Drug Control Policies

Criminal Justice
Drug Control Policies
Debate on Illicit Drug Decriminalization, Legalization, and Stricter Drug Control Policies
Name
Institution
Abstract
Illicit drug and drug abuse is a global problem that affects millions of people financially, socially and physically regarding their health. The United Nations came up with conventions to handle the illicit drugs in the 1970s and 80s, but it achieved little positive results. The poor results led to many countries to look for alternatives in policy frameworks and reforms to curb the illicit drug problems. Some have harsh and strict drug control policies with even death sentences to offenders, while some are liberal and have decriminalized and legalized drugs and others have taken an integrated approach involving different stakeholders in fighting the war on drugs. The current debate is on which policy will work to eradicate the drug menace experienced by nations and reform the addicted people in society. There are countries that advocate for legalization and decriminalization of illicit drugs viewing the issue on medical terms, while others see drug abuse as a criminal offense that should be followed by harsh punishments and strict drug control policies. In both these arguments, the parties seek a solution to drug abuse problem.
Keywords: drug abuse, policies, decriminalization, legalization, and rehabilitation

Introduction
There are millions of people across the globe who are abusing drugs, despite the legislation, policies, and criminalization of its distribution and consumption.

The United Nations created a department to handle drugs and crime, and it reported that there are close to 250 million drugs users in the world who are at different stages of addiction. The 2013 report on drug trade made by The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), shows that drug trafficking is a large industry with returns of an estimated 435 billion dollars annually. The industry covers growing, processing, and distributing the drugs to consumers. Such a problem with high stakes has made different countries to take measures to prevent, control, and prohibit drug abuse and presence of illicit drugs.
Drug use and dependence threaten the individual and general public health, especially in the more economically developed countries. Drug use and abuse lead to social, economic, and criminal issues that have created intense debate across the globe on illicit drug use and the best possible measures to control it (Lynch, 2012). Millions of young people are dying on a daily basis as a result of involving themselves in drug cartels, street wars, and addictions; this is a worrying trend, and the word leaders need to find a lasting solution to drug abuse. The international community must stop the drug cartels and criminal syndicates from manufacturing and distributing illicit drugs to the masses.
Many countries have developed legislations, policies, and campaigns to manage, legalize, and decriminalize abuse of drugs. This paper will focus on the debate covering nations that advocate for illicit drug decriminalization, legalization, and stricter drug control policies and those that are against it, proposing stricter drug control policies and harsh punishments.
The Debate
Many countries have failed in the fight against drug abuse. Drug addicts have increased over the years, and this comes with very high-cost implications, due to transportation of drugs across the globe, and not enough is done to curb the vice. In areas where drug trafficking is common, crimes rates are also on the rise, with criminal gangs sprouting up, corruption activities executed by the public and the law enforcement agencies, and an increase in deaths due to violence and overdose (Hawk, Vaca, & D’Onofrio, 2015).
The drugs pose a threat to the society in general, often children and the older generations suffer the most when the middle-aged people use drugs and become addicts. The United Nations has adopted international conventions that have focused on criminalization and punishment for the sale of illicit drugs. The international law supersedes the customary and traditional laws on drug use and abuse. Such treaties include the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of the year 1961 which was enacted to control traffic of narcotics both domestically and internationally. Others are the 1971 and 1988 conventions on psychotropic substances and illicit trafficking of narcotic drugs and substances respectively. The narcotics included cannabis, cocaine; others are anti-depressants, hallucinogens, and stimulants (DEA, 2015).
The convention and policies have not managed to control drug abuse; the report shows a rise in numbers to the presence of these drugs. The stakeholders, both at national and international level have not offered a working solution that produces tangible results of the current crises. Those countries that opted for criminalization and harsh punishments as a drug control policy; still face increasing cases of drug abuse amongst its citizens; the outcomes do not match their expectations. This failure has made some governments look at alternative ways to curb and eliminate the drug and substance abuse problem they are facing.
