Vineland Today

[Robin Landseadel]

	Proposition 19: a chance to end the 'war on drugs'
	Juan Gabriel Tokatlian
	guardian.co.uk,	
	Thursday 28 October 2010

	It is now evident that the "war on drugs" is not a metaphor: in the 	
	Andean Ridge and Mexico, as well as in West Africa and Central
	Asia, it has become a militarised crusade against narcotics.
	Several thousand soldiers are directly involved in anti-drugs
	operations worldwide. Hundreds of billions have been spent
	everywhere in an armed combat against drug consumers,
	drug traffickers, drug producers, drug launders and drug lords.

	As part of an irregular battle against an illicit business, as a twin
	threat – together with terrorism – to be defeated by a form of low
	-intensity conflict, or as a component of a punitive war, US and
	non-US troops are the leading an armed fight against narcotics
	from Colombia and Guinea Bissau to Afghanistan. The actual
	results – in terms of crop eradication and substitution, drug inter-
	diction, narcotics trafficking reduction, organised crime disman-
	tling, curtailment of money laundering, improved statehood,
	better civil-military relations and human rights advancement –
	have been abysmally poor.

	Even though Washington now spends $1,400 every second
	in the "war on drugs", the crusade has been a complete fiasco.
	The US-funded Plan Colombia (started by 2000), the Andean
	Regional Initiative (since 2002), the Merida Initiative (originated
	in 2007) for Mexico and Central America and Caribbean Basin
	Security Initiative (launched in 2009), have totalled more than
	$9bn and have had negligible results in terms of lowering the
	drug consumption, reducing the availability of psychoactive
	substances and diminishing the purity of narcotics in the
	United States.

	What this tells us is that the problem with drugs is no more
	"alien" than the solution is "military". Drugs are a US demand
	issue – driven by domestic markets that have their own social
	and political implications, as well as by transnational economic
	forces and their global ramifications. So, no unconventional
	war will resolve the matter. If the idea were to follow the advice
	of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz – to discern the "enemy's
	centre of gravity", the pivotal place "on which everything
	depends" and "the point against which all our energies should
	be directed" – then the "war on drugs" should become a war on
	US citizenry.

	One way to begin the domestic dismantling of the "war on drugs"
	rationale and to signal to the world that the United States is
	willing to initiate a realistic, frank and effective debate on
	narcotics is to support Proposition 19, on which Californians
	will vote on 2 November. If passed in this ballot, the proposition
	would mean a new regulatory regime of different marijuana-
	related activities, one no longer based on prohibition and
	interdiction. This would represent a real advance in dealing
	seriously and effectively with the narcotics issue – and a
	bold new step towards broadening the global debate on the
	effectiveness, or otherwise, of drug prohibition.

	Proposition 19 provides a window of opportunity for Americans
	to think again about the wisdom of prolonging a costly and futile
	war.


http://tinyurl.com/25mfhnh