The war on drugs has been a great success! (only for certain interests and conveniences).
Fifty-two years ago, on this day, October 27, former President Richard Nixon uttered the phrase: “Drug addiction is the number one public enemy of the United States.”
With this public policy and the influence of the United States, the response of other countries did not differ: let’s prohibit and eradicate drugs until we make them disappear from the face of the earth – Say no to drugs!
Unfortunately, no one questioned that marijuana had been prohibited in the United States since 1937, and, in fact, Nixon had scientific reports indicating that it did not cause addiction and could be legalized. At that historical moment, some political factors intervened, leading to the decision against other socio-cultural “enemies”: pacifist leftists and African Americans. This was later revealed by John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s adviser, who associated hippies with marijuana and African Americans with heroin, making it easier for the government to control these sectors that did not benefit the political class, criminalizing behavior practiced by these populations.
Knowing the above – which is not new gossip – let’s return to 2022… Drugs still exist.
Recently in our country, the cultivation, industrialization, and consumption of hemp, as well as the medicinal and therapeutic use of cannabis, are legal. And Costa Rica has finally taken one of the first steps to undo this dynamic. Not stopping there, the ruling party proposed Bill No. 23,383, the “Control and Regulation of Cannabis for Recreational Use” law.
If we go to the Ministry of Justice and Peace and review prison statistics, we can see that, in the TOP 10 of offenses committed by people deprived of their liberty, crimes against the Psychotropic Substances Law rank second, with a total of 5,005 individuals deprived of liberty.
Most of those deprived of liberty in this classification come from vulnerable populations, with limited resources, who see “drug dealing” as a way to support their homes. They not only expose themselves to high prison sentences but also to the cycle of violence generated by drug trafficking.
I understand that, due to ignorance, moralism, or whatever many may think, drugs have been demonized, and it has been overlooked that the lack of regulation perpetuates violence and criminality around the world. This is justified with the poor argument that making them illegal will reduce consumption. For example, marijuana has been labeled as an initial drug, the “first step” on the path to exposure to stronger drugs. However, it has not been considered that the very illegality is what leads some consumers to contact those stronger drugs because to obtain them, they have to break the law and contact an illegal seller who not only has this drug but many more. Which, with regulation, would be a perfectly avoidable situation.
There is a conceptual error in trying to treat addictions as a political issue rather than a public health problem. If countries were to take on the task of changing their approach, they would not only be freeing up space in prisons but also eliminating a high crime rate created without adequate justification in 1970, generating employment, collecting taxes, and regulating those who violently conduct this black market worldwide.
It is time to stop being more papal than the pope and truly address social problems with real solutions, with education, providing products that are suitable for human consumption (having traceability and complying with regulations in their preparations), collecting taxes to fund rehabilitation programs for addicted or socially at-risk individuals, and finally accepting that maintaining the “war on drugs” generates more violence and criminality for any country than regulation does.