Some countries have come up with policy reforms and invested their resources in strategies that may help in mitigating the harms caused by drug abuse. These reforms look at drug consumption as a public health interest matter as opposed to a purely criminal act with prosecution as the end game. The United Nations has frowned on countries such as Indonesia for its death penalty as a drug control policy. Other countries with harsh punishments include Japan which has banned 68 types of drugs from production and sale; China, Malaysia, and United Arab Emirates have enacted death sentences for drug offenders, minor offenders are slapped with a four year jail term, and foreigners are immediately deported back to their countries.
In contrast to the countries with harsh punishment for drugs related offenders, some have shifted to decriminalization and legalization of some drugs. Decriminalization of drugs aligns to social offences approach like revoking professional practicing licenses, giving fines, and use of community service for offenders. Portugal in 2001 became the first country in Europe to decriminalize illicit drugs (Greenwald, 2009). Other liberal nations have followed suit, including the Netherlands and some states in the US like Colorado and California which have legalized soft drugs i.e., marijuana (Cerdá, Wall, Keyes, Galea, & Hasin, 2012). And even with decriminalization in possession and use of drugs, each country has standards that are meant to differentiate between trafficking, possession, and user offenses. For instance, in Mexico, the acceptable levels of cocaine that a person can hold are 0.5 grams and in Spain 6.5 grams is the acceptable legal limit.
One of the key figures that advocated for the decriminalization of drugs and architect of the drug policy in Portugal is Dr. Joao Castel-Branco Goulao. The drug problem arose from the fall of the dictatorship regime that ruled from 1933 to 1974. The country celebrated the end of that iron-fist era and indulged in these freedoms, and drug use was at the top of the list. Soldiers came with cannabis, heroin, and cocaine and when they left, the drugs remain, and according to Dr. Goulao, the country was naïve on how to handle the illicit drug use. One percent of the 10.29 million citizens in the 1990s were addicts of heroin, and as the addicts shared needles, it led to the spread of HIV and Hepatitis. He argued that ‘if addiction is a sickness, then why arrest the sick people?’ the 1998 task force was made to find ways to save the people, they developed the decriminalization policy for all drug use, created programs and policies to treat the addicts and re-integrate them back to society.
This controversial policy was not universally acceptable as the country was poor, conservative, and the majority of the citizens are Catholics. Removing the jail term to drug offenders was seen as national suicide for a country known for being a haven for drug tourists. But, the 2009 Cato Institute research report revealed that the new policy on decriminalization of drugs had yielded results that far exceeded the expectations set. The results showed that:
“the illegal drug use by the first-time users who are teens and young adults (16-18 years) dropped from 2.5% to 1.8%; HIV infection rates declined by 50% + as sharing of contaminated needles ended, and addicts seeking treatment from substance abuse doubled through the use of methadone and buprenorphine as a treatment procedure for addiction”.
These findings led to declining rates of crime, and shifting of budgetary allocation from law enforcement to drug abuse treatment programs.
The Portugal case signaled a new era in handling illicit drugs that yield results. Many other countries studied the Portuguese case and made reforms to their drug abuse policies. For instance, the United Kingdom joined other countries like Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland in offering heroin-assisted treatment in the heroin clinics for those addicted. In America, the lawmakers are looking into alternatives to the zero-tolerance and tough on crime policies that were applauded in the 1970s and 1980s but failed to give answers and cannot handle the current problems in fighting drug abuse. The research findings show that America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world and the 1970s and 80s policies cannot solve this problems (Cerdá, et al., 2012).
