La guerra contra el narcotráfico en Colombia ha dejado decenas de miles de muertos en décadas de lucha y devastado las zonas rurales del país, y el gobierno está lejos de ganar la batalla. Colombia sigue produciendo el 70% de la cocaína que se consume en el mundo. Son cada vez más las voces que apuestan por una legalización o regulación de la producción y el consumo, con el expresidente y Nobel de la Paz Juan Manuel Santos: “Hace más de 40 años que estamos en esta lucha contra las drogas decretada por Naciones Unidas, y no se ha ganado. Y una guerra que no se ha ganado en 40 años es una guerra perdida. Hay que reinventar esta guerra contra el narcotráfico y las drogas y una de las formas más efectivas es quitarle la prohibición a todo lo que tiene que ver hoy con el tráfico de drogas, y racionalizarlo para poderla controlar mejor”.

Former Australian Federal Police boss Mick Palmer has said the prohibition of cannabis use “is not just failing, it is causing real harm” as he described his journey from a hard-nosed policeman to a vocal advocate for cannabis law reform. He said the widespread use of cannabis indicated fear of arrest was not working as a deterrent. In 2019, 37 per cent of Australians said they had used cannabis at least once. However, for those unfortunate enough to be arrested for use and possession of cannabis, Palmer said, the outcome could be a “severe, whole-of-life” punishment, with convictions having the ability to wreck people’s careers. (See also: A new leaf? Push for Victoria to lead the way on cannabis legalisation)

Cuando un joven empieza a salir de noche, todavía siendo menor de edad, le puede resultar más sencillo llamar a un camello y comprar una pastilla de éxtasis que entrar a un supermercado e intentar que le vendan una botella de ron. Imaginen qué acabarán eligiendo muchos. El ejemplo demuestra que cuando algo es ilegal no significa que esté más o mejor controlado. Tal vez al contrario: hay una serie de requisitos sobre su calidad, su pureza y su acceso que quedan en manos de criminales en lugar de las autoridades. ¿Ha sido efectivo prohibir las drogas? Los resultados de la prohibición de las drogas están a la vista de todos y sus efectos se extienden por todo el mundo. El resumen es que ha sido un auténtico desastre.

As we approach the 75th anniversary of marijuana prohibition in the United States on October 1, it is important to remember why marijuana was deemed illicit in the first place, and why we as Americans must open our eyes to the insidious strategy behind 75 years of failed policy and ruined lives: "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."- Harry Anslinger, first US Drug Czar.

It’s been five years since the Canadian government legalized and regulated non-medical cannabis cultivation, commerce, and consumption. California is ahead of us by two years, having followed a similar experiment in 2016 when it legalized recreational cannabis. Today, California and Canada are facing similar challenges though they have adopted vastly different regulations. The two jurisdictions offer an interesting contrast in how regulatory frameworks can support or undermine a nascent legal cannabis industry. Evidence from the past five years suggests that the regulations have failed to provide equitable access to the industry and develop balanced tax structures. Legalization in Canada and California also remains hampered by the legacy of global cannabis prohibition.

Global drug control policies, much like tax or climate change, impact heavily on many areas of development and inevitably on efforts to meet many of the sustainable development goals that were launched by the UN last year and came into force on 1 January. Since the mid-20th century, global drug policy has been dominated by strict prohibition and the criminalisation of drug cultivation, production, trade, possession and use, with the intention of creating a drug-free world.

For a forgotten moment, at the very start of the United States’ half-century long war on drugs, public health was the weapon of choice. Before long, the funding ratio between public health and criminal justice measures flipped. The results of that shift are clear: Drug use is soaring. More Americans are dying of overdoses than at any point in modern history. It’s time to reverse course. Drug use and addiction are as old as humanity itself, and historians and policymakers likely will debate whether the war on drugs was ever winnable, or what its true aims even were. In the meantime, it’s clear that to exit the current morass, Americans will have to restore public health to the center of its approach.

In the past year, 55 million Americans have used marijuana. The other 260 million are pretty divided in how they feel about that. It will probably not shock you to hear that a substance’s potential to cause addiction, health problems, and social harm has little to do with whether or not it’s legal. Instead, as law professor and criminologist Toby Seddon recently found in a wide-ranging study and historical review, there are two primary factors that influence what we consider to be drugs: race and money. These factors have long been deeply ingrained in how we view intoxication, from the origins of the War on Drugs in the 1970s to the responses to today’s opioid epidemic.

There is no shortage of people willing to plant and harvest coca; and there is no shortage of cocaine. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), global production hit a record 1,982 tonnes in 2020. That number is up by 11% on the year before, and nearly double the amount produced in 2014. Plenty of Latin American presidents have said the war is not working—though they tend to do so only once they have safely left office. Now some of those in power are beginning to speak up, too. In an interview with The Economist, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s new president, talked of leniency for repentant gang members, decriminalising coca-leaf production and creating places where Colombians could consume cocaine in a supervised environment.

Cannabis is illegal in India. But still its prevalence is remarkable across the social and spiritual landscape of India. It is in fact particularly popular among ascetics and mendicants, and a variant called ‘bhang’ is frequently consumed and offered as part of festivities. So deeply intertwined is cannabis with religion in India, that one of the principal deities of Hinduism, Shiva, is given the sobriquet: ‘Lord of Bhang’. And this stems from the rather long history of the plant in the subcontinent. Despite being unlawful, the popularity of weed can hardly be said to have diminished.

