Michael Brown - Ferguson, Missouri - The War on Drugs

What does America's War on Drugs have to do with the execution/killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the riots it spawned?  The New Republic's John McWhorter believes they're inextricably linked and contends that the way to avoid future Ferguson riots is to end the War on Drugs.

We don't know the details yet, but it's apparent that, in spite of all we went through with [Trayvon] Martin so recently, in a clinch - the mean, messy place where these things always happen - the Ferguson cop Darren Wilson assumed that a big black guy was trouble, serious trouble, and shot him dead.  It's what happens in that clinch that matters and we can now see that no amount of articulate protest can cut through such visceral human tendencies as bias and fear.

...I'm the last one to say there should be no protest, but I am dismayed that we are at a point that it can serve only as a statement, not as a tool.  The rate is no longer such a novelty that white America will be scared into some concessions as it was in the late sixties.  Watching black Ferguson burn and wreck its own neighborhoods is not going to make America suddenly "get it."

If the looting and anger are the "it," it that's what we have up our sleeve as an indication that Brown's death was "the last straw," then we're nowhere.

...So, what will really make a difference?  Really, only a continued pullback on the War on Drugs.  Much of what creates the poisonous, vicious-cycle relationship between young black men and the police is that the War on Drugs brings cops into black neighborhoods to patrol for drug possession and sale.

...But that's the long game.  In the here and now, we are stuck.  Michael Brown was not "it."  The journalists assiduously documenting the events in Ferguson can serve as historians, but not as agents of change.

We can be quite sure that by next summer, another unarmed black boy will have been shot dead by a white cop scared in the moment.  Upon which in another hitherto obscure town there will be protests, something about the episode will be enshrined as a totemic gesture, the right-wing will hope the cop turns out to have been black (as they did this time for a blink) or will revel in predictable evidence that the victim was not always a choirboy in his behavior, and good-thinking people will hope that this time is finally "it."

The Butcher's Price of the War on Drugs

Mexico's drug wars have been brutal.   Upwards of 70,000 have been killed, often brutally, usually near the U.S. border.

Now it's emerging that another 27,000 have simply disappeared.  

Combined with the 70,000 dead acknowledged recently by the new administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who succeeded Calderon on Dec. 1, the number of the disappeared makes the Calderon tenure the bloodiest period in Mexican history since the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century.

On Thursday, human rights campaigners said the numbers place Mexico far above some of the better-known Latin American human catastrophes of decades past, including the rule of military regimes in Argentina, Chile and Brazil and civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Lia Limon, Mexico’s deputy interior secretary for human rights and legal affairs, acknowledged on Wednesday that the government had compiled a list of 27,000 missing people after meeting with representatives of the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

Mexican Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong on Thursday promised to “look for all of them.” But he also warned there were no guarantees. “We start from a fundamental fact,” he said, “little information, little evidence and no rules.”

We're not winning this war on drugs.  We're losing, badly, and tens of thousands of people are paying for it with their lives.   Hundreds of thousands more

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/21/183820/mexicos-war-on-crime-now-ranks.html#storylink=cpy

Ask the Guy Who Never Inhaled - the War on Drugs is For Losers

Wild Bill Clinton, America's favourite bad boy ex-pres, says his country's war on drugs is not working.   Quelle surprise!

"As the legal limbo surrounding the Washington and Colorado laws continues, a documentary entitled "Breaking the Taboo" premiered on Friday. The film focuses on The Global Commission on Drug Policy's attempt to break the "political taboo" surrounding the U.S. led War on Drugs, as well as showing how it and global policies have failed over the last 40 years.

"Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film includes interviews of former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. During the Clinton administration, the position of Drug Czar was raised to cabinet-level status. Nearly 60 percent of all federal and 25 percent of all state prisoners were imprisoned for nonviolent drug offenses during the Clinton Presidency. In Latin America, the use of military and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) forces grew considerably and marijuana arrests soared. Despite Clinton's reputation as being one of the harshest Presidents to date when it comes to the War on Drugs, he now believes that the war is not working. In the film, Clinton is quoted as saying:

“What I tried to do was to focus on every aspect of the problem. I tried to empower the Colombians for example to do more militarily and police-wise because I thought that they had to. Thirty percent of their country was in the hands of the narcotraffickers,”

"Clinton continued by saying:

“Well obviously, if the expected results was that we would eliminate serious drug use in America and eliminate the narcotrafficking networks — it hasn’t worked.”

