Thursday 6 December 2007

Foreign Policy Magazine Article

Any article on drug policy reform is good. If it's negative, it gives a chance for debate. If it's positive, it just bolsters support. When it's positive and from a respected source, that's a bonus but when it's positive, from a respected source and has large coverage, well that's just plain fantasimo.

Foreign Policy magazine has written an article that slams "The War on Drugs". This is a serious magazine and read by many government bureaucrats worldwide. The article answers the usual arguments against changing the U.S. style approach.

The Global War on Drugs Can Be Won - No, it can’t.

We Can Reduce the Demand for Drugs - Good luck

Reducing the Supply of Drugs Is the Answer - Not if history is any guide

U.S. Drug Policy Is the World’s Drug Policy - Sad, but true

Legalization Is the Best Approach - It might be. Global drug prohibition is clearly a costly disaster

The Foreign Policy article argues that clearly attitudes are changing and produces mountains of evidence of a failed "War on Drugs" approach.

In 2005, the ayatollah in charge of Iran’s Ministry of Justice issued a fatwa declaring methadone maintenance and syringe-exchange programs compatible with sharia (Islamic) law. One only wishes his American counterpart were comparably enlightened.

...allowing people addicted to heroin and other illegal opiates to obtain methadone from doctors and even pharmaceutical heroin from clinics. Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland have already embraced this last option. There’s no longer any question that these strategies decrease drug-related harms without increasing drug use.

 When the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on drugs convened in 1998, it committed to “eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy by the year 2008” and to “achieving significant and measurable results in the field of demand reduction.”

You can read this article here: Think Again: Drugs

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