Mark Anderson :
Wealthy countries are exacerbating poverty by pressurising governments to enforce prohibitionist drug policies that exploit farmers and waste billions of pounds a year on failed law enforcement programmes, a health group has warned.
The global war on drugs is wreaking environmental damage, hurting health systems and setting back women’s rights in drug-producing countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia and Guinea-Bissau, according to Casualties of War (pdf), a report published on Thursday by the UK-based advocacy group Health Poverty Action (HPA).
Policies designed to disrupt the production of narcotics like cocaine and heroin are denying low-income farmers access to basic services and isolating them from transport links, making it harder for them to switch to growing legal crops, the report said.
“Having an international system of prohibition allows richer countries to pressure poorer countries into setting up more restrictive drug laws of their own, including militarising prohibition and drug law enforcement,” said the report’s author, Catherine Martin, a policy adviser at HPA.
The study warned that using the military to enforce drug prohibition has often created power vacuums and weakened democratic institutions. Afghanistan’s crackdown on opium and heroin traffickers, for instance, has destabilised the central government, leaving it “stuck in a losing war against drug cartels”, said the report. Failed drug policies are also diverting public resources away from spending on health and education, according to the study: “Dealing with the violence, environmental destruction, and health impacts caused by the war on drugs costs poor countries much more and diverts both resources and attention away from essential services.”
Colombia, one of the world’s biggest cocaine producers, continues to spend $35.7bn (£23bn) a year on failed policies directly related to the global war on drugs, according to HPA’s estimates. These costs are associated with ecological degradation and internal displacement as well as spending on defence and security, the group said.
Historically, the US has led the charge in pressuring poorer countries to crack down on drug trafficking and enforce prohibitionist policies, Martin said. But now countries like Russia and Japan are advocating harsh punishments, including the death penalty, for drug traffickers and producers.
“Many of those people involved at lower levels of the drug trade do so out of economic necessity but this is rarely taken into account when they are caught up in the criminal justice system,” said Ann Fordham, executive director of the International Drug Policy Consortium.
HPA estimates that the world spends at least $100bn on enforcing anti-drug policies, almost as much as the annual global aid spend of $130bn. “Poorer countries feel they have to throw everything they have into drug law enforcement to avoid souring relations with richer countries,” Martin said.
But development groups have not spoken out against the ill-effects that drug policies are having on campaigns to reduce poverty and improve the livelihoods of the world’s poorest. “There’s really no region that is untouched by this, which is why it’s such a crucial issue for development organisations,” Martin said.
Aid donors have failed to draw a connection between drug and development policies, according to HPA. The UK’s criminalisation of khat, a mild stimulant popular in the horn of Africa, has wreaked havoc on African economies, undermining development programmes being carried out in the region, said the organisation.
“There are a lot of countries that are trying out new drug policies, and in a lot of places they’re finding a lot of success in getting more people into treatment and reducing crime. But it’s the wealthier nations who have the freedom to [move away from prohibitionist drug laws]. No one is going to penalise the US for the fact that several states have legalised marijuana,” added Martin.
The UN general assembly on the world drug problem is due to hold a summit on global drug policy in 2016.
Martin said: “Ideally I think we would see a revision of UN conventions to take the pressure off national governments, give them a lot more leeway to design their national policies, open up at least the possibility of legalisation of some drugs in some areas.”
(Fordham added: “Governments need to reassess the approach and move away from repressive measures that further exacerbate marginalisation and vulnerability and invest their resources in policies that are based in principles of public health, human rights, development and human security.”)
