Winning the war against drug abuse
SOME 500,000 people die each year from drug abuse, says the World Health Organization. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over 107,600 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021 – the highest yearly figure ever. Yet, since 1971, when then president Richard Nixon launched the “war on drugs”, massive resources have been dedicated to countering the production, distribution and use of harmful drugs. The reform group, Drug Policy Alliance, estimates that the United States alone spends US$51 billion annually and incurred US$1 trillion on the war on drugs between 1971 and 2021.
Many other countries spend heavily on their own wars against drug abuse, both of their own volition and, in some cases, incentivised because the US strongly urges them to do so. Nevertheless, the drug trade is big business and both supports and is supported by large criminal networks that no amount of arrests or disruptions seem able to break decisively.
Many of these networks are brutal in defending their turf from rivals and resisting law enforcement agencies: the havoc they have caused in a country like Mexico is just the most visible example. Their ruthlessness stems not only from the money to be made from trading in drugs, but from their determination to evade arrest or, under some jurisdictions, death, at the hands of law enforcement agencies. A sub-culture develops in which violence and illegality are accepted as normal.
Social deprivation and economic hardship are factors in influencing patterns of drug abuse, but more particularly, its consequences. Wealthier users can afford to pay for more expensive drugs and obtain them through people who act as intermediaries for them with suppliers, minimising their own risk of arrest. Poorer users who are desperate may not only use less expensive drugs, but turn to risky suppliers; to pay for their habit, they may become suppliers and couriers themselves. Those who face death and imprisonment for their role in the drugs trade are disproportionately from poor communities, ones that may also suffer from racism.
A fundamental problem with an approach that relies overwhelmingly on suppression is that, unless it is close to 100 per cent effective, it becomes a business expense which can be passed on to consumers. Supply interruptions or shortfalls drive up prices while having a limited impact on consumption and none on the absolute number of drug users.
Rather than relying primarily on enforced suppression of drug abuse, there would seem to be a good case for stressing an approach directed at reducing demand for illicit drugs so that the trade becomes unprofitable through a loss of customers.
Education has a role to play, but it needs to be factually based: sensational and inaccurate material is unpersuasive and invites ridicule, particularly from people who have used drugs such as cannabis or who know current users. Thought has to go into what arguments may persuade particular audiences: is it more effective to warn young people of punishment for drug abuse or to provide realistic information about possible health consequences of drug abuse and the impact on those around a user, including their families and friends, of their actions?
Since poverty and lack of opportunities play a role in the recourse of many individuals to illicit drugs, as well as providing the foot soldiers of drug trading, policies directed at social uplifting and decent employment provision have a long-term role in countering drug abuse: expensive as they may be, this would very likely be a more productive way to invest the billions expended in the war on drugs.
Having hope of something better and positive goals to which to aspire have, in the past, had an impact on levels of drug use in some communities. Drug use in the Palestinian Gaza Strip plummeted after the outbreak of the Intifada in 1987, and in the late 1960s, the Black Panthers had some success in countering drug use in poor black communities in the US. Contemporary social, political and religious movements might all supply the kind of motivation that can reduce the inclination to use drugs that impair judgement, cause others to suffer and invite negative public perceptions of a person’s beliefs and principles through association (however illogical) with their drug use.
Some have argued that decriminalisation should be part of an anti-drug policy. In this perspective, decriminalisation is not about “permissiveness” or “liberalism”, but effectiveness. Users would not acquire criminal records that might affect their employment prospects later in life; they would not take risks with sources of drugs or be drawn into supply networks in order to pay for their habit; the bottom would drop out of the market for illicit drugs. These arguments remain controversial, but have gained ground internationally and are not easily dismissed.
Singapore has a strict prohibitionist policy, which includes the death penalty for drug traffickers and dealers. It has attributed its containment of drug abuse to this policy, but it should be recognised that other factors have a role. One is that the relevant enforcement authorities are not corrupt, which is not the case in many of the countries worst affected by drug abuse. Another is that although there is a degree of social polarisation in the country, there are not extensive pockets of long-term extreme poverty.
Recent cases of Singaporean swimmers using cannabis while overseas, reported changes in attitude towards cannabis among younger citizens and the relaxation of controls on cannabis in Thailand have been met with a restatement of existing governmental policy on illicit drugs, but perhaps these very changes will promote discussion of the whole range of possible approaches to countering drug abuse and of what combination of approaches would be most fruitful.
The writer is a Singapore-based freelance writer
