The war on drugs, declared by US President Richard Nixon in 1971, has been an abject failure, according to Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. Drug violence has killed nearly 100,000 people in Mexico since 2006. One third of adults consume illegal drugs, 1 in 6 children between 11 and 15 are still taking drugs, and 2,000 people die each year in drug-related incidents in the UK. Crimes related to drugs still costing the UK £13.3 billion every year. Branson thinks it is time that the global war on drugs must end.
“As an investment, the war on drugs has failed to deliver any returns. If it were a business, it would have been shut down a long time ago. This is not what success looks like. The idea of eradicating drugs from the world by waging a war on those who use them is fundamentally flawed for one simple reason: it doesn’t reduce drug-taking. The Home Office’s own research, commissioned by Liberal Democrats in government and published a few months ago, found that “there is no apparent correlation between the ‘toughness’ of a country’s approach and the prevalence of adult drug use”. This devastating conclusion means that we are wasting our scarce resources, and on a grand scale,” Branson wrote in The Guardian.
As a solution, Branson offered to adopt the Portuguese model – Drugs remain illegal and socially unacceptable in Portugal but drug users are not branded criminals. The country decriminalized the possession of all drugs for personal use in 2001. So, anyone who is now arrested for taking drugs is first treated or educated; if he/she doesn’t change, they pay a fine. In the last 14 years, there has been considerable decline in rates of drug-use and drug overdose, cases of HIV, AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Hepatitis B and C, and drug-related deaths.
The Portuguese model, according to Branson, will be cheaper and more effective at dealing with the issue of drugs than the expensive four decades of war on drugs, helping cops focus on the actual criminals – the drug mafia.
Another high profile voice, one of many declaring it has been a complete failure and yet still nothing changes…
Also, that last sentence almost touches on an important point everyone has been afraid to make, but misses the mark. The “drug mafia” wouldn’t exist if the drugs were legal, taxed and regulated by government, similar to how all prescription drugs are regulated. We wouldn’t need to fight them because by offering legal methods to obtain the drugs, with education and ensured purity, you make them irrelevant.
Of course they wouldn’t magically go away, they have been financed for decades and they have organisation, with a foothold in the world now. Similar to how the mafia remained for a time after alcohol prohibition ended, yet by cutting off the money supply, the very reason they exist, it would eventually lead to their demise.
The criminal element to drugs is only there because of its illegality. Take that away, criminals have no power. Shame politics and the media are still struggling to accept Marijuana. The misinformation from the 60’s is still prevalent to this day and has set back research and society drastically.
the greatest failure of conquistadors ? Greed.
5 centuries later, white people are still enable to understand that cocaine NEVER was a recreational drug that requires processing slaves. Coca are leaves you’re expected to chew, not a sniffing bonus for bums.
And christian use of alcohol is worse : native americans are still not immune against booze so
-what’s worse ? Slavery ? Addiction ? Colonization ?
time to explore traditions and go beyond euro-preconceived ideas : back to the roots.