Drugs and policy – is anybody accountable?

Citation

Klein, A. (2012), "Drugs and policy – is anybody accountable?", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 12 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dat.2012.54412caa.001

Drugs and policy – is anybody accountable?

Article Type: Editorial From: Drugs and Alcohol Today, Volume 12, Issue 3

In the UK the police are dedicating an increasing amount of time and effort to the dismantling of illegal “cannabis factories”, which seem to be proliferating as part of a decade long process of import substitution. Without much impact on the availability of cannabis product, if price information and anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, they are justified in terms of fighting organised crime. Partly this arises from a truism – if there is an organised crime agency then any crime that the agency is fighting must be organised, otherwise why bother? But more seriously, the rise of large-scale grow-ops has had unforeseeable consequences in terms of diversification, the investment of proceeds and the links with other criminal activities like people smuggling. Law enforcement activity is therefore resolute: cannabis cultivators have to be discouraged with the loss of liberty and wealth. The legislative calculus being that where the odds of apprehension and the penal tariff are high enough, criminals are likely to reconsider their options. UK cannabis cultivators, whether they have five plants or 500, have a choice whether to grow or not. It is that freedom to choose that defines them as criminals and what results in the forfeit of their rights, dignity and freedom.

The presumption of criminality and choice also applies to the combating of poppy and coca cultivation. Here a study by Daniel Mejia of the University of the Andes in Bogota, Colombia, provides interesting material to chew on. Following protests by the Ecuadorian Government the Colombian authorities decided to suspend aerial fumigation of coca fields along the border in 2008. Would cultivation increase in the 10 kilometer exclusion zone, was the question a team of researchers has been investigating over the last five years. Using a mix of research methods, including analysis of satellite images and interviews with farmers, they conclude that there has been no increase. Given that the area is contested between government troops and guerrilla forces and heavily land mined it may not at first appear representative, but the trends are confirmed by a more general study of the impact of aerial eradication by Luis Carlos Reyes. The reason is simple, farmers respond to fumigation by increasing their acreage under cultivation. They also use various protective measures that reduce the effectiveness of spraying like coating their coca plants with mud, and many will replant immediately after the planes have passed over. Is aerial fumigation effective in reducing coca cultivation? Clearly not, because coca planters – and the same holds true for Afghani poppy farmers – are not free agents who hit upon coca farming among a range of options. They are not driven by greed, as for most illicit cultivation affords at best a livelihood. Unlike, many of the UK’s cultivators perhaps, theirs is not a criminal activity, but subsistence.

Organisations such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, but also the Department for International Development, therefore insist that drug crop eradication has to be accompanied by an alternative livelihood strategy. Farmers should be provided with an alternative, say fruit or food crops. The flagship case study is northern Thailand, where opium cultivation has been steadily eliminated through a mix of sticks and carrots. But what is rarely mentioned is that from the 1980s onwards Thailand has been experiencing an unprecedented economic boom. Farmers could switch crops and supply burgeoning domestic markets. More importantly still, the sons and daughters of farming families had the option to leave for urban areas and find work in the industrial sector and the service economy. In Colombia, on the other hand, the very reason why farmers are stuck in coca cultivation is that the rest of the economy has been stagnating as a result of the very civil war which drug eradication has only served to exacerbate. Whatever the closet socialist planners of alternative development dream up, there are no alternatives. Interesting from a demographic perspective has been the drift of people out of urban centres towards the rural areas in the country’s south. Cocaine exporters often provide seeds and even cash in advance, as long as farmers are prepared to risk harvesting coca over several seasons.

These insights, confirmed by the steady coca prices in established markets, and the opening of new ones, should of course prompt a reconsideration of policies. But there are considerable interests at stake. First of all there are the fumigators themselves, many private sector companies that have been contracted by the US and Colombian Governments to spread their poison over the jungle. Then administrators across multiple departments managing large budgets and complex programmes; foot soldiers, paid and uniformed, who often are men and women who might otherwise be hiding in the bush themselves. But most important are the policy makers in Western countries who talk tough and are absolved of having anyone to report to. Drugs are not the only rhetorical domain where tough posturing translates into electoral appeal. Crime and the fear thereof have been turned into a tool for governing by majority wooing politicians for a generation. But here at least there are measures for tracking the success or failure of policies. There are huge data sets on convictions, arrests, crime and victimization, all of which resonates with the experience of the voting public. Policy makers have to answer for increases in particular crimes, falls in the perception of public safety, or now the increase in the costs of incarceration.

