single shot was fired.
The event made great copy. The Washington Post quoted Attorney General Eric Holder, who,
But it was likely less of a triumph than it seemed.
First, it's unclear what impact Guzmán's arrest has had.
Drug-related violence has continued in recent months - for example, look at its recent expansion into Tamaulipas, just south of Texas.
Second, many have questioned the circumstances of El Chapo's capture. Hector Berrellez, a retired DEA agent, believes the arrest was "arranged," while ex-DEA director Phil Jordan commented that for Chapo,
And journalist Anabel Hernández told me that it's,
Was Chapo's capture a hollow victory or a hoax? We may learn the truth someday.
For now, life remains awful for millions of Mexicans.
4. The WHO Strategizes to Fight China's Tobacco Epidemic
The WHO, in an April 8 briefing, encouraged,
The country's tobacco habit is severe, killing around 1 million annually. Nearly 30% of adults there - 53% of men - smoke.
Why did the epidemic emerge? A long-term change in US smoking patterns - thanks partly to federal and state regulations - helped prompt this Asian pivot, according to law professor Charles Whitebread.
Cigarette companies, confronted with a restricted US market, began,
But graphic warnings go only so far.
How else does the WHO propose to curb smoking? At a 2012 conference, officials emphasized,
China may adopt these proposals.
Its government is considering a hike in cigarette taxes, for example, while Beijing intends,
If a public health approach makes sense for a drug this addictive and deadly, then why not for less perilous substances?
5. Is Indigenous Extinction the Legacy of "Plan Colombia"?
UN official Todd Howland reported in April that some 40 Colombian indigenous groups may soon be extinct.
Expanded mining operations - a legacy of Washington's Plan Colombia - threaten their communities. "Plan Colombia" prioritized eradication, ostensibly to wipe out coca production.
In this respect it failed miserably.
A 2008 US governmental report noted that,
When "Plan Colombia" began, the Colombian government also desired to wrest national lands from guerrilla control.
Empowered by billions of US taxpayer dollars, Colombian forces successfully held "full or partial control of about 90% of the country in 2007" - up from around 50% in 1998.
The government promoted mining activity on the newly secured land. Many mineral sites coveted by multinationals are on indigenous reservations, which are now at risk.
Their residents' fate is bleak, their cultures possibly slated to vanish.
Colombia reminds us that "drug war" conflicts need to be examined alongside others - those pitting rebels against the state, or residents against massive firms in a struggle for natural resources.
6. The Greek Austerity-Driven Health Crisis Deepens
The impact of austerity measures on health care in Greece has been grave.
Public health outlays plummeted 25% after a pair of bailouts imposed spending cuts. Unemployment is at 28%, and some 800,000 jobless men and women struggle to survive without unemployment coverage. The number of sex workers has also grown sharply in recent years.
Little wonder many Greeks turn to drugs and alcohol to escape. But because of health cuts, efforts to numb despair often dead-end in other nightmares.
Tania M.'s story, related in a dramatic Al Jazeera report by Fragkiska Megaloudi earlier this year, is emblematic. Tania is in her mid-20s, and does sex work for drug money. She weathered sexual assaults. She had a son. He tested positive for HIV - Tania only then discovered she was ill. The news overwhelmed her, drawing her deeper into addiction.
Her case reflects a national crisis, with condom and syringe supplies for injecting drug users down 24% and 10%, respectively, as new HIV and TB cases among this group surge.
University of Oxford Professor David Stuckler argues that Greece's public health disaster,
7. Uruguay's Pot Legalizers Roll Out Plans - and a Party or Two
Uruguay became the world's first country to legalize the production and sale of marijuana a year ago.
And in May, it publicized the regulations that will govern its marijuana market. President José Mujica contrasted Uruguay's pot policies with Colorado's, which he dismissed as "a complete fiction."
The US marijuana model is one where "you prescribe it yourself," he elaborated - as opposed to the Uruguayan system, which regulates consumers.
To that end, residents 18 and older will be able to choose between three forms of access to non-medical weed; each buyer will register with the government and be restricted to 10 grams each week.
By setting the price at $1 a gram, the state hopes to weaken illicit gangs by eliminating one of their revenue sources.
Although Uruguay's pot legalization project has faced public and political opposition, leftist Tabaré Vázquez won last month's presidential election, meaning the new government will proceed with Mujica's plan.
By December some 1,200 users had been registered, and its first smokefest - "Expocannabis" - took place on December 14.
8. Amphetamine Stimulant Use Accelerates in Asia
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's annual World Drug Report,
A Brookings Institution paper published in March reinforces these findings, explaining that,
Some,
The ATS surge,
Punitive policies "and cloudy legalities surrounding needle distribution" only worsen the problem, promoting the risky conduct that helps spread disease.
Why the ATS boom?
The Guardian lists,
9. Afghan Opium Cultivation Reaches Record Levels
In October, the US military noted that Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation is hitting record levels, and has almost tripled since 1994.
But has the US really been trying to curb Afghan drug production?
In 2001, only one of the country's regions continued extensive cultivation: the 5% of the territory the Washington-allied Northern Alliance controlled. The US teamed with these warlords to assault the Taliban after 9/11.
Washington's ensuing move to eradicate opium poppies failed to meet its publicized goals.
In reality,
Michael Pizzi points out that the booming "illicit trade" is also,
Afghan activist Malalai Joya declares that her country,
Afghan Women's Mission co-director Sonali Kolhatkar argues that,
But according to a recent disclosure, Washington,
What that means for reform of the poppy policies remains to be seen...
10. Drug-War Funded Mexican Authorities Attack, Abduct 43 Students
On September 26, Mexican police blocked three busloads of students from the Rural Teachers' College of Ayotzinapa in Iguala, then started shooting.
Authorities abducted 43 students in the end.
The fate of the majority remains unclear, though earlier this month at least one of them, Alexander Mora, was
The discovery lends,
The gang then allegedly murdered the students,
Protesters flooded streets throughout Mexico - and beyond - in response to the kidnapping, demanding both,
Demonstrators also had broader demands, calling for the resignation of the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, and for an end to corruption, Ayotzinapa exposed the rot at Mexico's core - a rot progressing with the aid of billions of US taxpayer dollars.
The story evinces an apparent collaboration between Iguala's police and the local drug traffickers. And an explosive recent story in the Mexican news magazine Proceso cites,
Some Mexican and US officials may want the abduction considered an isolated atrocity, if not forgotten outright.
But this unprecedented act of state violence may yet yield a sustained, national movement for social justice in 2015.
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