Criminalising cannabis use in India has been a much-debated topic. Vidhi’s new research study shows that it has had little impact on reduction of drug use and has instead ended up pushing the poorest sections of society into a crumbling criminal justice system. Moreover, cannabis criminalisation has its roots in racist American policies, which are in direct contrast to the culturally accepted use of cannabis in India dating back to the Vedic age. Cannabis use in India has been recorded to have started as early as 5000-4000 BC. The use of cannabis in Ayurveda, in construction and as a fibre made it one of the most commonly used plants in India. Use of cannabis for its psychoactive properties was and continues to be widely prevalent.

In the context of a fast changing and well documented market in legal highs, the case of khat (Catha edulis) provides an interesting anomaly. It is first of all a plant-based substance that undergoes minimal transformation or processing in the journey from farm to market. Secondly, khat has been consumed for hundreds if not thousands of years in the highlands of Eastern Africa and Southern Arabia. In European countries, khat use was first observed during the 1980s, but has only attracted wider attention in recent years.

Download the briefing (PDF)

Persverklaring (PDF in Dutch)

Khat has been consumed for hundreds if not thousands of years in the highlands of Eastern Africa and Southern Arabia. Outside that area, khat use was first observed during the 1980s, but has only attracted wider attention in recent years. Where khat has been studied extensively, namely Australia, the UK and until recently the Netherlands, governments have steered clear of prohibition because the negative medical and social harms do not merit such controls. Where strict bans on khat have been introduced they have had severe unintended negative consequences and failed to further the integration, social incusion and economic prosperity of Somali communities in particular, which chew khat most widely. Experi­ences fromNorth America andScandi­navia show that a ban will not solve problems associated with kath but tend to increase them.

Colombia’s first leftist presidenthas been sworn into office, promising to fight inequality and bring peace to a country long haunted by bloody feuds between the government, drug traffickers and rebel groups. The incoming president said he was willing to start peace talks with armed groups across the country and also called on the United States and other developed nations to change drug policies that have focused on the prohibition of substances like cocaine, and fed violent conflicts across Colombia and other Latin American nations. “It’s time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has failed,” he said. “Of course peace is possible. But it depends on current drug policies being substituted with strong measures that prevent consumption in developed societies.”

As the House debates ways to reform policing in the United States, it’s critical that we not only analyze the structures under which law enforcement operates, but also the extraordinary powers that they have been granted — powers that often provide them with the ability to interact with citizens whenever and wherever they please. One common pretext provided by police for these citizen interactions is that they suspect that someone has either used or is in possession of marijuana. That is why Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) has suggested the need to amend federal anti-marijuana laws during the recent hearing on policing practices. 

Until 1921 dagga was sold openly by mine storekeepers in the towns and grew wild in much of South Africa. It was banned partly because it was feared that its use would make it more difficult to uphold racial segregation. Its possession and use was criminalised by the colonial regime in 1928 and this was done for political and so called “moral” reasons. The Western Cape High Court held that the relevant provisions in the Drugs Act and the Medicine and Related Substances Act which prohibit the possession and use of cannabis infringed on the right to privacy protected in section 14 of the Bill of Rights. In evaluating the evidence Judge Dennis Davis concluded that the evidence provided by the state to justify the criminalisation of dagga “was singularly unimpressive”.

The UK's drug laws are preventing scientists from carrying out vital research to unlock our understanding of the brain and find new treatments for conditions such as depression and Parkinson's disease, according to Professor David Nutt, a leading neuroscientist and former government drug adviser. "Things are actually getting worse," said Nutt, referring to the restrictions placed on research.

El presidente de Colombia, Gustavo Petro, hizo en su discurso de investidura un llamado a "todos los armados a dejar las armas en las nebulosas del pasado" para que "la paz sea posible" y así "terminar, de una vez y para siempre, con seis décadas de violencia y conflicto armado". El primer mandatario de izquierda en la historia de Colombia planteó acabar con la fracasada "guerra antidrogas" y pasar a una "política de prevención fuerte del consumo" en los países desarrollados. "Es hora de una nueva convención internacional que acepte que la guerra contra las drogas ha fracasado", dijo el nuevo presidente del país con la mayor producción mundial de cocaína. (Véase también: ‘Es hora de una nueva Convención Internacional que acepte que la guerra contra las drogas ha fracasado rotundamente”, enfatizó el Presidente Petro)

Ningún país del mundo se ha atrevido a abrir el debate sobre legalización de las drogas en las Naciones Unidas. Esa alternativa, necesaria y lógica, habida cuenta de los consabidos desastres que ha entrañado el régimen prohibicionista, no ha tenido ninguna cabida en el sistema internacional de fiscalización de estupefacientes, edificada sobre la Convención Única (1961) a partir de la cual, los 183 países que la ratificaron se obligan a prohibir y sancionar todas las conductas relacionadas con la producción, comercialización y consumo de estupefacientes, exceptuando solamente los usos médicos y científicos. Una modificación sustantiva requiere de un nuevo consenso global que no se avizora en el horizonte de las formales discusiones internacionales. Colombia es el país más indicado para tomar la iniciativa y poner sobre la mesa.

Johan Wicklén, a prize-winning journalist for Sweden's public broadcaster SVT, published a book on the history of Swedish drugs policy titled Vi ger oss aldrig, or "We will never give way", subtitled: "This is what happened when Sweden lost the war on drugs". Generations of Swedes, Wicklén argues, have been through a process of indoctrination on drug use and drug policy, making it difficult for policy makers today to propose more rational, pragmatic solutions to the problem. Sweden's hardline stance on drugs was set in the late 1970s. "That's when the authorities formulated the idea of a drug-free society. That's when we were starting to distance ourselves from a lot of other countries. The policy is restrictive: that means that illegal drugs are not tolerated in any way."