A Drug Free World - Could We Do It?
sarosip, July 23, 2008 - 11:21
Watch our video on the drug free world!
Not long before the delegates of member states gathered in New York at the UNGASS on drugs in 1998, outstanding professionals and politicans from all around the world addressed Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General in an open letter. They warned the UN not to chase rainbows but to stay down to earth, because in the name of pursuing a drug free society member states often violate human rights, assault the environment and fill prisons with non-violent offenders. “Realistic proposals to reduce drug-related crime, disease and death are abandoned in favor of rhetorical proposals to create drug-free societies. Persisting in our current policies will only result in more drug abuse, more empowerment of drug markets and criminals, and more disease and suffering,” they wrote. Unfortunately these dissent voices remained unheard in 1998, the UNGASS was a sequence of political speeches light years away from the reality of crime, addiction and disease on the streets. “A drug-free world – we can do it!” – this slogan dominated the session, member states committed themselves to achieve significant and measurable reduction of supply and demand of illicit drugs in 10 years.
Mr. Annan predicted that once in the future the world will see the 1998 UNGASS as a turning point in history, as a beginning of a new area without drug abuse. Mr. Annan’s statement reminds me that of Billy Sunday, an evangelist who predicted the beginning of a new paradise on earth in 1919, when the U.S. introduced federal alcohol prohibition. History itself has obviously refuted both predictions. Today more illicit drugs are produced and consumed worldwide than ever. In the past ten years heroin production doubled, cocaine production increased with 20 percent. Unfortunately, the slogan of the drug free world is still haunts us ten years after: the chair of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) repeated it in her opening speech at the global NGO forum in Vienna, July 7, 2008. HCLU asked a couple of leading NGO activists to comment the goal of a drug-free world and produced a short video about this issue.
Some people think that even if the idea of a drug-free world is not realistic, we have to keep it as a useful tool to catalyze anti-drug efforts and give hope to people fighting against drugs. The problem with this argument is that we know from history that people tend to persecute and kill eachother in the name of pink utopias based on the denial of reality. In this part of Europe where I live, totalitarian states tried to force us to be happy and live without free market in order to prevent the exploitation of people. The concept of communism sounded nicely: a world without poverty and property. But the costs of the pursuit of a capital-free world were disastrous: mass violation of human rights, overcrowded prisons, corruption and poverty. The cost of drug prohibition are disastrous as well: a huge black market, civil wars, corruption, the spread of HIV and HCV, overdoses, violence on the streets, overcrowded prisons. Is it worth to sacrafise so many lives, money and freedoms to maintain the illusion that one day we can live in a world free of drugs?
I believe that we have to abandond the dangerous utopia of a drug-free world. Not only because it is not realistic and costs us a fortune, but also because this slogan is just wrong as it is, therefore it can only bring rotten fruits. Drug use in itself is not necessarily bad, even if it does not serve medical or scientific purposes. The vast majority of people who use drugs for recreational purposes do it without causing any significant harms to themselves or anybody else, they don’t become addicts or criminals. I don’t think that the world would be a better place without drugs: even if many sufferings due to addiction and disease could be avoided, we don’t know how many people would have died or caused other people die or suffer without finding relief in drugs. I don’t think that people who drink a glass of wine after a good dinner are responsible in any way for the death and disease caused by problematic alcohol use, or to eliminate non-problematic alcohol use would help in any way for those suffering from addiction and disease. We shouldn't eliminate dangerous sports like parachuting only to prevent accidents, even if the risk of hurting yourself with parachuting is much bigger than that of taking an Ecstasy pill. I don’t think that simply reducing the number of those who use marijuana or other drugs would reduce drug related overdoses, infections or crime. What I think is that drug policy should focus only on problematic forms of drug use and aim to create a social and political environment in which the risks and harms of drug use can be reduced to the minimum, without violating the human rights of those using drugs. The idea of a drug-free world became an obstacle to assess and tackle the real problems and needs of people, therefore it is a source of suffering in itself.
Posted by Peter Sarosi
Preventing drug damage
A drug free world is unrealistic since there will always be those who seek an effortless altered state of consciousness and drug peddlers, legal and criminal, who will ensure their needs are met.
