IISS scholars: End the war on drugs

Singapore – The official events of the 2012 Shangri-la Security Dialogue have yet to begin, but in the meantime, scholars from the hosting International Institute for Strategic Studies have a message for the crowd here in Singapore: End the war on drugs.

That’s the main message of the new book entitled, "Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: the Problems of Prohibition," written by IISS experts Nigel Inkster and Virginia Comolli and launched here in Singapore today. Inkster held a press conference to talk about the project and told the assembled crowd of experts, officials, and reporters that the world’s prohibition regime regarding narcotics is perpetuating violence in some of the world’s most unstable regions.

"The policies that have been pursued in prohibition for the last over 100 years have not really delivered the results that were expected," he said. "We need to reframe this problem not as a problem that can be solved – this idea of a ‘drug free world’ – but as a situation that can be managed in a way that creates minimal collateral damage."

He offered some suggestions about how states can reduce the criminality, violence and instability that the current world drug policy endures. States can ensure safe and ready access to legal drugs, reducing the demand for illegal drugs used for medical purposes, for example. Also, countries could alter the handling of drug abuse from a focus on penalization to an approach that treats drug addiction as a public health issue.

"Medical rehabilitation is not just the most effective but also the cheapest way of dealing with drugs misuse," Inkster said.

Legalization of narcotics wouldn’t eliminate organized crime, but would significantly reduce low level crime, as the street trade in drugs would fade. Many argue that legalization would increase drug use, but Inkster said, "The honest answer is, we don’t know."

He referenced the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Columbia in April, where several Latin American leaders advocated for a degree of decriminalization or legalization of drugs but ran into stiff opposition from the United States.  

"We are critical of the U.S. policy, particularly the focus on the supply side with the virtual disregard of anything else," Inkster said. "The correctional lobby in the United states also has a powerful interest in incarcerating as many Americans as possible."

Meanwhile, drug producing states pay the heaviest price due to the illicit drug trade, Inkster said. Earlier this week, he wrote about the drug trade in Afghanistan in an article for Foreign Policy, in which he outlined the ineffectiveness of the international community’s decade

"Accounting for between one-quarter and one-third of the national economy, it is an integral part of the insecurity blighting Afghan life for the past 30 years," he wrote. "Debate may continue for years as to whether the Western intervention in Afghanistan has made the world safer or more insecure in the post-9/11 era. But it has not only done nothing to reduce global supplies of illicit opium; rather, it has made the problem worse."