U.S. policy not limited
to bordersBy SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
© St. Petersburg
Times, published July 29, 2001
URL:
http://www.sptimes.com/News/072901/news_pf/Worldandnation/US_policy_not_limited.shtml
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Faced
with a serious heroin problem in the 1990s, Australia considered a
daring new
approach -- prescribing heroin to addicts who had failed to kick
their habits
with other forms of treatment.
The idea had shown promise in clinical
trials in Switzerland, reducing
drug-related crime and slowing the spread of
AIDS and hepatitis. But when
the United States got wind of Australia's plans,
it was not at all happy.
Bob Gelbard, President Bill Clinton's
international drug chief, flew to the
Australian state of Tasmania.
Pointedly, Gelbard noted that the United
Nations licensed Tasmanian farmers
to grow opium poppies, to be made into
morphine and codeine for medical
purposes.
If Australia went ahead with its heroin trials, Gelbard
strongly suggested,
Tasmania might lose its U.N. license and thus its
$81-million-a-year legal
opium industry.
Australia got the hint.
Afraid of angering the world's only superpower, the
Australian government
killed the heroin plan in 1997.
Tasmania's experience "is a reminder that
this country is not free to take
radical action to solve its drug problems,"
Australian journalist David Marr
wrote. "Wherever a nation breaks ranks, the
U.S. will be there, cajoling or
threatening."
Since President Richard
Nixon declared the "war on drugs" 30 years ago, the
United States has vowed
that no ground will be surrendered in its efforts to
crush the
$400-billion-a-year global industry in illicit drugs. Because of
its wealth
and power, America's zero-tolerance policies are not limited to
its borders
but greatly influence the United Nations and its 189 members.
The
best-known and most controversial example is Plan Colombia, a
$7.5-billion,
U.S.-backed effort to wipe out cocaine and heroin production
in Colombia,
Peru and other Andean countries.
But even highly developed nations feel
the long arm of U.S. drug policies.
Australia and other countries that
try to deviate from the U.S. course are
yanked back in line by fear of losing
U.S. military or economic support.
Countries such as the Netherlands that
experiment with different approaches
are subject to harsh public criticism.
The United Nations has to toe the
U.S. line or risk losing
money.
"America is the Taleban of drug policy," said Peter Cohen of the
University
of Amsterdam's Center for Drug Research. Despite the pressure,
even some of
America's closest allies are bucking the U.S. line and trying
different
approaches to drug use and abuse. Canada, Belgium and other nations
have
decriminalized marijuana possession or are considering it. The Swiss,
Dutch,
Germans, British and Portuguese use heroin maintenance programs to
help
hard-core addicts.
"Almost everywhere in the Western world,
countries are inching away from the
punitive policies of the United States,"
said Craig Reinarman, a California
sociologist who has researched drug
issues.
* * *
"The global war on drugs is now causing more
harm than drug abuse itself."
"Scarce resources better expended
on health, education and economic
development are squandered on ever more
expensive interdiction efforts.
Realistic proposals to reduce drug-related
crime, disease and death are
abandoned in favor of rhetorical proposals to
create drug-free
societies." -- from an open letter in 1998 to U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, signed by more than 800 influential people from
around the world.
Among them: former U.S. Secretary of State George
Schultz, former U.S.
Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and Nobel Prize winning
economist Milton
Friedman.
Even President Bush has indicated he is
uncomfortable with some aspects of
the U.S. approach.
"I think a lot
of people are coming to the realization that maybe long
minimum sentences for
first-time users may not be the best way to occupy
jail space and/or heal
people from their disease," he said in January.
But Bush's picks for key
jobs reflect the hard-line U.S. position. Attorney
General John Ashcroft vows
to "escalate the war on drugs." John P. Waters,
Bush's nominee for drug czar,
favors a similarly tough approach.
The Partnership for a Drug-Free
America, a non-profit organization that
conducts public service campaigns,
agrees with the philosophy of U.S. drug
policy: It is better never to use
illegal drugs.
But spokesman Howard Simon said there is increasing
recognition, even in the
United States, that no single approach --
prevention, interdiction,
punishment or treatment -- is adequate to solve the
nation's drug problem.
"The one truly encouraging thing is that people
are talking about the issue
again," he said. "It went away for a while,
people didn't discuss it.
There's no way we're going to make any progress on
this unless people start
talking openly and honestly about what we can do to
convince kids not to
start using drugs. That's where the problem
starts."
'Get rid of drugs, pushers,
users'
Mounting global opposition to U.S. drug policies stems
from evidence they
have done little to curb drug use in America, the world's
biggest consumer
of illegal drugs.
In the past 25 years, federal
spending on the drug war has soared from less
than $1-billion to almost
$18-billion a year. The Drug Enforcement
Administration now has operations in
79 cities in 56 countries to stop the
flood of drugs into the United States.
But the most recent surveys show:
The use of illegal drugs by American
youth has doubled since 1992.
Americans' use of heroin has tripled since
1993.
