A Kinder, Gentler Drug War

By Paul Lewin, Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

"We are not starting a new 'War on Drugs," proclaimed UN Drug Czar Pino Arlacchi on behalf of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his closing remarks to the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs. "In fact there never was one. Instead, the better analogy for the international community is that of a doctor facing a deadly disease. Drugs­­quite simply­­kill people. And it our responsibility to help find the cure."

"The metaphor of a war on drugs, is misleading," states US Drug Czar General McCaffery. "Cancer is a more appropriate metaphor for the nation's drug problem."

Why are the world's Drug Warriors suddenly changing their tune? Could it be that they have seen the error of their ways, and no longer seek to dispense slow-death sentences to anyone who could be even marginally connected with an illicit substance? Are they ready to stop burning fields and poisoning the wells of peasants in developing countries? Will we stop supporting extra-judicial killings in Colombia and Bolivia?

Not a chance.

Apparently acting in concert, the Dynamic Drug Duo, Arlacchi and McCaffery, wish to redefine the discussion about drugs, because they realize their violent approach to drug control has become a political liability.

It also means that those of you who are working to end the drug war have actually begun to force some accountability at the top. As more and more people begin to realize that this type of drug civil war will be a permanent conflict, the underlying weakness of their drug control strategy becomes clear: it can never win, it can only expand human misery through the correctional system.

Drug Warriors are notoriously adept at reading the signs of the times, and changing their slogans to keep political and financial support flowing. These new metaphors are designed to do precisely that.

McCaffery now says, "Although wars are expected to end, drug control is a continuous challenge. The moment we drop our guard, the drug problem will resurface with the next generation Dealing with cancer is a long term proposition. It requires the mobilization of support mechanisms­­medical, educational, and societal­­to check the spread of disease and improve the prognosis."

Essentially, Drug Warriors are trying to project the image of a kinder, gentler Drug War, where the shameful truths of the human warehouses we call prisons are covered with a thin veneer of vague concepts like "treatment and education." It is a tidy sound bite designed to elicit bigger budgets and more support amongst the public.

Make no mistake, this language also calls drug users a cancer, and drug sellers the agents who spread cancer. We all know how cancer is dealt with, it is either cut from the host body, or irradiated. When all the rhetoric of this new metaphor is stripped away, we will still be adding more and more sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, and sisters and brothers to the swollen ranks of our prison population.

As McCaffery and Arlacchi seek to construct this new "cancer" metaphor by saying there never was a Drug War, it is more important than ever for families harmed by the Drug War to denounce this shameless historical revision. It is only with our silence that oppressors can act with impunity, and it is only with our voices that truth is heard. There is no shame in being the victim of political oppression, only in refusing to protest the injustice.