Is the UBP's proposed drug policy doomed for failure?

Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley's suggested policy for combating drugs likens the 'war on drugs' that has taken place in America.  Though, isn't that the exact same tack that Premier Scott took only a couple years ago?  Has the 'War on Drugs' movement in the United States been a success or a failure?  Does prohibition work and was "Operation Clean Sweep" of our past really a success?  Does cracking down on drugs really prevent crime or does it fuel it?  Is the UBP's proposed drug policy doomed for failure?

In his recent submission to the Bermuda Sun, Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley declares that we must 'fight the problem' of drugs.

The United Bermuda Party has an aggressive plan to fight the drug problem. We will give Police the equipment, manpower and training to detect and stop the inflow of drugs to the island. We will increase penalties for traffickers.

Citing increased awareness and drug programs as solutions, Mr. Dunkley toes the line of traditional anti-drug policy which has not achieved success elsewhere.  Indeed, his avocation of the creation of a "drug 'czar'" is not new and clearly takes a page out of former Premier Scott's strategy when he founded the now defunct Ministry for National Drug Control.

In order to understand why a 'war on drugs' won't work, one could turn to the comprehensive 146 page report produced in 2005 by the Seattle-based King Country Bar Association.   It cites a wide range of reasons why the 'war on drugs' has failed and offers solutions as to how to truly combat the problem.   The report even cites the US's own drug czar, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy John Walters, admitting the anti-drug campaigns failure to dent the flow of Latin American cocaine onto American streets by cracking down on supply.

"we have not yet seen in all these efforts what we're hoping for on the supply side, which is a reduction in availability."

The King Bar Association's report asserts that the US's “War on Drugs” is fundamentally flawed and is associated with numerous negative societal consequences, including:

• the failure to reduce problematic drug use, particularly among children;

• dramatic increases in crime related to prohibited drugs, including economic crimes related to addiction and the fostering of efficient and violent criminal enterprises that have occupied the unregulated and immensely profitable commercial market made possible by drug prohibition;

• skyrocketing public costs arising from both increased drug abuse and increased crime;

• erosion of public health from the spread of disease, from the concealment and inadequate treatment of addiction and from undue restrictions on proper medical treatment of pain;

• the abridgement of civil rights through summary forfeitures of property, invasions of privacy and violations of due process;

• disproportionately adverse effects of drug law enforcement on the poor and persons of color;

• the clogging of the courts and compromises in the effective administration of justice, as well as a loss of respect for the law.

Cracking down on drugs can be likened to the prohibition of alcohol in the United States between 1920 and 1933.  Prohibition created incentives for bootleggers to smuggle more potent alcohols which lead to a change from the US being a beer and wine society into a bourbon and gin society.   It also served as the foundation under which organized crime flourished and fueled the gang mentality spurning the gangster subculture.  Compare this to the success of Bermuda's "Operation Clean Sweep" of a few years back.  Indeed it may have cleared the streets of drugs and yet, if decent statistics were readily available, it would not be surprising if stats showed a marked increase in harder drug use since that time.

Cracking down on trafficking spurs traffickers to take greater risks and seek to import more potent drugs.  It becomes less profitable to bring in less potent drugs and more profitable to focus on hard drugs, especially considering the high risks involved.  What ends up happening, as has happened in Bermuda and continues to today, is that hard drugs become more readily accessible than less potent ones and leads to even worse addictions and crime.  Even worse, in the face of higher risks, traffickers start arming themselves with guns to 'protect themselves' as their profits go through the roof.  Gangs form and turf wars surmount as wayward individuals fight over the rights to the vast source of income created by prohibition.  Cracking down only serves to fuel drug related crime, not prevent or stop it.

While Mr. Dunkley along with our present and past leaderships can be commended for their passionate arguments for cracking down on the trafficking of drugs, is it really the right long term solution?  Will it reduce criminal activity as Mr. Dunkley hopes?  The American 'War on Drugs' has gone on for decades without a great deal of success.  Prohibition and crackdowns have been shown in the past to not be effective long term solutions and cracking down on drugs fuels more crime than it prevents.  So, if elected, would the UBP's proposed drug policy be doomed for failure?