Some countries are in the middle between the harshest and liberal ones, such as the case for Switzerland who took an integrated approach of the drug-related policies in handling the drug abuse problem. She came up with a four-pillar model in its war on drug abuse. These pillars concentrated on prevention strategies that aim at minimization of drug use for those in their first stages of usage or seem interested in trying it out. The second pillar looks at therapy for addicts; the third is on harm reduction mechanisms which concentrate on reforming the entire society through the educational material on the short-term and long-term efforts on drug abuse and general effects on the socioeconomic well-being of people. The last pillar is on the law enforcement efforts in curbing drug abusers. According to Hawk et al. (2015), the integrated approach success is dependent on cooperation and collaboration efforts by the policymakers, professionals, law enforcement agencies, and the whole society. The national government must show its willingness in handling illicit drugs, and all other stakeholders will follow in their steps.
These three approaches (harsh punishments, liberals, and integrated approach) in deterring and controlling drug abuse shows that none can singularly guarantee results. These approaches in combatting cross-border illicit drugs further indicate that there is no straight-forward means to the drug problem and the policies made are a reflection of the different societal views. But ultimately, support from all stakeholders may bring forth the elusive positive results so desired by the different countries.
Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala are countries that have suffered disproportionately due to narcotics trafficking. The leaders in these countries have called for a humane solution to the drug menace that has crippled their nation, its society, and their economy. The Mexican president during the 2016 special sitting of the United Nations on drugs stated that; “so far the solutions to drug control and crime by the international community are insufficient and we need to have reformed.” The Mexicans life expectancy for men fell by half caused by drug-related matters and drive-by shootings orchestrated by rival criminal gangs. These three countries have advocated for a shift from enforcement and criminalization to a people-centered drug control policy. The policy should put more emphasis on harm reduction as opposed to arrests and prosecutions.
The Latin American countries are rethinking and voicing their concerns on the drug-related approach as advocated by the United Nations. These countries have been the hardest hit as shown by increases in corruption, rise in criminal gangs, violence, and human rights violations which put its citizens at risk and weakens the state departments and institutions. The involvement of these leaders on the current debate of legalization, decriminalization, and drug control policies is because this region suffered from collateral damages due to illicit drugs. These countries suffer political, human, and financial costs and hence demand an honest evaluation of the current prohibitionist approach by the UN and seek reforms that will address the current challenges offering viable solutions.
The question at the heart of the current debate is which approach offers success in fighting drug abuse and has proven results. What policy reforms and approaches should governments take to address the challenges and the lack of positive outcome in fighting illicit drugs? It is valuable to put facts on the table, argues Becker and Murphy (2013) noted that the drug addiction is a global problem affecting people from all countries. The only solution lies in how governments react and the approaches they adopt to combat the problem of helping the addicts, cutting the supply of illicit drugs in black markets, removing the stigma associated with drug abuse, and developing policies to curb the vice. The United States of American has been on the forefront in the current debate on illicit drugs, having spent millions of dollars in developing programs and incorporating professionals in its cause. The US formed agencies and departments to handle illicit drug issue. Such agencies included the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and some States have their own bodies to address the drug abuse problem at a regional level, this is according to the DEA report (2015).
The United Nations came up with the international laws on drug abuse. And as an organization with global reach, the laws are because drug abuse is a global issue and is addressed as such. Illicit drug trafficking orchestrated by drug cartels fuels the world with the drugs. These drug cartels and criminal syndicates operate across countries and even regions. They cultivate the drugs like opium and marijuana, process it to create the end product consumed by millions of addicts, and create transportation channels to deliver the drugs to the street dealers and pushers and eventually it reaches the users. The cartels have led to the flooding of illicit drugs to the streets. The US Homeland Security Department discovered tunnels as a creative way developed by drug cartels in trafficking. And in 2006, the department found 13 tunnels running across the American-Mexican border. This example shows that the UN convention is not at per with the changes in illicit drugs handling and there is need for a different approach. The policies and reforms made must be at par with the intellect of the drug cartels to win in the war on drugs.
