How Legalizing Drugs Can Help US Foreign Relations

Cross-posted from the Th!nk3 blog here

On its surface, the drug legalization question seems to be at most a national issue. Portugal has enjoyed some success with its decriminalization regime, while Amsterdam proceeds with re-criminalizing hallucinogenic mushrooms. Meanwhile, developing countries tend to favor harsh punishment for simple possession. However, 28,000 bodies over the last three years in Mexico and calls from their pro-drug war President Felipe Calderon to open the debate on legalization suggest a need for the international community to consider this issue.

The U.S. could benefit greatly from changing its international drug war policies, which are the source of much fear, mistrust, and anger towards the U.S. abroad. Furthermore, legalization of the drug trade would remove a major source of profit for international criminal and terrorist organizations.

In South America, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are the top producers of cocoa, which is used to manufacture cocaine. U.S. relations with these countries have fluctuated over time. Peru and Bolivia, once allies with the U.S. in the War on Drugs, have cut off these ties after realizing the effect of U.S.-funded aerial spraying of cocoa fields on their economies, not to mention the impacts to human health and the environment. This led to massive amounts of cocaine trafficking in Colombia in the 1980s - and now that the U.S. is spending billions on its anti-drug programs/military buildup in Colombia, trafficking has shifted to Mexico, the location of massive amounts of recent drug war violence, while cocoa production in Peru is experiencing a resurgence. If drugs were legalized, the needless destruction of land would stop, Venezuela would not have to fear the massive buildup of U.S. troops near its borders, and the saved money could go toward community development in South America, stopping LRA violence in Africa, or any other of the world's problems (thus improving the world's view of the U.S.).

Afghanistan is the opium capitol of the world, producing 80-90% of the world's supply. Opium has had tremendous impacts on the economy there, making up over a third of the country's GDP. It is also a major reason for instability and U.S. resentment - protection of opium profits requires paying off insurgents or terrorist groups, often the only form of peacekeeping in remote regions, and the destruction of crops by U.S. forces threatens the livelihood of the people involved in the trade, which is about 10% of the population. Drug legalization would vastly decrease the profits made from farming opium poppies and encourage people to go back to farming traditional crops and raising livestock. It would also reduce the need of opium farmers to rely on insurgents for protection of their now-legal trade and help discourage people from that lifestyle if survival can be found through less extreme measures. Reductions in insurgents, while not the only factor in a very complicated situation, would help lead to a sooner end of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, which many view as the inevitable end to an unwinnable situation.

In Mexico, the U.S. spends countless dollars supporting President Calderon's drug war by supplying arms and training troops - only to have these troops defect to the drug trafficking organizations. Corruption is widespread throughout Mexico's government and police force, whether due to greed or these officials fearing for their safety. As the government comes down harder on drug traffickers, the violence escalates due to desperate traffickers struggling to protect their profits. As a result, schools in Mexico are now teaching elementary school children how to hide under their desks when shootouts start. Legalizing drugs and removing the profit motive would completely eradicate this violence, if not these organizations in their entirety.

The costs of the drug war are too high for a humane society to inflict on itself or any other. The international community needs to look to places such as Portugal that have figured out how to reduce the harms of drug use while eliminating the harms of prohibition.

To Show Our Strength

Cross posted from the Th!nk3 blog here

Last night on the Daily Show, John Stewart reported an excellent piece on the controversy surrounding a proposed Islamic cultural center near the former site of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City (to see the report, click here). To be clear, the plans are for a cultural center, not a mosque, and it is not actually on the site of the former WTC, but a few blocks away in an abandoned department store. Yet opponents are still fighting back fervently, some of the most extreme opposition coming in the form of banners on buses in New York depicting a plane about to crash into a flaming WTC tower and posing the question, "Why there?"

If this were a nation that upheld freedom of religion as defined by the First Amendment to the Constitution to the full extent of the law, this would be a non-issue - people may not like it, but the cultural center would be established nonetheless. Instead, Islamic cultural centers and mosques face opposition all across the country, from New York to California. For a country that claims to value freedom so highly, I am thoroughly embarassed that an elected public official would insinuate that Islam is "a cult" and should be persecuted as such (I believe that even cults, however you define the word, deserve respect and space, unless they perpetrate crimes such as forced childhood incest).

To not allow this cultural center to be built shows our weakness to the world. It shows that we, the American people, are weak enough to give in to bigotry and ignorance, to assume that all 1.4 billion Muslims in the world are extremists, and to not stand up for equality in the face of the extremists who oppose this place of diversity and learning. On the other hand, allowing it to be built shows the exact opposite - that we are strong enough to embrace diversity, to reconcile with a faith that has for years been persecuted and discriminated against within our own borders, and to recognize what our real enemies are in the War on Terror - fear, ignorance, and hatred.

I would propose that we allow these plans to proceed at an even higher degree. How would the world react if we allowed a mosque, a place dedicated solely to Islamic worship, to be built not near, but on Ground Zero, where the two towers once stood? It would be our olive branch to the Islamic community, a true sign that we want to make peace with the world, and a show of strength and unity in the face of violence and terror. My ideal plans along these lines would be a Christian church, a Jewish synagogue, and an Islamic mosque all sharing the former WTC space together (not to exclude other religions, but I believe these three send the most powerful message) with a memorial to 9/11 in the center. The dedication would read something like:

'To those who bring us fear, we respond with courage
To those who bring us division, we respond with unity
And to those who bring us violence, we respond with peace.'