Legalize the Drug Trade to Cut Off Terrorism Funding

Editorial: Legalize the Drug Trade to Cut Off Terrorism Funding
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/448/drug_prohibition_funds_terrorism.shtml

David Borden, Executive Director, 8/11/06

A conflict that doesn't make the US radar screen as often as it merits is the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers. The Tigers are a nasty group that among other abuses uses children as soldiers. (I don't know enough about Sri Lanka's government to venture an opinion on its own human rights record -- a quick web search did not turn up anything quite so obvious or outrageous, though I'm slow to trust any government overmuch.) I'm not too familiar with the causes of the conflict or the issues that are driving it. Regardless, the Tigers are bad news. Naturally, media outlets located closer to the conflict cover it much more prominently.

An article in the Asia Times last weekend reported in detail on the buildup of arms on both sides and predicted intense resumed fighting. The drug trade came up:

The Sri Lankan government has repeatedly charged that the Tigers' ships transported illegal drugs from Myanmar, though no concrete evidence of this has been presented. However, the Tigers do seem to have close links to organized criminal groups in Russia, Lithuania and Bulgaria, as well as foreign terrorist groups.

Whatever their source, the Tamil Tigers appear to have ample funds to acquire weapons from anywhere and everywhere. Modern assault rifles, machine-guns, anti-tank weapons (rocket-propelled grenades), mortars and even man-pack SA-7 surface-to-air missiles from Russia, China and Europe.

Without concrete evidence, one should never fully trust any government's accusations of drug trafficking made against its opponents -- not only because the government has an incentive to make its opponents look as awful as possible, but also because there are drug-fighters within the government who want the money and crave the attention, and because it is a tactic governments use to try and get the international community and the US in particular more involved with their fights.

That said, it could certainly be true -- John Thompson of the Mackenzie Institute, a Canadian think-tank concerned with organized violence and political instability, discussed the issue of terrorist groups using the drug trade to finance their activities in an interview with this newsletter in October 2001 -- it is a substantial factor for many such organizations, and something that tends to keep them around as mere criminal organizations once the political and ideological conflicts have faded.

An arguably more reliable information source than many governments on the issue -- the Orthodox Anarchist blog, published from Jerusalem -- has made a similar observation about the hashish trade in Israel, which is extensively if not primarily supplied by Hezbollah, according to sources quoted. Author Dan Sieradski wrote last month that, "with a heavy heart, I am officially boycotting hashish effective immediately," confessed to having unintentionally helped to fund Hezbollah rockets through his consumption of it, and urged "all my Israel-based readers to cease their consumption of hashish immediately, for the sake of Israel and for the sake of the Lebanese living under the yoke of Iran and Syria's oppression by proxy."

Sieradski went on to recommend, as "an imperfect solution," that the foreign trade be replaced with a domestically-supplied market through decriminalizing the growing of a small number of mar1juana plants in the home. So while Sieradski has proferred this confession for himself and friends for their small part of the illicit drug trade with all its evils, he has also implicitly pointed out the blame that governments deserve for creating all of it through drug prohibition. On that idea, outright legalization would be closer to a perfect solution.

Not a perfect one, of course -- there is no perfect policy toward the permanent human issues and shortcomings that exist in relation to the use of mind-altering substances. But it is a better solution than any other. I can't say to what extent the illegal drug trade is helping Hezbollah, but clearly drug prohibition is a major contributor to violence, be it global, localized, political or economic. It is only because of prohibition that the world's underground economy is of such a size that it can help terrorist groups so very much, enough to literally cause civil wars to escalate in places like Sri Lanka or Colombia.

In a time for which political violence has become the defining issue, to continue to support it through ill-conceived laws when viable alternatives exist is senseless. It is time for some clear thinking on this issue from our leaders.

 

I'm not certain what you are trying to say here. Can you expound?

 

As opposed to the Drug War? How can you defend the ridiculous waste of money, resources, and manpower currently used to fight it? How can you defend the short sighted views of the drug warriors who tout statistically insignificant reductions in the use of a particular drug among a particular segment of the population while ignoring the fact that drug use has not significantly dropped since the "War on Drugs" term was coined by Nixon?

Please explain how the drug war "address[es] the social problem at its root" any better than regulation of drugs does.

