UN set to renew war on drugs despite devastating consequences

A UN commission today is set to endorse another decade of the “war on drugs” despite admitting the current policies have had devastating consequences.

You did not read this in the New York Times. Fortunately, The Independent and The Guardian are not as timid as The Times when it comes to drugs. I have included just the tops of their stories below in a slightly shorted form. Click the links to read the whole stories.

War on drugs 'has enriched cartels'
By Toby Green in Vienna

The Independent, Thursday, 12 March 2009 -- United Nations member states are set to paper over their differences today and sign up to 10 more years of the much-criticised "war on drugs" at a drugs summit in Vienna.

Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said addiction to illicit drugs had "stabilised" in the past few years but admitted that a "dramatic unintended consequence" of the battle to stamp out the illicit trade was that drug cartels had become so rich they could destabilise impoverished and vulnerable nations in Africa and South America.

Ten wasted years:
UN drug strategy a failure, reveals damning report
By Duncan Campbell
The Guardian, Wednesday 11 March 2009

The UN strategy on drugs over the past decade has been a failure, a European commission report claimed yesterday on the eve of the international conference in Vienna that will set future policy for the next 10 years.

(The commission) declared that they had found "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced". They wrote: "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries."

In an article for the Guardian, Mike Trace, chairman of the International Drug Policy Consortium, says: "We're about to see the international community walk up the political and diplomatic path of least resistance. It will do nothing to help the millions of people around the world whose lives are destroyed by drug markets and drug use."

In London, Lady Meacher, speaking on behalf of more than 30 members of the Lords, warned that the existing hardline prohibitionist strategy, which has been led by the US, had been deeply damaging. "We are concerned that the war on drugs has failed and the harm it has caused is far greater," said Meacher, at a briefing organised by the drugs advice charity Release.

However, while ignoring the failure of the drug war, The Times did have this yesterday:

Forbes’s list of the richest people in the world includes a fugitive drug don from Mexico who goes by the name Shorty. Joaquín Guzmán Loera, 54, who is the head of the feared Sinaloa Cartel, appears for the first time at No. 701. Mr. Guzmán escaped from a Mexican prison in a laundry cart in 2001, days before he was to be extradited to the United States. The United States government is offering a $5 million reward for his capture, which is pocket change for Mr. Guzmán; Forbes put his net worth at about $1 billion. His industry is listed as “shipping.”