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.

On Juarez, Afghanistan, and Wal-Mart: The Overwhelming Case Against Prohibition

I found it extremely ironic to read about this weekend's Ciudad Juarez shootings ("Two Americans killed in Mexico shootings") and the Afghan poppy harvest ("Afghan poppy harvest is next US challenge") side by side in this Wednesday's edition of the Collegiate Times (available here, page 4). All around us are signs of the immense failure of the War on Drugs, and yet prohibitionists continue to vouch for the efficacy of their approach. Drug use is indeed a problem, but it is one that should be addressed without causing brutal violence and massive unemployment. Unfortunately, prohibition does exactly that.

Making drugs illegal does not cause demand to disappear, so users are forced to turn to the black market to obtain their drug of choice, regardless of whether it is Adderall, painkillers, marijuana, or heroin. In this black market, suppliers face more risk, resulting in higher drug prices, but these prices create the potential for huge profits. Profits so large that they become worth killing for, which is what happens not only in Mexican border towns but also in our own inner cities. And in order to keep these profits, no one is off limits from killing, not even diplomats or police officers.

Now contrast this system to one in which drugs are regulated in the same manner as alcohol or tobacco. The primary distribution method for these two substances is not the black market, but the legal, regulated market, and because of this no one kills anyone in the regular course of business. In addition, the sales of these products are taxed, generating additional revenue for the state, and the people in charge of distributing these products are gainfully employed and presumably paying income taxes. The prohibitionist alternatives are imprisoning drug offenders and paying farmers not to grow anything, which both come at great cost to the state.

Even in our own country, the prohibitionist mentality is putting hard-working, law-abiding citizens out of work. Take the case of Joseph Casias, a dedicated employee of the Wal-Mart in Battle Creek, Michigan, whose hard work won him the award of Associate of the Year in 2008. Joseph also suffers from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor, and to treat the severe pain caused by the affliction he uses medical marijuana, which is legal in the state of Michigan. Yet when he tested positive for marijuana in a drug screening following a work-related accident, the company decide to fire him last November. Furthermore, earlier this week it was reported that Wal-Mart was challenging his eligibility for unemployment benefits, although they have since changed their position, most likely due to the high volume of negative publicity they received in the media. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Joseph will be able to find another job to support his two children and pay for his medical bills in Michigan, which has the highest unemployment rate in the country.

All of this illustrates the high cost of prohibition, but it should also be noted that it is ineffective. In Portugal, the Netherlands, and other places that have decriminalized drugs, drug use has actually gone down in response to decriminalization, as more people are willing to seek treatment, among other reasons. And over the past 30 years in the US smoking rates, particularly among teenagers, have gone down, not because of making cigarettes illegal and using scare tactics, but because of honest education and open dialogue on the subject. In our great country that was founded, above all else, on the principle of liberty, it is time to end the fascist policy of prohibition.