The War on Drugs
Given that Afghanistan has manged to again produce a record crop of opium, I thought a post on the drug trade may be appropriate.
The US has spent billions of dollars on its War on Drugs, and the results so far have been counterproductive on every front.
According to the Washington Post, BC now has more organized crime syndicates than anywhere else in the world. That’s applying a very broad definition to the term “crime syndicate”, but then the federal government in the US defines people licensed by states like California to grow marijuana for medicinal purposes crime syndicates, so I suppose anything is possible.
An attempt by our government to decriminalize possession of marijuana was met by threats from the Americans, promising harassment of Canadians at the border and interruptions in cross-border trade.
The focus on prohibition and punishment for possession in the US has led to them having the highest prison population on the planet. Despite this, drug use continues to increase.
Paranoia over pot is so high in official circles that the US is the only country in the world where it is illegal to grow industrial hemp. The argument usually given is that high-THC cannabis would be hidden within the legal crop, though in reality, the likelihood of cross-pollination with the low-THC industrial hemp would make such areas amongst the worst to grow a drug crop.
Legalization is given as a solution for many of the problems the Drug War has caused domestically. While I do support legalization for marijuana, I can at least understand the reason behind banning some of the harder drugs, but prohibition is certainly not working. It is only increasing the profit margins for traffickers.
And on the international stage, for too much effort is put into attacking farmers and other people who produce crops that can be turned into drugs rather than focusing on ways to divert the crops from drug production.
The article in the Post is remarkable for its litany of failures in the US drug wars. The long-time support from the US for the eradication of coca production in Columbia is a good example. $4.7 billion spent from 2000-2005 alone, 98% on eradication efforts, and 70% of it in the form of US-manufactured military equipment.
The result: Coca cultivation growing from 6 to 24 provinces of Columbia’s 32, cocaine supply increasing every year and the wholesale price decreasing year-over-year for the entire multi-decade span of the program. Hardly a success story.
FARC, the 17,000 man terrorist army, controls an area the size of Switzerland and draws support from the peasants whose crops and villages are sprayed by pesticides by US planes. The plan is particularly harsh in that in targets areas known for coca production, but doesn’t bother to check and see which farmers may have legitimate crops in the area. This form of collective punishment allows FARC to portray themselves as defenders of the local population, which is how they have maintained their presence throughout the US campaign.
And now the US has decided that this brilliant strategy is also the one they should attempt in Afghanistan, regardless of the fact that the Afghan government and some of their allies like the British don’t approve of it. (Anyone believing in the fiction that we’re over there defending a sovereign Afghan government can try explaining this power dynamic.)
I’ve argued before that the best way to approach the situation in Afghanistan is to use the example of Turkey and legalize the poppy crop for use in painkillers such as morphine. The US actually supports that program with considerable funds, though with very little coverage. Poppy farmers make ten times what they could growing alternative crops, just as coca farmers in Columbia make more per acre with that crop. Both crops have legitimate uses outside the illegal drug trade, and in both cases, it is not the farmers but the traffickers who make the real money from turning the crop to illegal uses, but it is the farmers and not the traffickers who are for some reason the focus of the American campaign.
Given the other major war on a noun happening in Afghanistan right now, the way the US decides to fight the drug war there has consequences far beyond the ever increasing poppy cultivation and drop in heroin prices worldwide which marks their effort being every bit the success Plan Columbia has been.
By focusing on the farmers, and by using heavy-handed military tactics to destroy their livelihoods, it allows the traffickers and Taliban, who are making the real money, to ride in as the saviours of those whose crops are destroyed, and as defenders of the people for those whose crops are at risk. That, in addition to the rightful anger at those who are trying destroy their farms, means that the local populations are unwilling to provide intelligence to the international forces at best, or are willingly supporting or carrying out attacks against those forces at worst.
I'm conservative by nature and abhor waste. By that measure alone the War on Drugs is a disaster. But it gets even worse when the strategy actually undercuts far more important missions like the one in Afghanistan and makes the already miniscule chance we have at succeeding over there virtually impossible and leads to our soldiers dying to support a US strategy that targets Afghan farmers rather than Taliban fighters, and that the supposed Afghan government we're there to give legitimacy and support to opposes itself.
The Drug War isn't just wasteful; it's insane, and somebody needs to bring some sanity back to the policies.
Cross-posted to BlogsCanada: E-Group
