CONCLUSIONS
Despite long-standing attempts to dismantle the illicit drug
trade, drug abuse and its many related problems are on the increase in many
regions of the world. The scale of the problem is enormous: the amount of
laundered money from the traffic in cocaine, heroin and cannabis is estimated to
be larger than the gross national product of three quarters of the world’s
economies. The impact of illicit drugs continues to threaten the economies and
social structures of both producing and consuming countries. Globalization of
markets and finance, development of computer and communications technology, and
the declining significance of national borders have all helped to facilitate
drug trafficking. Policy strategies need to take account of the forces
contributing to the complexity of the situation and attack the problem from
several angles.
The present policies have had limited success for a number of
reasons. Supply suppression strategies have proven unable to raise the price of
illicit drugs in consuming countries. Demand suppression strategies - drug
control laws that assume that people will be deterred from drug use by fear of
incarceration or fines - are least likely to be effective in those sections of
society where the drug use problem is most serious. Most drug control strategies
have proven difficult to implement effectively, particularly in less developed
countries with weak national governments lacking institutional co-ordination and
sufficient financial resources. Alternative development strategies require a
new, more “people-centred” approach to community problems which may
not work if the necessary staff and financial resources are lacking.
Political considerations often play a greater role in
determining approaches to the drug problem than do considerations of
effectiveness. Supply suppression is a more politically acceptable policy
initiative than decriminalization, and this more than any proven success it has
had in reducing the illicit drug problem - accounts for its popularity with
governments. Political considerations also lead to an emphasis on short-term as
opposed to long-term solutions: in consuming countries, drug control laws are
preferred to the longer process of value change or socio-economic structural
change. In producing countries, short-term crop suppression strategies are
preferred to “alternative development”, which would entail years of
dependence on external aid.
Even if alternative development were to be successful in one
drug producing area, other regions would be likely to take up the slack in
production, leaving the global supply of drugs unaffected. Any policy strategy
thus has to be region-specific (including differing strategies for urban and
rural areas), but must also take into account the international dimensions of
the illicit drug problem and how policy decisions taken by other countries will
affect its outcome. Similarly, appropriate policy has to be devised for specific
target groups (producers and consumers, and the different social segments of
each population) and for the specific drug produced, marketed or consumed.
Policies for marijuana would thus be very different from those addressing the
problem of crack cocaine.
No one policy option is going to solve the illicit drug problem.
In the context of the severity of the current drug crisis, however, it is to be
hoped that a balanced and more thorough examination of the advantages and
limitations of all the available policy options will lead to more imaginative
and constructive policy formulations. In particular, it is important to
recognize the joint responsibility of both producing and consuming countries,
and therefore the need for shared and coherent policy approaches. In addition,
policy strategies must address the causes of the problem rather than its
symptoms: in consuming countries, drug abuse is often linked to unemployment,
poor housing and health care in marginal communities, while in producing
countries, drug production is closely linked to the failure of rural
development.
