CANADA: GE: OPED: UN Wages
Harmful War On Drugs

WHEN U.S. President Bill Clinton appeared yesterday before a special United Nations General Assembly session on illegal drugs, there was virtually no hope that he would heed a growing number of critics -- from libertarian economist Milton Friedman to conservative William F. Buckley and Canadian leftists Clayton Ruby and Alexa McDonough -- who are calling for a moratorium on the catastrophic war on drugs. Instead of ending the war, which is causing more grief and havoc than the drugs themselves, Mr. Clinton renewed the campaign, pledged more money and urged members of the UN to accelerate their efforts to eliminate illegal drugs throughout the world. "We stand as one against drugs. No nation is so big that it can conquer drugs alone," he said. "None is too small to make a difference. All of us share a common responsibility to defeat this common threat."

It was classic anti-drugism, of which the world will hear more over the next couple of days as the UN cranks up the rhetoric and commits to another assault on illicit drug use and the drug industry. For an agency created in 1945 to further the cause of world peace, the UN is involved in a surprisingly large number of wars -- now on people rather than among nations. There's the war on fossil fuels to save the world from climate change, a war on population growth to save the world from famine and overpopulation, an emerging war on tobacco and smoking, and the war on drugs, which comes closest to mimicking a military operation.

The consequences of the expanding drug war are already well known and obvious: Hundreds of thousands of people are in jail, civil rights are under attack, cities are being turned into war zones, police forces are growing increasingly militarized, juveniles are being entrapped into drug deals, a global criminal class is thriving on the estimated $400-billion ( U.S.) industry, new health hazards and disease risks are proliferating. In petitions sent to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, more than 500 people, many with significant public profiles and from diverse ideological and professional backgrounds, concluded that "the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself."

A few hundred signatures won't change the UN, but the growing number of enlightened opponents of the war on drugs, and their diversity, must be taken as a sign that momentum is building for a change in attitudes and policy. The politicians have yet to catch the message, however. Self-evident though it may be that the war on drugs is an expanding global tragedy, the UN special session this week aims to expand the war.

Most of the new effort is designed to repair crises created by existing anti-drug laws and enforcement measures. One item on the agenda is money laundering, a multibillion-dollar business that exists solely because of the criminalization of drugs. Seizing drugs and incarcerating thousands of people doesn't work, the UN paper on money laundering says, because it "has limited impact on overall trafficking and abuse of illicit narcotics." In other words, the war is failing: Prices are high and the money keeps flowing to the government-created criminal class who have developed efficient systems to move vast sums around.

It may be time for a few business leaders to take up the cause against the UN. Typically, the UN has inflated the magnitude of the money-laundering problem -- as it has with drug use itself -- to extract more powers for police and state authorities to search, seize and otherwise infringe on business activities and civil liberties. To secure support for more government intervention into business and individual transactions, the UN claimed the financial system is at stake. "The money laundering derived from illicit drug trafficking, as well as from other serious crimes, has become a global threat to the integrity and stability of financial and trading systems."

More media attention to the war's consequences is also needed. The Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy, leading the Canadian campaign to end the drug war, found other examples of the control mentality building within the UN. The 1997 annual report of the UN's International Narcotic Control Board wants governments to mount a censorship blitz to "curb the showing by public broadcasting media, such as the press, radio, film and television, of favourable images of drug abuse," including hemp and marijuana.

Never mind freedom of speech or expression, the UN says -- this is a war. Governments of countries where rights to free speech exist "may need to reconsider whether unrestricted access to and the propagation of such information are detrimental to the social and health conditions of their populations." To bring the media into line, the UN board suggests "voluntary codes of conduct" that would "limit irresponsible statements that are sometimes made and encourage a more balanced approach to dealing with the issues of drug abuse."

The greater the UN effort to create a mythical drug-free society, the more oppressive its methods will become. It's time to start looking at alternatives.

THE GLOBE AND MAIL - 1998