Throughout the Twentieth Century, and now the Twenty-first Century, there has been a political policy of a "war on drugs" (mostly in the West). Alternatively, a few European countries - namely Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden - have tried a different approach of various degrees of drug toleration and/or legalisation. Prohibition and legalisation are the two extreme arguments to trying to curb the social drug problem and its associated organised crime gangs - with many advocates on both sides. In October 2010, I posted an article on the advantages of legalising drugs from a laws of pain perspective - which added new information to the debate. One of those points was the existence of a direct relationship between unresolved psychoemotional pain and drug and alcohol addiction. The more pain one has, the more craving need for drugs one has, and vice versa: the more past pain one resolves the less craving for drugs. Resolving a lot of past pain restores feeling capacity, and leaves one recovered, whole, and healthy. The ability of the laws of pain to resolve drug addiction, therefore, now makes it safe and effective to introduce a policy of legalising drugs. This new perspective and energy behind my article has added to the debate grapevine, as is evidenced by the renewed push for the legalisation of drugs - as exemplified below - (but without any reference to the laws of pain system itself).
In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released their report on the state of the war on drugs, and declared it a failure, that it was causing more harm than good, and that policy reform was needed. And in September 2012, the Australia21 committee released their report on the war on drugs, and (echoing some of my own points) also stated that it had failed, that drugs (marijuana and ecstasy) should be legalised and commercially supplied (under government regulation) instead of being controlled by crime gangs, drug packaging could contain warnings, and drug-effects information provided at supply centres. As a result, some politicians have agreed with these reports, while some have disagreed. The latter note that the legalisation of drugs in other countries has not been especially successful, and that the legalisation of (previously prohibited) alcohol has led to a significant social problem of alcohol abuse.
But what if politicians did take a bold step, accept these committees' recommendations, and legalise some drugs - would it work? No. Why? Because to date they have no accurate and effective science that relates to drug addiction to go with such a policy change - the committees and other advocates have omitted that part. They have the standard sciences of medicine, psychology, and psychiatry to draw upon, but they have been around for centuries and still have not made any significant dent in the drug addiction problem. So, in effect, what these committees and supporters are essentially pushing for is a "change in attitude" - without a change in science - and expecting that that alone will heal the drug problem and make society a better place to live in. So how would such a new policy pan out if it was introduced? At one end of the policy spectrum, cleaner and more affordable drugs would be readily available to addicts - but at the other end of the spectrum, the users would not be getting healed of their addiction. And after some years of this kind of "bottlenecking", there would be a public backlash against the (obviously failed) policy, and things will have to be reverted back to the way they were, with the pruning back of treatment centres, trying to manage drug addiction without healing people, and still trying to clamp down on heavier drug use and organised crime. Nothing will have progressed.
The war on drugs has been fought for a hundred years now - without success. And the legalisation of drugs will still not occur anytime soon. US President Barack Obama has stated that America would never do it, and Australian PM Julia Gillard is against it, as is the Attorney General Nicola Roxon - along with numerous leading figures and experts. So after a hundred years of failure, the most influential politicians and social leaders still have closed minds to any new approach to the drug problem. Effectively, what they are saying on their part is that they are prepared to keep people addicted to drugs, and the crime gangs profiting from the drug trade, because they do not as yet know how to solve this social problem. And the knee-jerk reaction to when you cannot resolve a social problem is to keep it suppressed - in this case, by clamping down on it with increased law and order. And here is just one perplexing aspect of this policy's ramifications: the newly-elected state governments of Queensland, NSW, and Victoria are currently slashing thousands of jobs in education and health - and disrupting those families' lives - in order to build up financial reserves; while at the same time, criminal gangs are syphoning off multi-millions of dollars from the public by being allowed to control the street drug trade. This situation does not make sense, when revenues could be made healthier - and people's jobs and families not disrupted - if government was to take over control of the street drug problem (from a laws of pain perspective).
If political and social leaders cannot come up with something different and more effective for a social problem after a hundred years of trying, then there is something wrong with our class of leaders. The question then is, why do we keep them in power?
References:
War on Drugs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
'Drug prohibition a colossal failure', say experts calling for regulated cannabis use, September 09, 2012,
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/national/regulate-cannabis-use-report-urges/story-fndo6ejf-1226468417047
Uruguay takes 'war on drugs' in new direction: The state as dealer, September 19, 2012,
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2012/0919/Uruguay-takes-war-on-drugs-in-new-direction-The-state-as-dealer
Thousands rally against Campbell Newman’s monster cuts, September 14, 2012,
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/52221
NSW to slash $1.7b from Schools, September 11, 2012,
http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/8531088/nsw-to-slash-1-7b-from-schools