Rethinking the War on Ter...I Mean Drugs Posted by Patrick Barry

Well, we're three weeks in, and so far we've witnessed a consistent pattern of the Obama administration ditching sources of foreign policy agita, from the Mexico City policy to the GWOT, to Guantanamo.  One issue not getting the same attention, but which calls for revision, both of the symbolic and substantive sort, is the war on drugs.  Findings from the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, reported in the Wall Street Journal, speak to the need for an overhaul:

"The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war," said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. "We have to move from this approach to another one."

The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy "taboo" and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

With Mexico embroiled in alarming levels of drug-related violence, and with linkages between Afghanistan's insurgency and the world's largest opium trade, it's clear that narcotics is both a domestic and national security concern. However, up until this point, our strategy for combating the influence of drugs, resting primarily on foreign interdiction, has not met with much success. For instance, it's estimated that Mexico produces 10,000 metric tons of cocaine every year, with drug cartels earning close to $25 billion.   Yet the 2008 UNODC report indicates that the U.S. only seized 146 metric tons in 2006 (UNODC data usually lags two years)  Efforts in Afghanistan are similarly troubled.  The country's production has risen every year until last (when an inventory glut caused prices to collapse, putting a temporary hold on cultivation) Now the NATO-ISAF coalition appears to be plunging into a counter-narcotics campaign that some have argued is disconnected from broader counterinsurgency efforts, running the risk of further alienating the Afghan people. 

Though a strategic reset may be unlikely at this immediate juncture, a good, symbolic first step would be for the Obama administration to admit that the U.S. needs a fully integrated drug policy, one which rests just as much on domestic reform as it does on action outside our borders.  Supporting heroin addiction rehabilitation centers in Baltimore, or targeting illegal arms sales in Texas seem like worthwhile ways to combat our domestic drug problem, but they can also help reduce instability in places like Afghanistan and Mexico, where drug production and drug trafficking threaten core national security interests. 

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