Nor is the legalising of drugs an answer as can be seen from the fact that Roche has been found guilty of the unauthorised peddling slimming drugs to a chain of slimming 'clinics' here in the UK.
What prevention measures exist should be intensified. Drug use can be reduced as witnessed by countries like Singapore which up until the 1970s had a major drug problem. They resolved it by humane compulsory treatment of first and second time 'offenders', without attaching the stigma of a criminal conviction. Singapore also dispenses summary and permanent prevention to dealers in a manner which ensures that they are unable to re-offend.
Today Singapore with a multi racial community of 4 million people is a peaceful country, where diverse cultures live in harmony and where criminal activity is low. It is also interesting to note that of those facing drug charges, just 23 per cent are reoffenders.
so let's stop being defeatist about what can be achieved and focus on achieving it, bearing in mind the following:
'For every complex problem there is a solution which is neat, simple and wrong' (Menckel)
A drug free world? I hope
A drug free world? I hope not. No! No! Never! Never!
I am not naive regarding problems which can occur with the over-use of some substances, however I believe that criminalization creates the context for drug problems far more than any innate properties of drugs themselves.
As the previous commenter said, there will always be people who wish to use substances to alter their consciousness or ease the conditions of pain they experience. I hope for a future that substances will be provided in a safe and regulated manner, without the adulterating influence of profit-driven drug peddlers.
Preventing drug damage...at what cost?
Peter O'Laughlin says that 'Singapore also dispenses summary and permanent prevention to dealers in a manner which ensures that they are unable to re-offend.'
He is referring to the death penalty. [But appears unwilling to come out and say it]
I am not sure how this squares with the quote he used to finish his comment.
drug free world
A drug free world will never happen because the main drug lords have pumped a lot of money into some very influent politician's pockets. So you see, the politician is a special breed that eats money so a politician will always take care of his favorite drug lord as long as their pockets are full.
not possible
A drug free world is no more possible then a criminal free world, we have to be realistic and help as many people as possible without any negative effects on society. The drug war seems to have had many negative results as well as it’s good ones, but ultimately this isn’t how things should be done. More understanding and subtlety needs to be assatained.
i hope you dont think
i hope you dont think marijuana is a drug
or any psychedelic drugs used in the right way...
sure cocaine heroin and meth shouldnt have place in society and they do... which is wrong, but psychedelic drugs are healthy for your mind, your dream is a psychedelic trip in itself
you use DMT everynight as you sleep, it makes you dream, and if you dont dream youll die. so psychedelics and marijuana are not drugs, ahaha marijuana... its just like a smoke.. just stronger..
Peace out.
very good thanks..
very good thanks..
Thank you, Thanks a lot for
Thank you,
Thanks a lot for bringing awareness in the people.
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thanks a lot...
thanks a lot...
very good
very good thanks.
Obviously a drug free world
Obviously a drug free world is not possible, perhaps some small communities or even small countries could eventual become free of any <a rel="follow" href="http://www.casapalmera.com">drug abuse</a>. But drug use has become a part of human life, just like war and weapons. They are bad for humanity but many people depend on them to survive in this confusing world.
Thanks for sharing great
Thanks for sharing great stuff mate.
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hahaha
i am one of these major drug lord as you say it is all true i pay off politicans, i import 100s of thousands of kilos of exticay herorin and cocain good luck catching me bacuse you wont fukk you im smashed right now and fuk cops
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thanks for the information
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Coul we do it ?
I am not naive regarding problems which can occur with the over-use of some substances, however I believe that criminalization creates the context for drug problems far more than any innate properties of drugs themselves.
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what a wonderful world it would be
the author makes a valid point in the last paragraph where he refers to recreational use of alcohol & drugs as not being extremely damaging.But with human beings,the transformation from social drinker to <a href="http://www.alcohol-rehab.mobi/5/tips/">alcohol addiction</a> doesn't take a lot.
give me a hope
There can be a lot of talks...some good some bad...but people r talking because there is still a hope for drugfree world.i m for the one.
What do u Say?
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Why!
Why would we even want a drug free world? Drugs are mostly good. People who abuse drugs are the problem. <a href="http://vclosets.com">custom closets</a>
Good Article
Very educational article. Thanks. http://vclosets.com
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