Should the US end the war on drugs?

 

The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the U.S.federal government, of drug prohition, military aid and intervention, whose aim is to reduce the illegal drug trade in the US, popularized after the press conference given on 1971 by President Richard Nixon during which he declared drug abuse "public enemy number one". Two years before, Nixon had formally declared a "war on drugs" directed toward eradication, interdiction, and incarceration. The Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates for an end to the War on Drugs, have estimated that in 2021 the US has spent a cumulative $1 trillion on it.

Sixty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and years after Nixon initiative, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.

This war is also fought abroad against the main exporters such as Colombia, Mexico and Latin America. As part of its Plan Colombia program, among other ones, the US government currently provides hundreds of millions of dollars per year of military aid, training, and equipment to Colombia, to fight left-wing guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), which has been accused of being involved in drug trafficking.

For what concerns internal data, 2020 was the deadliest year on record for fatal overdoses. According to estimates over 93,000 people died of preventable overdose in 2020, the highest amount ever recorded in a year. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl and fentanyl analogues, were involved in over 60% of overdose deaths. Overdose rates involving these substances have steeply risen in the past decade, increasing nearly 40 % from June 2019 to May 2020. People of color have disproportionately suffered from overdose deaths, especially non-Hispanic Blacks whose, between 2014 and 2017, death rate involving synthetic opioids increased 818 %.

This demonstrates the need of a huge momentum by the government to take new measures for public health solutions. It has been argued that the Biden FRS Proposal won’t make the public safer. On the contrary, perpetuating the overcriminalization of these substances often pushes drug addict people further into the shadows where they will be more likely to encounter untested substances that increase their risk of overdose. Criminalization also creates a chilling effect on people calling for emergency services, for fear of being arrested or otherwise penalized. Now is the time to commit to evidence-driven responses with proven results: public health solutions focused on harm reduction and treatment. Congress must provide individuals with access to life-saving tools and education, including greater access to naloxone to prevent overdose deaths, evidence-based treatment and recovery services, medications like methadone and buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder.

Shockingly, the Biden FRS Proposal accepts that classwide scheduling will inevitably misclassify some drugs as Schedule I, and that some people might wrongfully be prosecuted for those substances. Rather than reject this overreach, the Administration adopts an essentially guilty-until-proven-innocent approach. This is the antithesis of how the U.S. criminal justice system should operate and is creating dangerous new precedent.

Overenforcement in response to emerging substances makes necessary for the Congress impose harsh penalties on individuals on the base of clear and specific dispositions about what is or is not illegal.

Moreover, the Biden FRS proposal does not provide for retroactivity for past prosecutions of individuals pursuant to the temporary classwide scheduling policy.  The federal government already has authority to “prosecute anyone who possesses, imports, distributes, or manufactures any unscheduled fentanyl analogue with a high potential for abuse, no medical value, and the ability to cause overdose deaths.”

Policymakers must turn to evidence and science, not fear to seek answers. The most effective ways to address the overdose crisis are evidence-based public health and harm reduction approaches. Such approaches are supported by nearly two-thirds of Americans, who believe drug use should be addressed as a public health issue, not as a criminal justice one.

The US House of Representatives narrowly approved, on April of this year, a reform bill that would end marijuana prohibition by removing this drug from the federal list of controlled substances. The bill would expunge the record of those convicted of  marijuana-related offenses, and reduce sentences for others. Through a tax on sales, it would also fund services in communities most impacted by prohibition and provide support for a more diverse and inclusive market.

The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act passed on April 1 and it will next head to the US Senate. Bans at the state level wouldn’t be changed, though this act sends a strong signal about the importance of building on the wave of state-level reforms resulting in 18 states in allowing recently legal access to marijuana for adult use.

US drug laws severely impacted on black and brown communities since ‘90s: black people were much more likely to be arrested for simple drug possession – including marijuana – than white people, despite its consumption is at the same rates in both communities. The MORE Act in facts is focused on racial equity.

This bill will have long-term effects on minor drug convictions on immigrants, which can result in deportation, ineligibility for asylum, and inability to obtain papers to live legally inside the US. The bill would protect noncitizens from immigration consequences due to a cannabis-related event.

This last bill, now under Senate review, doesn’t seem to end the war on drugs pursued by decades in US (it should be absurd and absolutely nonsense) but it’s a good demonstration of tolerance and flexibility towards the use and distribution of the less dangerous types of these substances, like marijuana, spreadly and commonly used by people of any age, especially young generations by keeping on warning and using precautionary measures to deter the abuse and bringing forward educational campaigns in order to get aware about the negative neuronal effects, combining a joint effort of the justice system and the public health sector, being doctors and paramedical staff always on the frontline for population safety, for the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation from the addiction.