Comments

[harry]

.
All drug policy's are doomed for failure,Except ONE,
On the news last night I lean't about cheese.It is comming across the mexica border,very cheap at $2 a hit.And it is given to children between 10yrs and 15yrs,
aparently very addictive,to get them hooked as they need new customers.
since the begining of the year over 200
children have died,with taking only one does,in houston alone.
do you think it will be long before it gets to bermuda????? then what!
The Druggies don't care,they destroy and slowly kill people through over dose or aids
But some how society wants to be nice to Druggies, and council all those whom are addicted."Oh how nice we are"
What a crock of s---.
There are some countries in the world,the law is if you are caught and convicted of selling illegal drugs,you hang.
SINGAPORE is a very successuful small country,they have it,
The US spend billions on drug prevention,but it seems to get worse.
Bermuda spends and it does not stop it.
HANGING for try to destroy other peoples lives would be ok with society.
So all we need are some MP's with balls to implement the law.
Yes some lawyers would be upset,cutting off their revenue,but think what the society would save in manpower and tax money.
sea ya

[Denis Pitcher]

Harry,

Clearly you have not read the report I cited. I recommend you do so to get an idea of real answers to the drug problems.

On Page 45:

"On June 26, 2004, to mark the United Nations’ International Day Against Drug
Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, China tried, sentenced and executed dozens of people
convicted of drug trafficking. Twenty-eight people were executed in China on that day
alone and at least 50 others were executed in the week leading up to Anti-Drugs Day.242
Despite the public executions, levels of drug use and abuse and drug-related crime in
China are rising."

[harry]

Hang a few people and the problem is solved?????
NO that is having tunnel vision,besides china has about 1.2billion people.100 here or a 100 there the rest of the population would not be informed as it is a communist country,no freedom of the press,except what those in power want to put out.
I was refering to a democracy simular to our's except a larger population,than bermuda,but still and island nation.
we cannot compare bermuda to any "BIG" countries like china or india russia or even the united states.
when aids hit India,it was estimated to have millions of aids sufferers.the minister at the time brushed it off as a very small percentage of their 1.2 billion souls.
The rice farmers in one area of india,comitting suicite at a rate of 25,000 yes twenty five thousand per year.
They are large numbers we as a small place of 65/67000 have difficulty comparing.
Maybe the UNNITED NATIONS should do a study on singapore,and follow up with one in malaya,they followed suit because all the druggies moved there.But now they have gone.We tend to forget not long ago a new zeland woman and her 20 something son were caught and convicted,in malaya.they hung.
No you dont just hang a few people and it all goes away.it takes time and alot of education,and the adicts would have to register,to have their drugs provided by govt.maybe for the rest of their lives.
It is cheaper to cut the druggs off,cut the increadable wealth out of it,then you have a chance of curing those who are addicted,and not getting anymore.
There are a number of very rich druggies that don't have executive jobs in the excempt companys with big pay checks.but they own alot of realestate,(legaly).
and those whom are addicted and destroyed,
they dont even invite them to see there wonderfull benifits.
sea ya

[silencedogood]

Harry,

Do you not think that reducing the supply of drugs, by hangings or other means, will increase their price? Do you think this would increase incentives for drug-related violence because the difference between a murder sentence and a drug sentence are the same? What effect do you think this change would have on public cooperation with the police? What about informants? Would this change encourage greater organization among the criminal elements?

I don't necessarily disagree with your premise, but something that drastic would need to be understood from all angles and planned for before implementation. Caution, especially in a small jurisdiction, needs to be the watchword.

As it stands, I'd be happy if the current leadership had the balls to enforce existing law rather than notify drug dealers via the papers that they will raid their crackhouses in a few weeks.

I'd also be pretty leery of letting Dr. Brown, Burgess, et al. have any influence whatsoever on death sentences. I don't want to see the executioners local 101 branch of the BIU in my lifetime--of course they would likely be on strike most of the time. ;)