The United States for a very long time looked at drug addiction and substance abuse as a criminal issue conducted by immoral people who are weak-willed. President George W. Bush, the senior, was quoted saying that: ‘the United States strategy on drug control is more prisons, jails, courts, and prosecutions.’ But the tone is changing, and drug abuse is viewed differently, first is by Congress repealing the prohibition act; secondly, is shifting from the zero-tolerance policy and lastly, leaders coming up and speaking openly of the problems of drug abuse. The view is on helping people with substance abuse problems by removing cultural stigma, the shame, and humiliation as opposed to jail terms. Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor, stated that addiction is an illness that requires care and help, not condemnation and punishment. The only way to treat the problem is offering addicts a way out of their problems and not throwing the person in jail.
Conclusion
The debate on decriminalization, legalization, and drug control policies still linger on, as no agreement reached, completely solved the drug abuse problems that our current society is facing. Each country and region faces different challenges in the course of fighting the drug issue. But there is little to show for all the efforts put in place, leading to rising of questions on the way forward in fighting illicit drugs.
Governments across the globe view substance abuse differently, some look at it as a medical issue like the Portugal case hence decriminalization of all drugs which gave positive results and other countries see it as a criminal issue like the cases of Indonesia, China and Japan that have even death sentences for offenders. And yet others have taken a middle ground like Switzerland that looks at drug abuse from a broad spectrum integrating different strategies in their fight. Countries and governments take different approaches since they all want to see results and an end to the problems caused by illicit drugs.
Illicit drugs come with financial costs such as engagement of law enforcement agencies, conducting research, running treatment and rehabilitation centers. Politically, cartels operating the drugs business have upstaged governments especially in Latin America, as criminal gangs fight in seeking to control of specific areas, countries, and regions and in the process, a lot of lives are lost. Socially, the illicit drugs have led to breaking down of families, when fathers are in jail or dead, mothers are drug addicts and the children are raised on the streets or government facilities. These effects paint a grim picture and call for speedy action to reverse the ills of drug abuse.
Recommendations
A new system that treats drug abuse as a public health and education issue is needed. This system will put an end to the prohibition of drugs and the strict drug control policies which will effectively break the hold that drug cartels and street dealers have on the black market.
Drug prohibition is solely responsible for enriching and empowering drug gangs and criminal networks. The drug cartels and criminal syndicates that have operations across countries and regions facilitate illicit drug trafficking. Therefore, legalization and decriminalization of drugs implies the collapse of the black market; resulting in less need for guns and other weapons for protection purposes, the attraction to gang membership will decline, and an end to black markets.
The whole society must take a position, and all stakeholders work together to end the drug menace. Parents must be educated on drug abuse and its effects, noting the signs and reporting to authorities, community-based rehabilitation centers that will enroll the youths and the school-based learning system that incorporates drug abuse as a subject to teach the young children on the impact drug abuse has to the whole nation. The law enforcement agencies work in reforming offenders rather than criminalization of their activities and giving punishments.

References
Becker, G. S., & Murphy, K. M. (2013) Have we lost the war on drugs? Wall Street Journal, 4
Cerdá, M., Wall, M., Keyes, K. M., Galea, S., & Hasin, D. (2012). Medical marijuana laws in 50 States: investigating the relationship between state legalization of medical marijuana and marijuana use, abuse, and dependence. Drug & Alcohol Dependence, 120(1), 22-27.
Drug Enforcement Administration (2015) Drugs of Abuse: 2015 Edition. A DEA Resource Guide, DC: US Department of Justice.
Greenwald, G. (2009). Drug decriminalization in Portugal: lessons for creating fair and successful drug policies.
Hawk, K. F., Vaca, F. E., & D’Onofrio, G. (2015) Focus: Addiction: Reducing fatal opioid overdose: Prevention, treatment and harm reduction strategies. The Yale journal of biology and medicine, 88(3), 235
Lynch, M. (2012). Theorizing the role of the ‘war on drugs’ in US punishment Theoretical Criminology, 16(2), 175-199