The rate of marijuana use in the United States, where the drug is
banned, is
far higher than in the Netherlands, where possession has
been
decriminalized.
The United States imprisons more people for drug
offenses than European
Union countries imprison for all offenses, even though
EU countries have
100-million more citizens.
In 1998, fewer than
16,000 people in the United States died from heroin,
cocaine and other
illicit drugs. At least 33 times as many, 531,000, died of
causes related to
alcohol and tobacco.
"I see this as a bizarre economic and cultural war
of sorts in which the
U.S. is trying to get its drugs disseminated worldwide
even though they are
more dangerous, and at the same it is trying to block
through criminal means
the distribution of drugs such as cannabis," said Neil
Boyd, a drug policy
expert at Canada's Simon Fraser University.
"The
real pushers in terms of drugs are American alcohol and
tobacco
companies."
Critics say U.S.-backed global drug policies are
following the same doomed
course as America's experiment with banning alcohol
from 1920 to 1933.
Prohibition did nothing to quench the demand for liquor,
but it created a
huge black market and criminal underclass.
One of the
chief enforcers of alcohol prohibition went on to play a major
role in the
international fight to stamp out illegal drugs. Harry
Ainslinger, the first
head of what was to become the DEA, considered "all
dope" equally dangerous:
"The answer to the problem is simple: Get rid of
drugs, pushers and users.
Period."
In the early '60s, Ainslinger became U.S. representative to the
U.N.
Narcotics Commission. There he added his insistent voice to
international
drug policies already strongly influenced by the United States,
thanks to
its victory in World War II.
It was only after the war "that
the United States . . . had the political
clout to internationalize these
ideas of prohibition," said David
Bewley-Taylor, a Welsh professor and author
of The United States and
International Drug Control 1909-1997.
Decades
later, the United Nations and affiliated agencies continue to
reflect U.S.
views. One example: the Vienna-based International Narcotics
Control Board,
charged with implementing U.N. drug treaties.
In its 2000 report on
global drug trends, the board refers to any illegal
drug use as "abuse," the
word favored by the United States. The board also
is selective in summarizing
a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, a
U.S. scientific panel, on the
medical uses of marijuana.
The narcotics board cites the report's
negative findings, including that
marijuana smoke contains "various harmful
substances." But it doesn't
mention the more positive findings, among them
that "the adverse effects of
marijuana are within the range of effects
tolerated for other medications."
U.N. officials acknowledge American
influence over global drug policies,
especially in the international drug
control treaties or "conventions" that
pledge cooperation in the fight
against illicit drugs.
"U.S. views and approaches are implemented in the
conventions on drugs and
since the United Nations operates based on those
conventions, the U.S.
presence is strongly felt," said Kemal Kurspahic,
spokesman for the
narcotics control board.
The U.S. influence was
strong enough to kill years' worth of research.
In 1995, the World Health
Organization was about to publish the results of
"the largest global study of
cocaine ever undertaken," a four-year project
covering 22 cities in 19
countries.
But the United States took issue with some of the findings.
Among them: that
chewing coca leaves, as Andean farmers have done for
centuries, appeared to
cause no health problems, and that cocaine appeared to
be less harmful than
alcohol and tobacco.
"The United States
government has been surprised to note that the (study)
seemed to make a case
for the positive uses of cocaine," according to
minutes of a meeting in
Geneva where the U.S. representative, Neil Boyer,
raised the American
concerns.
Boyer warned, "If WHO activities . . . failed to reinforce
proven drug
control approaches, funds for the relevant programs should be
curtailed."
Under U.S. pressure, the World Health Organization withheld
the study and
agreed to appoint a committee to review the findings. In the
end, no report
on global cocaine use was ever issued.
In a recent
interview, Boyer said the United States considered the study an
attempt to
undermine international drug-control treaties.
"I think there were
suspicions that the experts who did the study were
selected because their
views on the subject were known in advance," he said.
But those involved
in the study say it was based on objective research.
Among the
internationally known experts were a top AIDS researcher at New
York's Beth
Israel Medical Center and the founder of the Center for Alcohol
and Addiction
Studies at Brown University. "The original panel consisted of
a number of
people who had done cocaine research that had been
scientifically vetted,
funded, published and peer-reviewed -- all the usual
standards," said
Patricia Erickson, a University of Toronto professor who
was among the
researchers.
"Of course, many of the findings have gone totally against
the image of
cocaine as this evil drug that enslaves people. This is 1920s
mythology.
Sure, cocaine can get people in trouble and there are reasons to
be
concerned about it, but we found that people who otherwise are working
and
doing other things could use it recreationally. The study was not aimed
at
making cocaine look bad but getting a sense of the whole spectrum of how
it
was used in other countries."
Tasmania,
bewareSince 1961, the United States and most other nations have
signed three major
drug treaties. They are aimed at eliminating the global
trade in illicit
drugs and keeping the personal use of marijuana and other
drugs criminal
offenses throughout the world.
