ABSTRACT
The ‘drug problem’ has become perhaps the archetypal social problem of our time – cross-cutting, globalized and apparently intractable. Its complexity is daunting, requiring engagement with some of the thorniest domestic and international issues, from poverty and crime through to international development and terrorism. Political leaders line up to talk about the ‘scourge’ of drugs against which ‘society must be defended’, from the United Nations, to the European Union, to an array of national presidents and prime ministers. And nor is this just a ‘phantom’ played up by the political classes – there is public concern and anxiety about drugs too. In response to this, governments by and large do not seem to have risen to
the challenge with much obvious success. The ‘war on drugs’, as it is often (tellingly) described, is viewed by many as one of the least effective areas of public policy in recent decades. For some, this is a result of a failure to take tough enough action on either supply or demand. For others, more fundamentally, it is the entire system of international prohibition that is unworkable. Even the most ardent ‘drug warriors’ have some frustrations and dissatisfaction at how things are going. In a speech in late 2007 to an
audience of drug law reformers, Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in effect the head of the global prohibition regime, made this rather remarkable statement:
Let me begin with the slogan so many of you have ridiculed: a drug free world. Wait, wait: hold on to the tomatoes – I am not the author of this slogan. While in my lifetime I would certainly like to see a world without drugs, I have never used this slogan. Actually, you will not find it in any of my speeches, nor in any of the official United Nations documents, starting from the most relevant of them: the conventions (of 1961, 1971, and 1988) that created the UN drug control regime, and the General Assembly resolution about drugs. Yes, of course, several years ago (i.e. BC, before Costa) my Office put out posters with that slogan screaming across the page. While I never used this concept, personally I see nothing wrong with it. Is a drugs free world attainable? Probably not. Is it desirable? Most certainly, yes. Therefore I see this slogan as an aspirational goal, and not as an operational target – in the same way that we all aspire to eliminate poverty, hunger, illiteracy, diseases, even wars.
