Time to end the war on drugs?

South American countries afflicted by drug-related violence are seeking to promote a global discussion on the legalisation of narcotics, the latest IISS Strategic Comment says. Increasingly, these countries  feel that a prohibition-based strategy places most of the burden on them, rather than on consumer countries, as they suffer from extreme violence caused by competition between drug cartels.

It’s a timely topic, with the Intelligence Squared forum and Google recently joining forces to host a high-profile discussion entitled: ‘Is it time to end the war on drugs?’ The event attracted dozens of participants from Virgin boss Richard Branson, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and human-rights lawyers Geoffrey Robertson to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and Mario Antonio Costa, the former head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

And this latest Strategic Comment is just an entree to an IISS Adelphi book out later this month. In Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: The Problems of Prohibition, authors Nigel Inkster and Virginia Comolli look at the money and effort that has going into curtailing the drugs trade – with limited success. Their book shows ‘how progress may be made by treating consumption as a healthcare issue rather than a criminal matter, thereby freeing states to tackle the cartels and traffickers who hold their communities to ransom’.

As another author and expert Misha Glenny says, it’s quite something when an organisation like the IISS enters a debate like this on the side it has – ‘surely a sign’, he continues, ‘that the time has come for a fundamental rethink of this policy.’

We hope to hear from Nigel and Virginia directly after the book is out; in the meantime, there’s more about it here.