Stop locking up drug users who harm no others,
legalize drugs starting with marijuana,
switch to health and treatment,
stop harrassing farmers,
abandon zero tolerance and invest instead in youth activities,
focus on reducing harm,
and do it now, so says a commission of business moguls, former heads of state,
financial professionals, writers, and activists.

Writes Douglas Stanglin today in USA TODAY,

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for
individuals and societies around the world,” says the Report of the
Global Commission on Drug Policy in its opening statement. “Fifty years
after the initiation of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs,
and 40 years after President Nixon launched the U.S. government’s war on
drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies
are urgently needed.”

According to whom?

The 19-member commission, a private venture chaired by ex-Brazilian
president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, includes George Schultz, President
Reagan’s Secretary of State; Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin
Group; former U.N. Secretary General Koffi Anna; George Papandreou,
prime minister of Greece; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal
Reserve, and Javier Solana,former EU foreign minister.

Here’s their full report.

What do they recommend?

End the criminalization, marginalization, and stigmatization of people who
use drugs but who do no harm to others. Challenge rather than reinforce
common misconceptions about drug markets, drug use and drug dependence.

Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation
of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard
the health and security of their citizens. This recommendation
applies especially to cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in
decriminalization and legal regulation that can accomplish these objectives
and provide models for others.

Offer health and treatment services
to those in need. Ensure that a variety of treatment modalities are
available, including not just methadone and buprenorphine treatment but
also
the heroin-assisted treatment programs that have proven successful
in many European countries and Canada. Implement syringe access and
other harm reduction measures that have proven effective in
reducing transmission of HIV and other blood-borne infections as
well as fatal overdoses. Respect the human rights of people who use
drugs. Abolish abusive practices carried out in the name of treatment
– such as forced detention, forced labor, and physical or
psychological abuse – that contravene human rights standards and norms
or that remove the right to self-determination.

Apply much the same principles and policies stated above to people
involved in the lower ends of illegal drug markets, such as farmers,
couriers and petty sellers.
Many are themselves victims of violence and intimidation or are drug
dependent. Arresting and incarcerating tens of millions of these
people in recent decades has filled prisons and destroyed lives and
families without reducing the availability of illicit drugs or the power
of criminal organizations. There appears to be almost no limit to the
number of people willing to engage in such activities to better their
lives, provide for their families, or otherwise escape poverty. Drug
control resources are better directed elsewhere.

Invest in activities that can both prevent young people from taking
drugs in the first place and also prevent those who do use drugs
from developing more serious problems. Eschew simplistic ‘just say
no’ messages and ‘zero tolerance’ policies in favor of educational
efforts grounded in credible information and prevention programs
that focus on social skills and peerinfuences. The most successful
prevention efforts may be those targeted at specfic at-risk groups.

Focus repressive actions on violent criminal organizations, but do so in
ways that undermine their power and reach while prioritizing the reduction
of violence and intimidation. Law enforcement efforts should focus
not on reducing drug markets per se but rather on reducing their harms to
individuals, communities and national security.

Begin the transformation of the global drug prohibition regime. Replace
drug policies and strategies driven by ideology and political convenience
with fiscally responsible policies and strategies grounded in science,
health, security and human rights – and adopt appropriate criteria for
their evaluation. Review the scheduling of drugs that has resulted in
obvious anomalies like the flawed categorization of cannabis, coca
leaf and MDMA. Ensure that the international conventions are interpreted
and/or revised to accommodate robust experimentation with harm reduction,
decriminalization and legal regulatory policies.

Break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.

Sounds better than building a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia, to lock more people up.
Spend that tax money on education instead.

-jsq