Failing war on drugs saves no one - Time to legalise some drugs?

THERE have been few if any international security operations that have failed as spectacularly as the endless war on drugs. The major drug cartels operate with something approaching impunity and wreak havoc in the societies they target despite years of concerted international effort.

For many of those years the received wisdom was that around 10% of drugs smuggled into a country were seized by authorities but a UN report has found that figure far too optimistic and suggested that, in Ireland’s case, the figure is closer to 3%. This finding stands in sharp contrast to the position persistently advanced by senior gardaí who have, for many years, insisted that the 10% figure was a gross underestimation of their unsubstantiated strike rate.

The death toll generated by this failing war on drugs is shocking. The Mexican government has reported that between 2007 and 2014 more than 164,000 Mexicans were victims of drug-related homicide. Nearly 20,000 died last year, a substantial number, but still a decrease from the 27,000 killed at the peak of fighting in 2011. These figures do not include those who died because they used narcotics. Mexico’s very stability is threatened by this carnage.

In recent weeks Ireland got a glimpse, albeit a very moderate one in comparison, of the culture underpinning this deadly trade and the toxic grip the amoral drug gangs can exert on their victim communities.

This unbridgeable gap between hope and reality has been recognised in an increasing number of countries where the old, failing war-on-drugs response has been modified to legalise the use of soft drugs like marijuana for “medical” use. Almost 30 American states have taken this step and Canada is expected to legalise the drug next year. Fifteen years ago Portugal went much further and legalised the use of all drugs including heroin. If an individual is found with less than a 10-day supply of anything from marijuana to heroin they are sent to a three-person Commission for the Dissuasion of Drug Addiction, usually made up of a lawyer, a doctor, and a social worker. The commission recommends treatment or a minor fine; otherwise the person does not face a penalty.

We are taking tentative steps along the road to moving drug use from the criminal sphere to the health management sphere. Plans are well advanced to allow drug users to use supervised injecting rooms in Dublin this year, followed by facilities in Cork, Galway, and Limerick. The minister in charge of the National Drugs Strategy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has proposed decriminalising the possession of small amounts of drugs, including heroin, cocaine, and cannabis, for personal use, as part of a “radical cultural shift” in the approach to drug addiction. If there is any country that should embrace a radical — reasonably radical anyway — more humane, approach to dealing with drug addiction it should be Ireland as we have such a tragic and destructive relationship with alcohol abuse. We should know what works and what does not in this battle to recover health, dignity, and self-respect. We should have the courage to move beyond the pointless war on drugs simply because it is not working.