"Carter offered his support to the legalization of marijuana, reminding the film's audience that he proposed decriminalizing the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana in 1977. He also warned against filling prisons with those who were "no threat to society: He felt the money spent on law enforcement efforts and the housing of prisoners charged with minor marijuana possession crimes would be better spent on more intensive treatment options for those addicted to drugs. He goes on to say:

"These ideas were widely accepted at the time. Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.'"

The sad thing is that, even though America's war on drugs has been a total failure, America showed in Viet Nam and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan that it still likes to fight wars long after they're over.

Latin America to End the War on Drugs?

When Barack Obama sits down with Latin American leaders in Cartagena to discuss the "war on drugs" he won't like what they've got to say.   They're ready to declare the war on drugs a failure - a failure in the past, a failure now and an inevitable failure in the future.

The president of Guatemala, Otto Perez Molina, is leading the drive to abandon outright prohibition.   As the former head of Guatemalan military intelligence, Perez Molina has first hand experience in the losing war against his country's drug cartels, a war that has made Guatemala the most violence-plagued country in Central America. Mexico doesn't even come close.

Pérez Molina concedes that moving beyond prohibition is problematic. "To suggest liberalisation – allowing consumption, production and trafficking of drugs without any restriction whatsoever – would be, in my opinion, profoundly irresponsible. Even more, it is an absurd proposition. If we accept regulations for alcoholic drinks and tobacco consumption and production, why should we allow drugs to be consumed and produced without any restrictions?"

He insists, however, that prohibition has failed and an alternative system must be found. "Our proposal as the Guatemalan government is to abandon any ideological consideration regarding drug policy (whether prohibition or liberalisation) and to foster a global intergovernmental dialogue based on a realistic approach to drug regulation. Drug consumption, production and trafficking should be subject to global regulations, which means that drug consumption and production should be legalised, but within certain limits and conditions."

Will this summit turn drug policy in the Americas on its head?  Not very likely.  Obama, facing an election in November, wouldn't dare agree.  At the same time rejecting the ideological underpinnings of the war on drugs is an important step on the long road to the evolution of a viable drug policy.

A Central American Free Drug Corridor?

Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina is proposing that Central America become a zone where drugs are legal to make, possess and transport.


Mr Perez Molina will test the waters by discussing the subject with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes when Mr Funes visits today.

 

The Guatemalan president said the war on drugs and all the money and technology received from the US has not diminished drug trafficking in the area.

He said drug cartels are to blame for the high rates of violence in Guatemala, which has a homicide rate of 45 per 100,000 people.

 

A Failing Strategy in the War on Drugs

The United Nations International Narcotics Control Board releases its annual report today warning that major drug cartels are operating with virtual impunity because nations are wasting their efforts focusing on small-time users instead.

From The Guardian:

"According to the 127-page annual report from the UN's International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), governments need to make greater efforts to freeze traffickers' assets, improve access to drug treatment programmes and expand the range of non-custodial sentences available for convicted users.
The main findings were:

The emergence of new smuggling routes, in particular cocaine from South America being stockpiled and repackaged in west Africa before entering Europe.

Increased cultivation of coca bushes - from which cocaine is derived - in Peru and Bolivia as crop eradication programmes reduce production in Colombia.

A 17% increase in illicit opium poppy cultivation during 2007 in Afghanistan. The country now accounts for 93% of the global market in opiates.

It added: "Some countries still spend disproportionate effort in targeting low-level offenders and drug users, as compared to the more pressing issues of identifying, dismantling and punishing those who control or organise major drug trafficking activities.

"Many states impose unconditional imprisonment of drug abusers for lesser offences, such as possession or purchase of drugs for personal use and these typically make up a significant proportion of growing prison populations in some countries. There is no universal 'moral instinct' when it comes to punishment for less serious cases."

The report does, however, criticize countries that condone drug use of any form, including medical marijuana. Canada is specifically mentioned for providing "safer crack kits" which, I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about.

The UN Drug Czar, whose name escapes me at the moment, is fiercely opposed to any and all forms of drug use and production regardless of the circumstances. In Afghanistan, for example, he wants the entire opium crop wiped out immediately without the slightest regard to the implications that might have for the counterinsurgency war being waged. It's that lack of realism and inflexibility that probably ensures this report will be left to gather dust.