No such mechanism of accountability applies to the drugs field. Policy makers continue to throw money at programmes that only benefit employees and contractors but have so far failed in ridding the world of the “evil” of drugs. To the contrary, some would argue, they have tended only to exacerbate them. How free from responsibility for past actions the drug control system has become is apparent from a discussion held by law enforcement working along the North American/Mexican border. A “strategy” that is now being developed aims at reducing the level of violence which is on the point of bringing Mexico to a standstill. The plan, based on the insight that law enforcement intervention shapes the modus operandi of crime groups, is to prioritise violent crimes. If the security forces react to crimes where violence occurs they will encourage criminals to use a lighter touch. It is hoped that this will take effect in Mexico and help reverse the homicide trend. Striking in this line of reasoning is that the very proliferation of violence in Mexico was initially a response to the intensification of interdiction in the 1980s. The current level of a civil war level of violence has been brought about by a relentless campaign to arrest drug traffickers and seize their possession, at the same time as there was thriving demand for their services. Supplying that demand in US markets helped Mexico’s criminal cartels grow in strength. Awash with cash and weapons from US gun marts, they took on the authorities with lead and silver – violence and corruption. In 2012 government power is eroded, the rule of law suspended and public safety in tatters. There is the inevitable trickle down as cartels recruit ever-growing numbers of gunmen from the vast pool of young men known as ninis (no work, no study). Satisfied with lower rewards they diversify into kidnapping, extortion rapid and burglary, preying on the population stripped of protection by an incompetent state. In the run up to the elections all Mexican parties agree that the war on drugs is at the root of the problem but none have a plan on how to end it.

Across the border, meanwhile, politicians look the other way, and simply repeat that drugs are bad and need to be controlled. It may be harsh to expect US politicians to answer for the problems faced by a neighbouring country, but given the pressure that it has brought to bear on successive Mexican Governments since the 1930s to follow its own aggressive take on drug control, there is a strong moral obligation. Even at home, however, responsible statesmanship is traded in for political advantage. Take the discussion running in New York state about the appropriate policing of cannabis. One popular way to keep members of the New York Police Department busy and productive has been to stop and search young minority males, then bust them for petty cannabis violations (see Cohen, “The culture of the ban on cannabis” in Drugs and Alcohol Today (DAAT), 8, 2). A popular trick employed by some of the cities finest is to ask a suspect to empty their pocket and then bust them for putting the forbidden substance on public display. Having cannabis in your pocket in New York state is a minor offence, but showing it in public, a hangover from prohibition era anti drunkenness legislation, becomes a serious crime. Exposed by several academic studies the 50,000 low-level marijuana arrests made annually have been identified as a target for painless cost cutting by Mayor Bloomberg (Rep). With the support of Democrat policy makers he has proposed to downgrade possession of up to 25 grams from a misdemeanour to a violation, which carries up to $100 fine. But he has been opposed by Brooklyn senator Martin Golden, because it is soft on crime and sends the wrong message. Costs and big government intrusion into the private spheres are no longer an issue when it comes to drugs, and as for the consequences such as the spirals of crime and deprivation. Well, each politician can say it was not me who started it. I just did something very small but the rest was already in place and part of the system.

Hence failed policy continues to proliferate and even successful models can be reversed. Take the example of the Danish cannabis market run for decades out of Christiania, a squatter settlement on the fringe of Copenhagen. For long an emblem of Danish tolerance and enlightened social policy it was a place where cannabis but no other drugs were openly sold. Prices were fair, quality ensured and the market peaceful and organised. In 2003 the government sent in the police to close the market in the name of fighting crime (Frank, “Danish drug policy”, DAAT, 8, 2, 2008). Within weeks the market was taken over by biker gangs. According to the Aarhus University Researcher Kim Møller the market is now as large as it was in 2004, but run by the Hells Angels and other outfits dedicated to promoting equal opportunities, the rule of law and social responsibility. Today the use of violence is common in Copenhagen’s cannabis markets, and a menacing atmosphere prevails. These predictable consequences of criminalization in the face of underlying demand have all come to pass, but is there anyone to take responsibility? Copenhagen’s politicians have mooted introducing coffeeshops or cannabis clubs (Møller, “Letter on the Copenhagen City council”, DAAT, 12, 1) but find their hands tied by national policy makers who refer to the country’s international obligations under the drug control conventions.

We know, of course, that the international bureaucrats entrusted with supervising adherence to these treaties do not have to give an account to anybody about the consequences of their own actions and therefore stick to the letter rather than the spirit of the law. Indeed, attempts at even running evaluations of programmes such as the ten-year strategy at opiate/coca eradication have been vehemently opposed. Drug warriors and system beneficiaries, after all, are not concerned about consequences or outcomes but only the process itself. Drug control remains an end in itself, not a method for improving public health, safety or well being.

It is this subtle but significant shift from means to end that allows socially harmful practices to continue without check or scrutiny all over the world. In the UK it has its own suitably toned down version in the way that government responds to suggestions or demands for change from critical inquiries. The International Drug Policy Consortium for instance has brought perverse policy consequences to the attention of policy makers, be this, say, net-widening or criminalization. But Home Office civil servants see no need to consider the case in point or weigh up the evidence, but respond with a pre-packaged phrase from the drug strategy: “drugs cause harm to families and communities … ”.

Whenever a technical challenge is raised about the consequences of a particular set of actions, policy makers either project responsibility onto the drug users and traders, or revert to their intentions. These are no doubt good, all about protecting young people and communities and laced in the sugary language of care and protection. The need to give an account for the consequences of policy and programmes is thus deftly avoided. We are still waiting for a simple impact assessment to count the costs of the last 40 years. As long as there is no public inquiry into the value for tax money, policy makers will continue to wash their hands of the consequences of their drug policy actions. That they can do so easily just shows that in things with drugs we are indeed at war, and information management is the first duty of the state.

Axel Klein