The treaties have
prompted a high degree of cooperation in fighting drug
trafficking and money
laundering. But they pose obstacles for countries that
want to move away from
the punitive U.S. model and treat drug use as a
public health
issue.
Not surprisingly, the country that has taken the most radical
approach to
dealing with heroin addictions is Switzerland, which is not a
member of the
United Nations and has not signed the most recent treaty,
adopted in 1988.
"Switzerland has more leeway to innovate," said Cohen,
the Dutch researcher.
The Netherlands takes the world's most tolerant
approach to marijuana use
but has stopped short of legalizing and regulating
it because of treaty
obligations.
Likewise, Australia has been
constrained in trying to develop new approaches
to dealing with a heroin
problem that critics say was caused in part by the
U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration.
After the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the U.S. government
was determined to
keep American troops from returning home with Southeast
Asian heroin. So
"the DEA in effect compelled the syndicates to sell heroin
originally
produced for American addicts in alternative markets," Alfred
McCoy wrote in
Drug Traffic, Narcotics and Organized Crime in
Australia.
"In short, the DEA simply diverted Southeast Asian heroin from
the United
States into European and Australian markets."
Over the next
two decades, Australia's heroin problem mounted, resulting in
high rates of
addiction, overdose deaths and drug-related crime. In 1991, a
legislative
committee endorsed a novel concept: giving pure heroin and clean
needles to
addicts, who would inject under medical supervision. By getting
hard-core
addicts off the streets, the theory went, the heroin prescription
program
would reduce crime and cut the spread of AIDS and other diseases.
Various
committees reviewed the idea and recommended clinical trials. That's
when
Gelbard, the U.S. international drug chief, interceded. He gave a "very
heavy
hint" that Tasmania's opium poppy industry could lose its U.N. license
if
Australia proceeded with the trials, according to David Pennington,
chairman
of one of the committees.
"He said the United States was supportive of
Australia keeping the poppy
crop because Australia was keeping a hard line in
respect to illicit drugs
and upholding international treaties," Pennington
told the Australian. "The
implication was that the two were linked and he
very much hoped we weren't
going to muddy the waters with recommendations
that might not be
acceptable."
Then as now, Tasmania had high
unemployment and trouble attracting new
industry. If the United Nations were
to pull the license, Tasmania would
lose a key industry to rival legal poppy
growers in Turkey and India. With
so much at stake, the Australian federal
cabinet killed the heroin
prescription plan, saying it would send the "wrong
message" about drug use.
Gelbard, now U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, did
not respond to requests for
an interview.
After the heroin idea was
rejected, New South Wales, another Australian
state, announced plans to try a
slightly different approach: a "safe
injection room" where addicts could get
clean needles and inject heroin they
had obtained on their own. Already
tested in Switzerland, such rooms had
been shown to help reduce the spread of
infectious diseases.
But the International Narcotics Control Board in
Vienna said that injection
rooms would violate drug treaties and "facilitate
illicit drug trafficking."
Michael Moore, health minister for the
Australian Capital Territory, was
furious. "The American influence on the
narcotics board is overwhelming and
unfortunate, and will lead to more of the
same," he said.
This time, however, Australia pressed ahead. The
country's first medically
supervised injecting center opened this spring in
Sydney for an 18-month
trial.
Those who advocate innovative approaches
to dealing with drug use and abuse
are frustrated by the United States'
insistence, reflected in the
international treaties, that a "drug-free" world
is attainable.
"It might be better to accept a problem and deal with it
in a pragmatic way
than try for a goal that is impossible," said Anita
Marxer, who runs an
injection room in Switzerland. "You will never get rid of
all the drug
addicts so why not accept them and the fact they're human beings
with a
problem?"
With a few exceptions, even the strongest critics of
U.S. drug policy don't
advocate dumping it in favor of anything goes.
Instead, they suggest, drugs
could be controlled like alcohol and tobacco.
Governments would regulate the
production and distribution, while continuing
to support prevention
campaigns and providing treatment for those who become
addicted. (Although
the number of U.S. heroin users has tripled, it is still
just 0.001 percent
of the population.)
At the same time, experts say,
it is important to recognize that different
social and economic conditions
mean that no one drug policy is right for
all. And any drug control strategy,
they say, is doomed unless it
acknowledges the futility of trying to wipe out
substances used by millions
around the globe.
"The Communists learned
after 70 years that ignoring powerful market forces
is a very costly
business," said Dr. Alex Wodak, a leading advocate of
Australian drug law
reform. "If demand cannot be suppressed and no legal
source is available,
other sources almost always emerge. This other source
is now a $400-billion-a
year business that constitutes 8 percent of
international trade.
"The
moral crusade against drug use has failed to suppress drug use," Wodak
said.
"It has also been very expensive and it has increased deaths, disease,
crime
and corruption. So it will suffer the same fate as communism, the two
noble
experiments of the 20th century."
-- Times researchers Kitty Bennett,
Cathy Wos and Natalie Watson contributed
to this report. Susan Taylor Martin
can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.