Are you serious? Prohibition of drugs as a solution to drug abuse is like amputating a foot to cure an ingrown toenail. The "severed leg" you are speaking of has been caused directly by the prohibition of drugs, not drugs themselves.

It is not Hezbollah warriors hopped up on drugs that are the problem, the problem is the massive profits that Hezbollah (and other terrorists and criminals) hasavailable to them as a result of prohibition.

Actually, the article talks directly about mar1juana grown in Lebanon, processed into hashish, and sold in Israel.

Here, in case you missed it...

And you continued...

And there are a number of options there too. First of all, the Afghan poppy crop could be regulated, purchased for legitimate uses (morphine for poor countries for example) and used to lower the cost of prescription narcotics.

Second of all, heroin, while certainly a BAD drug, is nowhere near the killer that the US government makes it out to be when in a regulatory context. The Swiss have had a prescription heroin program for over a decade in which the addicts are given heroin to inject in the clinic. Since the start of the program, the addicts' criminality has dropped to near zero and their recovery rates have improved dramatically. For over a decade, the worst junkies the Swiss could find have been productive, responsible taxpayers as a result.

Regulation beats prohibition in every way with regards to the issues of drug use and abuse.

 

Actually, the current DUI laws should more than suffice, but then again, I would not argue with making even those laws MUCH tougher than they currently are.

 

And as such, you would have legitimate businesspeople running the drug trade rather than "lords and street thugs."

When was the last time you heard of a convenience store owner shooting another so that he could take over the "beer turf?"

By regulating, you will eliminate the violence in the drug trade, reduce overdose deaths to nearly zero, bring a massive segment of society out of the criminal underworld, increase tax revenues, decrease expenditures, and that is just to name a few benefits.

I would prohibit advertising of drugs just like tobacco advertising is banned on TV.

Depends on the drug. For mar1juana, I would license businesses to have "toking areas" so that places like the Dutch "coffee shops" would be allowed. If other businesses like bars wanted to provide outside areas away from general view (patios surrounded by privacy fences or shrubbery), then I would allow "toking areas" there as well.

As far as "public" consimption, I would ban it for most drugs because we don't need the use of many drugs to be in public view.

Crack would go away pretty quickly in a regulated market as it was created by and for drug dealers so that they would have an easily measured and carried product. When cocaine was legal in the US, the two most consumed cocaine products were Coca-Cola and Vin Mariani (a mixture of cocaine and wine).

There would be some people who would choose to used powdered cocaine and there might be a select few who would choose to cook it down to crack. However, those would be the addicts and we would be able to track those people's purchases and offer treatment to them paid for by the taxes on the drugs themselves.

 

Actually, there is a breathalyzer for mar1juana.

 

If you go by historical trends, there would be an initial increase in usage a large portion of which would be attributable to accurate reporting in the absence of criminal sanctions for drug use. After the initial spike in usage, usage would recede.

However, the biggest single effect would be an immediate reduction in availability to young people and a subsequent reduction in usage rates by young people. One of the biggest correlations with problem drug usage is age of first use (the younger you are when you first use, the more likely you are to experience problem usage in the future) and as the average age of first use begins to increase, problem drug usage will decline.

Again, not if you look at history as a guide. Switzerland has had a heroin prescription program for a decade and a half in which they give away heroin for free. They have not seen increases in heroin usage as a result.

People know that heroin is very dangerous and as such, the vast majority of people will avoid it even if it is legal. Viagra, on the other hand, is currently seen as relatively safe and as such, use of Viagra will always FAR outpace use of heroin

Agreed, and they would be. In the system I would create, they would have to get licensed to purchase drugs and if someone wanted to avoid heroin users, they could look at the person's drug purchase card to see if they are licensed for heroin. If so, avoid that person.

I think that if they can do their jobs and then go home and use responsibly, there is no good reason to prohibit them from any job. If they use while at work, that is totally different yet completely analagous to drinking alcohol while at work, which has been prohibited at every job I have held since 1992 (when I was a barback).

 

Perhaps I am "preaching to the choir," but apparently it has not been discussed enough as drugs are still every bit as illegal as they were in the early 1990s, when I started talking about this.

 

Trust me, I talk about this in more than this forum.